St Andrews University’s Jewish Society has called out a “rape culture” at the university, after a crisis involving dozens of allegations of rape and sexual assault at the Scottish university.
Dozens of women shared stories of rape and assault which allegedly occurred while they were studying at the prestigious university with the student-run Instagram page ‘St Andrews Survivors’, which posted over fifty first-hand accounts.
Many of the most serious allegations have centred around members of the St Andrews branch of the US-based, all-male Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi.
In a statement posted on Instagram on July 13, St Andrews’ Jewish society said that there was a “broader issue of rape culture” which was “University-wide.”
The Society said that the issue was driven by the “many exclusive, toxic male dominated societies at St Andrews” which “create a harmful environment” and “space in which violence can occur without much accountability.”
The statement, which was issued following the Society’s meeting with the University Proctor Clare Peddie on Friday 10, criticised the university for using its “use of the word ‘antisemitism’ when taking action against St Andrews Survivor Page.”
On July 6, the administrator of St Andrews Survivors stated that she had been advised “to remove any posts that referenced a specific on-campus group or society, regardless of if it was mentioned in the survivors’ first-hand account.”
She explained that this was due to legal implications of sharing the stories and that she had been informed that: “including information that identifies alleged perpetrators individually, or as members of religious or social groups, may cause issues in terms of fairness, antisemitism, and student safety.”
It was later clarified that the University had advised the administrator that this was as it was “dangerous for me as well as the survivors who submitted” their accounts of sexual abuse.
St Andrews Jewish Society said that made it clear to Ms Peddie that “although the fraternity is a Jewish fraternity, we felt that students were criticising the toxic masculinity that such an all-male dominated space tends to create rather than the faith they were born to.”
St Andrews and Police Scotland have encouraged victims to come forward and said that they will investigate.
The University has pledged that it will introduce mandatory consent classes for all its 9,000 students.
On July 3, Jewish Society President Hannah De Almedia Newton and former Alpha Epsilon Pi and current Jewish Society member Jono Mizrahi issued a statement on the allegations of rape and sexual assault.
“This is a clear example of Chilul Hashem, which in English can be referred to as ‘desecration of God’s name’,” they wrote, “these accusations are a poor representation of the Jewish community at large in St Andrews and we cannot stand idly by as this continues.”
Alpha Epsilon Pi has a history of sexual assault and rape allegations and has been the subject of criminal investigations in the United States.
The US-based fraternity has bases in eight universities in the UK, as well as in Israel, France, Canada, Austria and Australia.
St Andrews University has a number of agreements with American universities and receives many American students on study abroad programmes every year.
