Civil Liability and Intra-Fraternal, Sexually Predatory Behavior

Sexually predatory behavior has long been an issue within many institutions and organizations. The Catholic Church has been scrutinized for the involvement of Popes, priests, nuns, and others as perpetrators and enablers of child sexual abuse. Reports of child sexual abuse dating back as far as the 1940s have plagued the Catholic Church in both the US and Europe, with estimates in the US across all dioceses suggesting over four thousand priest/deacon perpetrators and over ten thousand victims affected between the 1950s and 2002. Similarly, sexual abuse has been an issue in the Boy Scouts of America, dating back to the 1920s. After filing for bankruptcy in 2020, the BSA reached a $2.46 billion settlement agreement with sexual abuse survivors, “the largest sexual abuse compensation fund in the history of the United States.” Another recent example is the Pennsylvania State University scandal. It dominated national headlines across major news networks after the university’s assistant football coach, Jerry Sandusky, was accused of sexually abusing young boys over a fifteen-year period from 1994 to 2009. In this essay, we grapple with how and the extent to which collegiate fraternities grapple with similar issues. Instead of focusing on potential threats to youth that fraternities work with, we explore intra-fraternal sexually predatory behavior. Specifically, we explore member predatory behavior on candidates for membership and neophyte members, as well as alumni member predatory behavior on college members. In Part I, we explore sexually predatory behavior in fraternities as an issue. In Part II, we explore how sexually predatory behavior in organizations creates liability for those organizations. In Part III, we explore how sexually predatory behavior in fraternities creates liability for fraternities. In Part IV, we explore some truths and myths about sexual predators. In Part V, we explore organizations’ defamation liability risk when they are negligent or reckless with respect to inferences about individuals’ sexually predatory conduct.