Two sexual assaults reported
at off-campus student party

Yale is investigating reports of two student sexual assaults at an off-campus party, university officials say.

Campus police chief Ronnell Higgins e-mailed the Yale community on Friday, saying police had received an anonymous report that a "Yale student was the victim of a sexual assault by an acquaintance, who is also a Yale student," on February 8 at a fraternity house on High Street. That followed a similar report from two days earlier, involving a different student or students but the same date and location.

An hour after Higgins's second message, deputy provost Stephanie Spangler sent her own e-mail to the Yale community.

"I am writing to make you aware that my office is actively pursuing these allegations," wrote Spangler, who is the university's Title IX coordinator, responsible for ensuring Yale's compliance with federal sex-discrimination laws, including complaints of sexual misconduct.

Noting that both complaints involved undergraduates, Spangler added: "We must all work together to ensure that our community is—and feels—safe."

Higgins, who is required to disclose alleged crimes under the federal Clery Act, identified the location as the Sigma Phi Epsilon frat house. But chapter president Andrew Goble ’15 told the Yale Daily News that the fraternity "allowed another student group to lease a room in its house for a private event" on February 8. 

“The members of Yale’s SigEp chapter were shocked and saddened to hear allegations that sexual assault may have occurred in our facility on an evening when the chapter had leased event space to another campus organization,” Goble said in his statement to the Yale Daily. “At this time, SigEp does not believe that the allegations are against members of their chapter.”

Goble, who could not immediately be reached for comment, didn't identify the second organization. The Yale Daily says a senior society called the Women in Power Society held a private party at Sigma Phi Epsilon that night; it quotes WIPS saying: “We are not commenting out of respect for the privacy of the individuals involved in this situation.”

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The Yale Alumni Magazine is published by Yale Alumni Publications Inc., an alumni-based nonprofit that is not run by Yale University. Its content does not necessarily reflect the views of the university administration.