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The Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity is being accused of taking sexually explicit photographs taken without consent before distributing them via email.
According to the lawsuit, an unidentified is woman suing the national Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity organization and the school’s chapter, Gamma Chi Zeta of Lambda Chi Alpha. Court documents state the allegations by “Jane Doe” are “of a highly sensitive and personal matter” and that there “is a high risk of retaliatory harm.”
The lawsuit says that the Lambda Chi Alpha president “did not inform the members to delete the email chain or photos; nor did he instruct them to cease the internal derogatory commentary being made.”
via NWA Online:
“A crowd of people, members and non-members alike, converged in the bathroom as Jane Doe and the Associate Member were locked in the bathroom stall,” the lawsuit states, adding that many “are believed to have taken photographs and video.”
The lawsuit states the “Picture Pledge” was one of several pledges with tasks, though the lawsuit also notes that fraternity members denied to the university that there was such a thing as a “Picture Pledge.” The lawsuit faults the fraternity for inaction in having “failed to implement enforcement policies and procedures that ensured compliance with their stated rules prohibiting hazing.”
The “Picture Pledge,” according to the lawsuit, “reached his phone over the locked stall door and, without the consent or knowledge of Jane Doe took multiple photographs of Jane Doe and the Associate Member engaged in explicit sexual conduct.”
Later, after the photos were distributed to the “Arkansas LCA Gmail list-serv,” the “Arkansas LCA President,” according to the lawsuit, sent a message: “This picture is not to be sent to your friends or to get out on social media at all. Period.”
The suit claims that Jane Doe has lost an educational opportunity, self-esteem and reputation and is asking for unspecified damages and punitive damages ” if warranted and appropriate.”
