4 in Acacia accept nude photo charges

The student who filed a sexual harassment complaint against Acacia fraternity with the JIO said yesterday that four Acacia members, including the house's former president and rush chairperson, have accepted the sexual harassment findings leveled against them. Baxt, Rajeh and Olivero also accepted Judicial Inquiry Office findings of theft, trespassing and acts of retaliation, Schlossberg said last night. Interim JIO Jane Combrinck-Graham said yesterday that she could not confirm or deny if the Acacia members had accepted the charges. Baxt did not return several phone messages last night, Rajeh and Wilkes declined to comment, and the phone number listed for Olivero has been disconnected. Schlossberg said Baxt, Rajeh and Olivero will all be fined, will have to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, attend an "educational program," and will be put under suspended suspension -- under which they will be immediately suspended if they fail to comply with their settlement. The three are not required to abide by the psychiatrist's recommendations, she added. Schlossberg said last night that she felt the University did not impose strict enough punishments for the alleged incident. "Initially the JIO told me that she was going to put an unconditional notation on both Baxt's and Rajeh's transcript," Schlossberg said. "I later learned that Baxt did not receive a notation and I am unclear if Rajeh has a notation." Schlossberg said College senior Baxt originally found a nude photograph of her two summers ago in her boyfriend's room. Her boyfriend was a brother of the fraternity and has since been granted early alumni status. Baxt showed the nude photograph that summer to one other person and discussed it with that person frequently, she added. In December 1990, Baxt re-entered the room, took the photograph, and showed it to seven other brothers who were also in the apartment, Schlossberg said. The photograph was subsequently returned to its place in the boyfriend's room. Wharton senior Olivero saw the photograph at this time and within 24 hours he and Wharton senior Rajeh went to the apartment, took the photo, made an unknown number of copies of it and then returned it to the room, Schlossberg added. "They later admitted to me that they had xeroxed the photo with the initial intent to post it in the house," Schlossberg said. "They also were thinking of using the photo to award to my boyfriend 'Bad Brother of the Week'." Schlossberg said Acacia gave this designation as a prize at each of its weekly chapter meetings to recognize a sexual action. "Each week at meeting they would give a small gift to a brother who had done something 'naughty' with a women," she said. "Either sex or something elicitly exciting with a member of the opposite sex." Her boyfriend, who asked that his name not be released, confirmed that these awards occurred. Rajeh and Olivero, according to the complainant, decided against using the photo for the award or posting it, but kept the photocopies. Second semester last year, Rajeh showed the photocopy to then-plege Wilkes and later instructed the spring semester pledge class how to act out the position that Schlossberg assumed in the photo, she said. The position was then mimicked at pledge skit night where a spring pledge class member assumed the position and said, "Look familiar?" to her boyfriend. The pledge who performed the position was not charged. Schlossberg also said that Wilkes was "further involved in spreading the incident outside of the fraternity," but would not elaborate. During the skit night the pledges were partially naked, but Schlossberg added that they said they were not unclothed to mimick her, but rather because brothers had thrown eggs and beer at them. "The pledge skit was sexual harassment as well violation of the anti-hazing code," Schlossberg said. "Hazing makes it collective." Last month the JIO and Office for Fraternity and Sorority Affairs said that Acacia was found collectively responsible for the incident. Collective responsibility, according to Combrinck-Graham, can carry sanctions ranging from probation to revocation of charter. Schlossberg said last night that both removal and suspension of the fraternity were not being considered as punishments. Through a complicated process last spring, Olviero and Rajeh were expelled by the fraternity, but this fall the fraternity voted to offer the two reinstatement, she added. Schlossberg said that Baxt and Rajeh had been charged and sanctioned for displaying "disrespectful behavior" towards women in the past. "The fact that this has now happened twice with these individuals shows a clear pattern of harassment," Schlossberg said. "This should have been taken into account during the sanctioning process, but it clearly wasn't for they were neither expelled nor suspended."

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