Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 12, 1993 TAG: 9304120047
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE LENGTH: Medium
UVA GROUP ACCUSED OF SEXISM
The University of Virginia's president has ordered an investigation into allegations of sexism and illegal drinking by some members of the school's Jefferson Literary and Debating Society.The allegations come as the society, which counts Woodrow Wilson and Edgar Allan Poe among its former members, is preparing to give an honorary membership to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Gorbachev will visit Tuesday to help celebrate school founder Thomas Jefferson's 250th birthday.
Seven students belonging to the society last week sent university President John Casteen a letter accusing some members of improper behavior.
Casteen responded with a letter delivered Friday saying he had ordered investigations by the Office of Student Affairs and the University Police Department.
"Sexism goes on all the time here," society member Guinevere Christmann, who is graduating this year, said Friday at the forum's weekly meeting.
Heather Brandeis White, a second-year student from Frederick, Md., said she was resigning from the 168-year-old society.
White said sexual harassment and drinking by some members during on-campus meetings - a violation of state law - do not match the society's goals of honoring free speech.
"My experience has been that the Jefferson Society is not a place of free thought," she said. "It is a bastion of ignorance . . . and fosters an atmosphere that is hostile to women."
White said a man in the society came up to her during a Feb. 19 society meeting and made a comment about her breasts.
She said she complained to the society's officers, who disciplined the member in an executive session. The man later called her and apologized, White said, but there was little discussion about sexism at subsequent meetings.
White was one of 10 members who rose during Friday's meeting to complain about problems within the society, which is a prestigious forum for students to give speeches and debate issues.
In their letter to Casteen, the group members also complained about an environment in which condoms have been awarded to the male member who had sex with the most female membership candidates. Society President Daniel Kirwin, a fourth-year student, said that the award "was stopped" when he became president in April 1992.
The letter also said the 200-member society routinely violated state liquor laws by serving minors in a university building.
One woman who did not give her name said a probationary member had been sexually assaulted by a man in the society, but didn't report the incident for fear she would not be voted into full membership.
Another said that one probationary member, a woman, gave a late-night speech and afterward was told she had been approved for membership because she was cute and was wearing a short skirt.
Kirwin acknowledged that White had been harassed but would say little else about the allegations, other than he believed the group would learn from debating the issue openly.