Drugging Crimes On Campus: Let’s Shift the Conversation

On November 3, Elon University sent an email to all students addressing the significant increase of drugging that has been reported across our community. This public safety awareness notice focused on four incidents submitted to the school with no apparent connection.  

Elon’s email showed initiative in helping these actions coming to an end and provided great advice for being extra cautious in these settings. But should the conversation shift to ways of stopping these actions from happening at all, instead of just preventing these actions from happening against you?

This spike in assaults has sent fear and worry across campus as, particularly women, in our community are witnessing more of these awful events occurring to friends and peers. And after the initial email from Elon, it was never talked about again, except friends and peers sharing their own personal and scary experiences. Our campus should be a safe space where we should all feel free from violence and this kind of behavior should not be tolerated. 

A recent study found that about 1 in 13 college students on U.S. college campuses report having been drugged or suspect that they were drugged. 

“These data indicate that drugging is more than simply an urban legend,” says Suzanne Swan, director of this study.

The study surveyed data from 6,000 college students from three universities across the United States. 462 students reported that they had been drugged at least once in the past academic year, 80% of those students being women. The most common result of these incidents was a blackout, but spiking and other activities can, of course, result in much worse. 

While it is important to share tips and resources to keep each other safe, it is just as important to find ways of preventing these actions from happening in the first place. We must hold members of our campus accountable and focus on how to keep each other feel safe and comfortable in our community. 

The Edge spoke with Aidan Evens, a member of Sigma Pi fraternity, and a leader on the Interfraternity Council about the issue. 

It’s easy to blame the frat culture on the increase of these problems happening across campus. How would you want to address the stereotypes that Greek Life has been facing these past few weeks, particularly with fraternities and the recent druggings?

“I agree that it's easy to blame frat culture for the increase in problems and it's honestly probably not too far off that the culture around parties in general are a big reason for the continuation of horrible situations like the recent druggings. I will say that a big stereotype that tends to go around is the thought that brothers in fraternities are drugging the ‘buckets’ that are served to the entirety of the party, and when it comes to that I think for the most part this is inaccurate. For one; many brothers drink out of it and I can't imagine a situation in which a fraternity would want to drug their own brothers in that setting, and two; the reports are not that 40 people felt they had been drugged, which I feel would be the case if the bucket itself were tainted.”

Despite most of the perpetrators of the drugging being unaffiliated, these actions are still occurring at frat houses. How should Greek Life hold its members accountable when activities like this are increasing at Elon?

“I know for the specific fraternity that I am in we are hyper aware of any brother's and any person's actions that enter our frat house as this is something we feel we should be held accountable for, but I am not sure this is consistent with many other frats on campus. To start, the basics are that the leaders of whichever organization they are a part of should communicate outright and specifically outside of party hours that any and all actions such as drugging or anything inappropriate is out of the question and there must be outlined consequences to those actions. It's also important that the brothers are on the same page when it comes to an agreement that this is not what the brotherhood stands for, and that if they witness anything it should be reported immediately. An anonymous system helps with this as well. 

“Because it does seem to be mostly unaffiliated individuals that are doing this, I do believe it is still on the fraternity to attempt to make their place as safe of a space as possible for those they are hosting. It's on them to figure out who to let in and who not to, and if there is any possible unacceptable behavior, to immediately act on it. I'm not sure there's much more that can be done outside of this as it is almost impossible to know who will and won't do these things outside of the fraternity, but awareness and vigilance is a good start.” 

What should the IFC do to raise awareness or further prevent these kinds of assaults from happening to women on our campus? 

“Honestly, I'm not sure there's much that the IFC themselves can do for the situation as it is up to the people present to hold others accountable and take care of each other. When it comes to awareness though, I think it could be helpful for the IFC to release some guidelines on how to protect yourself from the situation as it does appear to be individual drinks that are being tampered with. Remembering not to let others hold your drinks or not to take drinks from anyone except for those assigned to do so. Having someone you trust nearby and not being alone so there can at least be someone watching your drink just in case. This is not meant to put blame on the victim, but rather acknowledging that sadly there are some horrible people, and there are steps you can do to protect yourself just as there are steps the fraternity can take to make it a safer environment.” 



The difficulty of this issue is that it’s hard to get the real facts. There is very little data on the subject and the substances associated with drink spiking are not always that easy to notice. It is crucial to report incidents or get the help you need if a situation like this does occur. 


Here are some helpful resources for Elon students:

Photo by Michael Fousert on Unsplash.

FeaturesGenevieve Smithsafety, health, crime