The female student made those allegations in a lawsuit filed earlier this month against the ASU chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon as well as the national SAE fraternity. Seven fraternity brothers are also named as individual defendants.
Though the female student filed the lawsuit under her name, Phoenix New Times is withholding it to prevent harassment. New Times is also withholding the names of the seven individual defendants, as the allegations against them have not been proven.
The young woman who filed the lawsuit said she had a brief relationship with one of the SAE brothers in 2023, when she was a sophomore. During that time, the suit says, that brother filmed her “lying in bed with her breasts exposed” without her consent and then shared the video with other members of the fraternity.
The woman didn’t learn of the video’s existence until March of this year, she claims. She became aware of the video only after another SAE brother saw it in a fraternity group chat that had 170 people in it. The brother who had filmed the video, who the lawsuit said was a “pledge master” in charge of communicating and instructing new members, allegedly sent it to a pledge. That pledge shared it with the wider group in a chat group, titled “Spring 25 Brotherhood,” in February.
The suit claims this was a standard hazing practice for what it called the “hedonistic sex-crazed” fraternity. After a “pledge master” shared a video or photo of a “female conquest,” pledges were allegedly required to do the same. “Participating in this ritual was not optional,” the suit says before describing videos and images of other women allegedly shared among the fraternity.
According to the suit, the images “depict various girls, often only partially clothed or completely naked. Some of the images depict girls who might possibly be aware that the image is being taken. However, many images shared during the hazing ritual depict females who appear to be unconscious (‘passed out’) or sleeping. Other videos submitted by ASU Chapter SAE members depict females who appear to be completely unaware that they are being photographed or recorded.”
The suit goes on to note that “even in those cases where the subject of the illicit photo or video consented to their photograph or video being taken, that does not mean that they also consented to their intimate photo being shared with hundreds of strangers on campus as part of a long-standing hazing ritual.”
The woman claims the ordeal has caused her to lose weight and hair and has led her to avoid her sorority, where she still pays dues. She is suing for negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and defamation of character, as well as punitive and compensatory damages.
The woman’s lawyers declined to comment on the lawsuit. New Times attempted to contact the individual defendants but did not hear back from most of them, though the lawyer for the brother who allegedly recorded the video said he denies the allegations and looks forward to clearing his name in court.
The ASU chapter of SAE directed New Times to reach out to the national fraternity, but the national SAE organization did not respond to a request for comment. Earlier this month, New Times also stopped by SAE’s fraternity house in ASU’s Greek Leadership Village, but nobody answered the door.
According to the lawsuit, the woman filed a complaint with Arizona State University about the fraternity. It's not clear what became of it.
ASU via Twitter
Downplayed and ignored
According to the lawsuit, the brother who allegedly filmed the nonconsensual video first showed it to other fraternity members roughly a year later during a fall trip to Lake Havasu City. But the video wasn’t shared widely among members until the following spring, after which the woman learned of its existence.After learning about the video, the woman said she began to investigate its origin. She spoke to a few fraternity brothers, though she said she was stymied by the fraternity’s code of silence, which the lawsuit refers to as “Brother’s Keep.” She also notified the then-president of the chapter, though the lawsuit claims that she was met with indifference and hostility.
The chapter president “downplayed” the situation and stated he thought the video “appeared consensual” and opined that the woman “did not appear to ‘care’ about the video or ‘care’ about a lot of things that were happening to her when the video was filmed,” the suit says. Other members of the chapter’s executive board, who are also named as defendants, were also aware of the video but “took no meaningful actions to assist the Plaintiff or to notify the requisite authorities.”
The woman also notified the national fraternity and ASU about the alleged hazing ritual. It is not clear if she received a response from the national SAE organization. New Times asked the university for information about the woman’s complaint but has not received a response.
It was only after she notified the school, the suit says, that the chapter president and the fraternity began to take the issue seriously. However, the suit claims, they first engaged in a “conspiracy to cover up the incident,” “destroy evidence” and “intimidate the Plaintiff and other fraternity members with direct knowledge of the incident.” The woman claims the fraternity suspended the brother who took the video, but in name only. Per the suit, he was still allowed to live in fraternity housing and participate in frat events.
Additionally, the woman claims, the suspended brother, the chapter president and members of the executive board trashed her reputation with others, referring to her as a “whore,” “slut” and “good for nothing.” The woman is suing those fraternity members for defamation of character.
Due to the ordeal, the woman says, she’s been unable to sleep, has lost weight and has noticed her hair starting to fall out. She dealt with educational setbacks and mental anguish as a result, and has suffered “reputational and financial damage,” as she’s continued to pay dues to a sorority that she avoids due to embarrassment. She also says her sorority — which she doesn’t identify, but which is likely also located in the Greek Leadership Village — fines her for missing events.
A sordid history
This isn’t the first time an SAE chapter has drawn scrutiny for sharing nonconsensual nude photos of female students.In 2015, SAE’s chapter at the University of California San Diego got in trouble for similar behavior in a scandal that came to be known as “Rush Boobs.” The chapter forced pledges to obtain topless pictures of women with “Rush ΣAE” written on their chests for the purpose of distributing them on social media and messaging apps.
The lawsuit also references the 2015 documentary “The Hunting Ground,” which examined sexual violence on college campuses. The documentary focused in part on SAE chapters, which on some campuses were colloquially referred to as standing for “Sexual Assault Expected.”
The ASU chapter of SAE also has a troubled history.
In 2012, a 19-year-old SAE fraternity pledge, Jack Culolias, drowned in the Salt River after binge drinking at a pledge event. A few months later, another fraternity member was dumped at a hospital with a note after a tequila-drinking contest that nearly killed him. The 20-year-old student had a blood-alcohol level of 0.47, nearly five times over the legal limit.
The two high-profile incidents resulted in ASU expelling the chapter from the university by revoking its university recognition in 2013. That same year, Rolling Stone magazine named the chapter the “most out-of-control” fraternity in the U.S. In 2014, Culolias’ mother sued the national SAE organization for the wrongful death of her son, ultimately settling. That year, the national fraternity instituted a hazing ban.
In 2022, Gov. Doug Ducey signed “Jack’s Law” in honor of the late SAE pledge, making it a crime in Arizona to haze. After a brief hiatus from campus, ASU’s SAE chapter returned to the Greek Leadership Village in 2019.
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