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Personal Essay

Opinion: College Campuses Were Built to Protect Abusers, Not Victims

Meet Zoe Doe, a UCLA student who knows firsthand how easily fraternities can "cover up" sexual assaults

12:20 PM PDT on October 9, 2026

two statues representing women with the outline of red hands across their bodies including their chests and genital region

Wikipedia photography by Geographer. Illustration by Ivan Ehlers for L.A. TACO.

Warning: Content in this story may be triggering or disturbing for some readers.


My memories of Fraternity Row have damp, jagged edges.

They were made during my freshman year at the University of California, Berkeley.

I was 18 years old when I moved into Griffith Hall, a high-rise dorm that loomed across the street from Neuman Hall, a Catholic parish with an oddly brutalist design. 

Everything that I knew about my school came from its marketing materials.

Everything that I knew about frats came from comedies like “Revenge of the Nerds.”