Spiked drinks at Temple frat? Researchers say it's not uncommon

For years, colleges and parents have warned students not to leave their drinks unattended for fear someone would slip something into them.

And if recent experience is any indication, that warning could have merit.

Stanford University in January investigated reports that seven students, including members of a sorority and the men's rowing team, were allegedly drugged at a fraternity party. At Rutgers last fall, a similar allegation was lodged, though the university said it found no proof the drugging had occurred.

And last month, Philadelphia police said they were probing allegations of sexual assault at a Temple University fraternity, including cases in which women reported that they believed they were drugged. No charges have been filed, but Temple has suspended the fraternity as the investigation continues.

"There's definitely a culture around here where men think they are entitled to women's bodies," Temple sophomore Kaelyn Lefurgy, 20, of Northampton, said one day last week at the university's student center. "It's like gross."

A 2016 study published by the American Psychological Association found that nearly 8 percent of college students surveyed on three large campuses reported being drugged and that nearly 30 percent of the incidents occurred at fraternities.

But cases often are hard to prove because the drugs can leave someone's system before he or she gets tested, university educators say.

"Though we do receive reports from students who suspect they have been drugged – it is very difficult to confirm as forensic evidence must be collected within a very short window of time," said Lori Friedman, a spokeswoman for Lehigh University in Bethlehem.

Suzanne Swan, an associate professor of psychology and women and gender studies at the University of South Carolina, said it can be difficult for someone to know for sure if he or she has been drugged.

"The effects of alcohol, extreme intoxication can look like drugging," said Swan, one of the lead researchers on the 2016 drugging study. "Sometimes people don't realize how much they've had to drink. It's a hard area to pin down unless somebody tells you or you see it happening. But I've come across enough stories where [drugging] is the case."

Her team surveyed over 6,000 students at the University of Cincinnati, the University of South Carolina and the University of Kentucky. About 460 or 7.8 percent of those surveyed said they believed they had been drugged, while 83 or 1.4 percent reported they or someone they know had drugged another person. Swan said some students who reported being drugged confirmed it through tests. Others said they had been told by a witness that something was placed in their drink. And still others believed they had been drugged based on how they felt.

Swan's study found that most students who said they were drugged were not sexually assaulted.

At Temple, several students reported they were sexually assaulted at the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity; one told police she went to a party in March, was given several drinks, became dizzy and disoriented and remembered nothing until she woke up in a fraternity member's bed, according to police.

"This is the first time that this type of credible information had been given to us to really aggressively pursue an investigation" regarding the drugging of drinks, said Stephanie Ives, associate vice president and dean of students at Temple.

The university in an email to the campus last month warned students not to leave any drink unattended and "be wary of accepting drinks from others."

"If you are suspicious of what a drink might contain or concerned about the impact it's having on a friend, seek medical help immediately," the advisory said.

The Greek life system at Temple is relatively small, but growing as Temple tilts toward a more residential college experience. About 6 percent of the student body, or more than 1,800 students, participate in the university's 28 fraternities and sororities, Ives said.

Temple for years has been educating students about alcohol and safe usage, including its medical amnesty policy, which allows students to seek help for an intoxicated student without being disciplined, Ives said. The amnesty covers both the intoxicated student and the one who seeks the help.

The notification that went out after the fraternity incident, Ives said,  "was obviously a very specific and significant step to tell the student population that there was concern about these allegations."

Students are concerned, too.

"I was horrified [to hear claims that] that guys were drugging so many girls' drinks," said Temple sophomore Grace Whittemore, 20, of Westchester, N.Y.

Whittemore said she doesn't attend fraternity parties. She goes to smaller gatherings with people she knows and people they know and trust, she said.

Universities have stepped up education on how students can safely monitor their drinks, but Swan said "it's obviously not preventing it to the level we would like."

At Rutgers New Brunswick, the student newspaper, The Daily Targum, reported in December that it had obtained documents that detailed allegations that a fraternity had allegedly drugged members of a sorority during a mixer in September.

Last month, Neal Buccino, a university spokesman, said: "The university's student conduct and police investigations found no evidence to support those allegations."

The fraternity, Sigma Chi, had been suspended last fall, in cooperation with its national chapter, for policy violations, he said. The suspension runs through August 2020. Buccino declined to reveal the policy violations, but said they were not related to the allegations of drink tampering.

Stanford declined to comment on the allegations there. The Mercury News reported in January that the university had launched an investigation into allegations that students had been drugged. "We have no further information to share," Stanford spokesman E.J. Miranda said last week.

Officials at several universities emphasized that alcohol by far is the number one drug involved in cases of sexual assault.

"While there is lots of attention to these substances being added to alcohol, soda and even water," said Peggy Lorah, assistant vice president for student affairs, diversity and inclusion at Pennsylvania State University, "the use of alcohol itself to render potential victims incapable of giving consent is the often ignored story."