How one CU Boulder fraternity is trying to keep female students safe
On the nights that college senior Jacqueline Martinez heads out to a party, she grabs a button-up shirt in case she feels the need to cover up in a crowd of men. She makes sure her phone is fully charged and that she has either Wi-Fi or cellular data. And she checks that her phone location is shared with all her roommates as well as her parents and friends living out of state.
It’s an exhaustive and exhausting mental list to run through, but one Martinez says is necessary to keep her safe from the possibility of sexual assault — what she describes as “a looming cloud.” Some of her sexual encounters with men, in hindsight, feel gray, she said. And almost every one of her female friends has either walked away from similar experiences knowing that the lines of consent blurred or that they had been sexually assaulted.
“It’s kind of created an envy of the frat dudes, even though I wouldn’t really want to be one of them,” Martinez, a student at the University of Colorado Boulder majoring in media studies, told The Colorado Sun. “I just wish that I could have the same type of carefree experience socializing that they do. They are not worried about any of this. I doubt any of them are sharing their locations with each other out of the need to have somebody make sure if you don’t come back somebody has your last location.”
But members from at least one fraternity in Boulder are trying to understand those fears and what they can do to extinguish them. In the wake of a new investigation into an alleged gang rape by seven Chi Phi members at Cornell University in 2024, leaders of Triangle, a CU fraternity founded in 2023 for men majoring in science, technology, mathematics and engineering, interviewed three female friends and classmates to listen to what it’s like living with the fear of sexual assault. They also set out to learn what they can do as a fraternity to make their spaces safe for women and begin to change decades of frat culture that they say have enabled, excused and dismissed sexual violence.
The alleged gang rape at Cornell University has sent a fresh jolt of outrage across much of the country, renewing calls for institutions of higher education to take a hard look at rape culture across their campuses and fraternities.
At CU Boulder, which has a dark history of sexual assaults and incidents of hazing, rates of sexual assault have fluctuated over the past decade. Eighteen percent of undergraduate women in a 2024 survey reported being sexually assaulted since starting at the university, an increase from 15% in 2021, though down from 28% in 2015. CU Boulder’s Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance conducted those surveys. Reported sexual assaults from that data may have taken place both on and off campus.
The drop in reported sexual assaults on the survey was largely a result of the pandemic, when social isolation mandates and concerns about spreading COVID-19 kept people apart, according to Teresa Wroe, associate vice chancellor of prevention education for CU Boulder’s Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance.
The office’s next survey in fall 2027 will be especially telling, clarifying whether rates of sexual assault spike back to prepandemic rates or whether they stay down, Wroe said.
In a video Triangle stitched together and posted on Instagram earlier this month, women attending CU Boulder recount what they say feels like an incessant need to stay vigilant, always paying extra attention to their surroundings, particularly around fraternities. They talk about their struggles to trust the men they’re just meeting. They ask men to recognize the responsibility they have to keep their own heads “on a swivel” and prioritize women’s safety. They point out what they see as a need to no longer accept jokes and songs that mock sexual assault. They insist men take time to educate themselves about women and women’s issues.
“Everyone who watches the video gets the opportunity to understand what these women are thinking when they’re at these parties,” Nathan Bish, president of Triangle, told The Sun. “I think people in fraternities make rules from the perspective of a man at a fraternity and it’s really, really helpful to have a new perspective when we’re making new rules.”
It’s the kind of response that Bish, 21, and his fraternity brothers say their female friends and classmates deserve with words that carry weight and action, rather than the one-time statements they’ve seen from other frats who condemn sexual assault without elaborating on what needs to change.
“If it’s happening to women, it should be women being at the focal point, seeing what they think,” said Angel Zarco, a member of Triangle who previously ran the frat’s parties. “I think it’s also a fault when it comes to cases like these where we tend to neglect the women’s perspective. I think we as fraternity members, as males, can say all we want, but if we’re not also sharing the opinions of women and what women are thinking, we’re not going to get anywhere.”
“A huge amount of brotherhood but also a huge amount of secrecy”
Not far into the 11-minute, 40-second video, Martinez, 21, tries to laugh through her discomfort.
“It’s kind of like any male-dominated space you walk into that isn’t super formal, I guess, I’m just kind of always thinking, ‘is it today?’” she says in the video. “That sounds kind of depressing, but especially in party settings, obviously, it’s something you’re always kind of keeping an eye out for.”
Under the surface of her laugh, Martinez carries more than one memory of fearing for her safety while at a crowded frat party. She said she’s been pushed off a wooden platform while dancing into the crowd at a party. Her friends have had to pry off a man who grabbed her around her waist.
Martinez said she hasn’t always felt targeted. At some parties, men have instead flat out ignored her. The way men at frat parties treat her has changed as she has changed her look each year of college, she said. It’s become glaring to her that if men don’t find a woman attractive, they act like she doesn’t exist. When a woman is deemed attractive, she becomes a shiny object.
“They kind of don’t see you as a person,” Martinez told The Sun. “It’s like they only want to talk just to have the opportunity to have sex and that’s kind of it. That’s all that they’re interested in.”
A tightrope waits for her and other college women behind frat house doors.
“As soon as I walk into any of these frat parties, I have to be on my best behavior,” Martinez said. “I have to look my best while also not tempting any of them to do something.”
There’s much more behind closed doors at frat houses, the women in the video say, alarmed over the shroud of secrecy ingrained in frat culture.
“In American fraternity culture, we have raised a generation and multigenerations of men who know how to keep a secret,” one female student says. “I don’t think that should be part (of frats) going forward. I think that they should be able to point out issues, even if it’s of their own brother, even if it’s of their best friend.”
Bish, Triangle’s president, acknowledges the hush-hush nature of many frats and the way brothers show their loyalty to one another by guarding secrets.
“It’s definitely a culture of a huge amount of brotherhood but also a huge amount of secrecy,” said Bish, who is studying physiology, public health and international affairs. “We’re really taught how to keep a secret, and I think that’s a really big problem. You really have no idea what’s going on inside some of these houses. What we’re really trying to do is cast a light inside of our house and essentially tell people that they’re welcome and they’re safe here.”
Triangle has already held a bystander training to educate its members about ways to intervene in incidents of misconduct, harassment or violence. The fraternity has pledged to make sure every one of its chapter members also receives training about consent and impairment. Triangle will also give its assigned sober monitors, or “sobros,” safety vests to wear during parties so anyone needing help can immediately identify them.
Additionally, the fraternity will develop a reporting system where anyone violated at a party can file concerns that a frat member could route to the university or police, depending on the severity of those concerns. Members will also incorporate the Angel Shots program into all their events, allowing any guest who is uncomfortable to walk up to someone serving alcohol and request an “angel shot” — a discreet signal that they need help.
Meanwhile, Triangle members are continuing to talk about other ideas to reinforce safety for partygoers, both during their events and once students leave.
They’re planning to hang signs around the house where they host parties that break down the signs of clinical intoxication. They’re also thinking about serving food at events to help people blunt the effect of alcohol and might pool frat funds to create a budget they could use to order a rideshare for guests who need help getting home safely.
“I can be an agent of change”
Their efforts coincide with an ongoing focus on preventing sexual violence at CU Boulder’s Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance. Before CU Boulder students can even register for their first semester of classes, they must complete a set of online modules that clarify what sexual assault is, how experts define affirmative consent, what incapacitation looks like and ways to become a bystander who doesn’t hesitate to intervene.
Five quizzes testing students on real-life scenarios accompany the modules. Those quizzes, all of which students must pass before they can register for courses, challenge them to think about whether specific behavior would be considered consensual or unwanted, according to Wroe, associate vice chancellor of prevention education for the office.
Her team also coaches parents of incoming freshmen on ways to talk to their student about the same topics on the quizzes and offers refreshers for students as they progress into their sophomore year — primarily for those who are part of Greek organizations, other student organizations and athletics, as well as those living in residence halls or holding a campus job.
Office staff meets with every fraternity chapter and educates new fraternity members each fall. Chapters belonging to the Fraternity Community on The Hill, or IFC on the Hill, have written into their bylaws that every member is required to complete education on consent, sexual assault prevention and bystander interventions.
The office deploys staff across campus to review the essentials of proper consent and signs of incapacitation while also schooling students on how to look out for others and how to step in when they sense someone is in trouble.
Those skills are the ones that often feel most relevant to students, Wroe said.
“It doesn’t require them to think of themselves as a potential victim or think of themselves as a potential perpetrator or harmer,” she said. “They’re thinking of themselves as, this is relevant to me because these things are happening and I could be effective in supporting people, keeping problems from happening, de-escalating problems that are happening at a party. I can be an agent of change.”
Those initiatives appear to be helping slowly change the culture inside Greek organizations. Results from surveys the office has conducted show that in 2024, undergraduate women affiliated with Greek organizations were not more likely to report having been sexually assaulted while at CU Boulder than undergraduate women not part of Greek life. That was an improvement from 2021, when survey results indicated that undergraduate women involved in Greek organizations had a greater risk of being assaulted than undergraduate women outside of Greek life.
Still, Wroe sees a lot of work ahead. But it can’t all be on higher education institutions, which she said are “often playing catch-up” to teach students what they didn’t learn before coming to college.
“There is always more that is needed,” Wroe said. “Education unfortunately alone is not quite enough at the start of college. We need it to be happening earlier and more often and comprehensively in middle school and high school.”
The brothers at the Triangle fraternity say they hope the steps they’re taking to listen to female students and incorporate their input will encourage other fraternities to do more than post statements on social media.
Triangle members also won’t back down from tough conversations.
“There’s sometimes this mentality that being part of a brotherhood means defending your brothers unconditionally, even when you know that what they’re doing is wrong,” said Zarco, the member who used to organize parties. “I’ve always believed that brotherhood should mean something more than that. It should mean enough respect for one another to hold one another accountable, even when those conversations are difficult.”
