Tufts Interfraternity Council (IFC) and Inter-Greek Council (IGC), together with the Women’s Center and the Tufts administration, launched a Halloween safety initiative this week that aims to increase awareness regarding racial and misrepresentative Halloween costumes and protect students against sexual assault and alcohol abuse.
Incidents of sexual assault and alcohol transports are shown to increase on college campuses nationwide on Halloween weekend, according to IFC President Evan Cover.
“Halloween does have risks associated with it across the country,” Cover, a senior, said. “Nationwide, you see an increase in alcohol transports and sexual assaults. We recognize those risks, and we’re working with not only the administration but with the Greek houses and Greek community to start the dialogue, raise awareness and continue creating an environment in which students feel safe.”
While the campaign is multifaceted, one of its primary goals is to encourage students to be more sensitive to other cultures and communities when choosing their Halloween costumes, according to Cover.
“We’re not targeting any specific costume, we’re just asking students to be aware in general,” he said. “We’re just saying ‘Listen, be considerate when you choose a costume. If you think you’ll offend anyone -- whether it be their race, their gender, their background, their socioeconomic background or if it’s a tragic event -- be aware and don’t cause them any offense.'”
IGC President Matt Roy reiterated the importance of sensitivity in choosing a Halloween costume, explaining that culturally offensive or misrepresentative costumes can intentionally or unintentionally have a negative impact on celebrations of the holiday for some students.
“Halloween is a time that we dress up and represent ourselves in other ways, and it’s meant to be a fun time,” Roy, a senior, said. “The issue is that sometimes we turn a blind eye as to how our costumes can be misrepresentative of different cultures and communities, which can cause a lot of stress and turn Halloween into a negative experience.”
Another goal central to the campaign is reminding students of the importance of consent regardless of one’s outfit, Cover explained.
“No matter what the costume, consent is always absolutely necessary,” he said. “Again, we’re not targeting any particular costume -- it doesn’t matter who you are, what you’re wearing, what your sex is, no matter what party you are -- it’s always necessary.”
To promote awareness of these issues, IFC and IGC are turning to social media to get their message across, according to Roy.IFC and IGC decided to launch the initiative just last week and agreed that a statement on every event page was an easy, yet effective way of conveying their message.
“Because we had such a short timeline, we wanted to make sure that whatever we did got the message out there without putting too much pressure on fraternities by giving them extra tasks,” Roy said. “We decided that asking them to put a blurb in their Facebook event page is an easy way to ensure that everyone attending the event sees the message.”
Cover and Roy both underscored that the Halloween safety initiative is part of IFC and IGC’s renewed effort at improving safety at Greek social events and addressing sexual assault on campus. Last month, IFC launched a series of sexual assault and bystander intervention programs for fraternities and sororities.
“These programs take the format of sending a representative to chapter meetings, having the leadership or membership attend a lecture or have them come to a hands-on workshop,” Cover said. “Just in the past week, we’ve had three fraternities reach out to our office to ask about further education on sexual assault prevention and bystander education.”
Additionally, IFC and IGC launched a voluntary administrative walk-through program this week, in which fraternities can opt to have an administrative representative assess the safety of the house before a party, according to both Cover and Roy.
“The point of the walk-through is really just to give chapters opportunities to lay out their party in a way that can be most successful for them based on the critical view of [the administration],” Roy said. “They consider, ‘Well, there’s access to water and food around here, oh everything’s good over there, but this seems a little dark here.’ They’ll just look at it from another perspective that brothers might not notice right away and could make it a safer environment and improve the experience of everyone there.”
Cover added that already this week, the first week of the launch, three fraternities have voluntarily signed up for walk-throughs.
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