UC Berkeley has pioneered a new standard for Greek life: before you enter a party, a brother stands at the door and gives you a consent talk. This sexual assault prevention strategy, which was developed in UC Berkeley’s co-op system, has in recent years been ripped off and turned into protocol for every fraternity.
“This is a new precedent, and our chapters have all had to adapt to it,” stated Interfraternity Council president Alex Rogers.
At first frats stumbled to execute such a daunting task, but things have since changed.
“No one could remember five entire pillars of consent in this house,” said DKE president Tanner Jordan. “So we decided to hand this challenge over to the professionals.”
Indeed, DKE was the first house to delegate the task to UC Berkeley theatre majors. Now as many as 17 fraternities have purposefully recruited theatre majors into their pledge classes in order to give consent talks that “ya know, make it seem like we care.”
“It’s not really fair to ask a chemistry major to give a convincing consent talk,” explained Jordan. “They don’t have the talent of memorizing scripts. It just makes sense to have real actors take on this task.”
So far, they’ve given Oscar worthy performances. Recently, Brian Wainwright gave an impeccable monologue at Zete.
“This guy Brian stood there, and recited the rules of consent like no other,” noted sophomore party-goer, Sophia Brown. “I got chills at how respected and safe I felt. I’d never felt that way at Zete before, but Brian really changed my mind about that place.”
“Normally we’d never let a theatre major join Zete, because that’s lame as fuck, but our fraternity is becoming a much more welcoming and respectful environment lately and Brian joining is proof of that,” A Zete upperclassman reported.
“I’m so glad that I don’t have to bother memorizing words that mean nothing to me,” another relieved brother confided. “Now everybody wins: theatre majors get to do their thing, girls are lulled into a false sense of security, and the rest of the brothers never have to think about consent again!”
What a cool partnership!
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