Swarthmore fraternities to close amid scandal
SWARTHMORE, Pa. — The only two fraternities at Swarthmore College have opted to disband amid outrage over years-old documents containing derogatory comments about women and the LGBTQ community and jokes about sexual assault.
Delta Upsilon and Phi Psi announced their decisions in separate Facebook posts Tuesday night.
“We cannot in good conscience be members of an organization with such a painful history,” Phi Psi said in its statement.
Dozens of student protesters at Swarthmore, a highly selective, private liberal arts college in suburban Philadelphia, had occupied the on-campus Phi Psi house during a four-day sitin, calling for both fraternities to be shut down and the buildings put to other uses. Swarthmore had suspended fraternity activity while it investigated. Its lone sorority wasn’t affected.
In mid-April, two campus publications, The Phoenix and Voices, released internal Phi Psi documents from 2012 to 2016 that they said were anonymously leaked. The redacted documents included jokes about sexual assault; derogatory comments about women, minorities and the LGBT community; videos and photos of sexual encounters where all parties might not have known they were being recorded and a reference to a “rape attic.”
The authenticity of the documents has not been verified. The college said Wednesday it was reviewing them.
Major teacher protests
Thousands of teachers in the Carolinas left their classrooms Wednesday and headed to their state capitols to pressure lawmakers to invest more in education, joining the swell of teacher activism that has swept the country since last year.
Television footage in Columbia, S.C., showed a sea of teachers in red — the teacher movement’s signature color — packing the grounds of the Capitol and chanting, “This is what democracy looks like!” and “I teach, I vote!” About 180 miles northeast, in Raleigh, N.C., aerial footage showed a similar scene: a massive convergence of red-clad protesters downtown. Both groups plan to head back to the classroom Thursday.
Wednesday’s job actions affect nearly 1 million schoolchildren, with some schools closed and others open but without enough staff. In South Carolina, at least seven districts closed, keeping about 123,000 students out of the classroom, according to the Post and Courier in Charleston. In North Carolina, closures were widespread, with 850,000 students missing class, according to the News and Observer in Raleigh.
The protests in the Southern states signal the continuation of a teacher movement that has emerged coast to coast.
$4.5B sought for border
WASHINGTON — The White House asked Congress on Wednesday for $4.5 billion more in emergency funding to address a surge of migrants at the southern border.
In doing so, the administration acknowledged that President Donald Trump’s emergency declaration to divert taxpayer money for a yet-to-be-built border wall cannot address the growing humanitarian challenge on the ground, which now requires additional government funding.
The president and his aides previously insisted the February declaration was necessary to address a “humanitarian and national security crisis.” But senior administration officials speaking on background told reporters Wednesday that those funds were never intended to — and could not — be used for anything other than barrier construction.
The bulk of the administration’s supplemental request seeks $3.3 billion for humanitarian assistance, including facilities to process and temporarily house migrants; clothing, diapers and baby formula; and increased shelter capacity and bed space, officials said.