Rules against this sort of hazing don’t seem to have had any effect over the years. Should we just ban frats? I see no upside to their existance, and many, many downsides. What say you?
They shoulda been gone years ago.
Too broad a brush. I think that fraternities are a problem in some places, and perhaps banning them from campus would be in order. However, not all fraternities are the same, and even the same fraternities differ from campus to campus. For example, at my college, fraternities didn’t have houses and weren’t terribly loutish. The fraternity I was in did not haze, and in fact No Hazing was the policy of the national fraternity. There was no nudge-nudge-wink-wink hazing, either. So it’s not a problem with all fraternities, everywhere, just some fraternities in some places.
There are benefits to fraternities in that they do teach some organizational skills and provide networking opportunities. Most fraternities also do a fair amount of charity work.
Banning frats will simply push them underground and make them harder to monitor. You can’t eliminate people’s desire for exclusivity and status, nor the yearning for “rites of passage” which prove one’s worth. Those seem engrained into the human psyche.
Let’s see how the trans fat ban in NYC works before taking it nationwide. 
Seriously, though, I agree with Lissa. Underground frats will just be “way cooler” and more dangerous. Hold the people involved criminally responsible, but you simply can’t stop adults from forming clubs or associations-- if not on campus, then off.
In general, US citizens are free to associate (and form organisations, clubs, and so on) with whomever they please.
Please just punish the bad actions.
Do you think they should ban “fan clubs” because a few fans hang in trees to snap photos of the favorite celebirties’ private moments?
Most of the police force in my college town were former members of the local fraternity. As a result, they knowingly turned their backs every Thursday night when they had drugs at their parties and occasionally raped girls. My roommate witnessed one of the rapes years before we roomed together, and he was afraid to say anything.
I would like to see them eliminated, but I’m not sure how that can be achieved. A campus without them would probably have more participation in other clubs, and more participation in community events. You could achieve the same level of comaradarie in other campus organizations, and those allow girls as members. For me, I joined the cheerleading squad. I had to travel to other towns and share hotel rooms with a bunch of cheerleaders. I had a lot more fun doing that than I would have hanging out with a bunch of dudes.
My brother was in a frat, is still friends with many of his frat brothers, and has benefited from their frat connections. I say that you seeing no upside to their existance is probably from a lack of actually looking for an upside, since you’ve obviously decided what the answer should be before you even asked this question.
I also say that the frat members who haze and abuse alcohol should be prosecuted for all the laws and school regulations that they have broken. If they’ve caused that kid’s death, then they should be held accountable just like anyone else who is involved in manslaughter/murder/other crimes.
By what legal authority would you ban frats? Gonna be hard to get around that whole freedom of association thing…
Keeping them officially “off campus” may be possible–I think some schools have done that. Don’t know that you could make it a crime to belong to a fraternity, though…
Sounds like the bad actions of the police needed to be punished. If the police aren’t doing their job, maybe they should be viewed as bad policemen, rather than bad frat boys.
I was in a professional fraternity. There were girls as members. We hazed. The girls hazed. The girls were actually pretty nasty sometimes. Everyone else in the professional fraternity were responsible for stopping that (and it did improve throughtout the time I was in college).
Sororoties can also haze – and from the stories told by some of my friends, it can be just as nasty and mean as frat hazing, albeit of a different nature. Involving girls in an organization doesn’t magically make everything sweetness and light. Just look at any high school girls’ clique.
Unless I missed your point, and you were just trying to imply that frat boys are gay because they actually hang out with other guys?
Yeah, but can we at least declare those tribal armband tatoos to be a fashion crime? I see a few guys at the gym sporting those “cool tats” who are pushing 40 now, and I just laugh…
I was in a frat in college - not something I’m particularly proud of but I was 18 and homesick and wanted stuff to do - I’m still pretty good freinds with some of guys
(I only point that out to articulate that I’m not some frat cheerleader)
I went to school in the northeast and we were scared sh*tless of the university cops, of losing our charter, getting busted for underage drinking, of, God forbid the *slightest *hint of any kind of impropriety with a girl/young women at a party.
This was b/c the University had a zero-tolerance policy - and we walked the line (I mean, we weren’t boy scouts, but nothing like this sort of thing).
My point is that it comes down to the University, not the frats. Young men left to their own devices can do some pretty sick shit (independent of any kind of frat affiliation) - if, say U of [enter midwest, mid-atlantic and/or southern school here] is willing to defy alumni and boosters and bring the hammer down, these problems would be greatly reduced.
not sure why I edited the first sh*t and not the second.
stupid, vulgar frat guy, I am.
Fraternity guy here.
First of all, just so that you know, on many college campus’ the word “FRAT” itself is understood to be an insult. It’s an acronym for Fighting Rape Assholes Torture. This isn’t true everywhere, though. Some schools the Fraternity guys themselves use the word “FRAT”. At other places, just saying the word would get you kicked out of a Fraternity party.
Talking of banning fraternities everywhere is just dumb. How would you ban them? Under what law? If a school wants to discourage them they can, but as others have pointed out this does little. UMASS Lowell banned Fraternities and Sororities a couple decades ago and they still thrive. All it did was drive them underground and now they exist without any controls in place by the school.
They still do far more charity work than typical students do, of course. Also, they show school and community spirit by doing events such as helping the Freshmen move in on first weekend and showing up in force at Spring Carnival and other events.
As to the dangers of Greek hazing and drinking, I’d wager that Greeks make campus life safer, not less so. A party run by a well organized Fraternity has controls in place to make sure fights don’t break out and people don’t drink too much. A party run at a non-fraternity house typically is much more chaotic IME. I’d love to see some stats of how many Greeks die during college partying vs the general student population.
Under anti-gang laws?
Most communities also have laws against keeping/creating a Public Nuisance.
Tribal armband tattoos were to the 90s what barbed wire tattoos were to the 80s. Pretty much a permanent badge on your arm that screams “I’M A TOTAL TOOL.”
Tribal armbands and barbed wire armbands are frat guy accessories, now? When I was a lad (and I’m pushing 40 now…) they were always adorning gay guys. Those frats steal everything from gay culture, don’t they?
So can I assume that the guys at the gym with tramp stamps on their lower back are also frat guys?
Fraternities aren’t the same thing as gangs. It’s not a criminal enterprise. It’s silly to compare the two. Of course, if a fraternity is doing something illegal as an organization like selling drugs or whatever, then I can see it being treated as a criminal organization like how a gang would. There’s nothing preventing this.
If a community deems that a fraternity house is a public nuisance for one reason or another, then by all means they should go after them. Nobody would dispute that. This is an entirely different thing than some kind of national fraternity ban that the OP seems to be suggesting.
This is a case where we just don’t need special laws. If Joe College Student is breaking the law in some way then arrest him. If he’s in a fraternity or not shouldn’t have anything to do with it. We already have plenty of laws and rules to go around.
Not that I’ve ever noticed. I think people are just assuming.
I don’t get the hatred for it, though. I think ALL tattoos are stupid to varying degrees, but I don’t see why tribals are any worse. Blackwork like tribals are actually a lot less ugly than colorful tats IMO.
Wouldn’t meet the legal definition of “gang” in most jurisdictions. For example, New Mexico’s gang laws read:
(Bolding mine.)
Occasional hazing could not be considered a pattern of gang activity, nor could a fraternity, even one which involves a good deal of underage drinking, be considered an organization which has as its primary activities criminal behavior.