Hazing ‘traditions’ and sexual assault plagued UCLA summer camp job, students say
The University of California’s summer camp at UCLA in Westwood is alleged to have been a hotbed of “traditions” that included lewd “hazing” practices, sexual assault and hazing, in addition to hazing “traditions”: According to several students, more than 100 students were sexually assaulted on campus at UCLA’s summer camp between June 4 and June 19. (Julie Jacobson/Los Angeles Times)
As the sun sets at UCLA’s Westwood campus, the sounds of students whispering and crying fill the air.
“I was raped,” said one female student.
“I was forced to have sex with many different guys,” she said.
Other students, particularly in a fraternity, said they were abused.
“I was forced to have sex with many different guys,” said another student.
The allegations, which include rape, sexual assault, hazing and hazing “traditions,” are laid out in a complaint by three students at the university, as well as a press conference outside UCLA.
On June 3, the university’s Office of Equal Opportunity, Diversity & Inclusion was contacted by students who said they were concerned about an “alleged incident of hazing,” an alleged hazing “tradition” — and an alleged “hazing culture.”
They told university officials that, in the beginning of the summer, they attended a party to celebrate the start of the school year. At 3 a.m., they said, they were taken to a room, where — they said — they and other students were forced to get naked in a circle, with a group of men in the circle. They said, according to a press release, that they were “dragged out of the circle” to perform oral sex on one another.
The “hazing” was allegedly one of the school’s “traditions,” according to the complaint.
The men, they said, did things with “a lot of humiliation” and made them “feel violated and violated” and “like animals,” according to the release. One of the men said to the students, “This is not fun. Don’t you know? This is torture!”
Students were allegedly taken to the campus pool and forced to “perform sexual acts on one another,” according to the students’