Jesus H. Christ.
I will probably get flamed for this but i clicked that link and i don’t get the outrage about the “defacing”. Sure the hazing and binge drinking is deplorable but i’ve seen plenty of parties in which when someone passes out something is done to them. Usually they don’t end up dead and the only harm is their picture passed around internet sites. I’ve never been in a frat but i always thought stuff like shaving cream and permanent markers were standard procedure when someone passes out at a party, although checking to see they are not dying should be the first step of course.
Action could easily be taken by organizations such as the NCAA. If your college allows frats on campus, then they can’t host any NCAA tournaments or take part in post-season competitions. Since athletics are such a huge source of revenue for the colleges, they will comply. Send them all off-campus.
Here are some interesting stats for you (from a review of the book Wrongs of Passage):
Fraternity members consume an average of almost three times as many drinks per week as non-fraternity males. Sorority members drink almost twice as many alcoholic beverages per week as non-sorority females. A 1998 report from the School of Public Health at Harvard indicated that four out of five fraternity and sorority members identify themselves as binge drinkers.
I don’t think outright bans on fraternities will be very effective. What’ll help in the long run is for universities to have the crap sued out of them by grieving parents if they haven’t effectively monitored frats and sororities to prevent hazing and limit drinking.
I’d have a real problem with that, Silenus. The NCAA has no business advancing a political agenda. TAlso not sure how you’d tie the existence or non-existence of fraternities to any athletic issue the NCAA can regulate.
I think the problem would be a lack of connection with athletics.
The NCAA has had no hesitation about getting involved in a political issue (using Native American-related names for sports teams).
The university I went to didn’t have a zero tolerance policy with enough things; there was one for drugs, but that was it. There was one particular fraternity on campus that was well-known as having a majority of their members who have committed rape crimes, but still kept their charter because of lax rules regarding rape in the university’s bylaws.* A person who raped another person could easily stay a student in the school, whether convicted for it or not (given that sentencing was lenient enough for them to continue living in the area as a student), whereas someone who was caught in possession of drugs would immediately be kicked out of the school with no questions asked.
If the university wasn’t so lax on their policies with all students, including Greek life, there may have been fewer problems with drinking, drugs, and women being raped while walking home across campus (and next to campus) areas.
*The members were also well-known for a particular stare that indicated that the object of staring was “meat” and they hadn’t “eaten” in a while. It’s incredibly unnerving to have someone stare at you like that.
I hate when I misread an OP. I came in here all fired up (so to speak) and ready to defend my American right to flatulence. :mad:
And the NCAA would do this, why? Maybe they’ll make the same mistake of confusing correlation and causation that many other people in this thread seem to be leaping to?
Some frat guys hazed and contributed to the death of a pledge. Other frat guys have been known to do the same thing. Frats and schools are supposed to make sure that stuff does not happen. None of these imply that ALL frats have such problems, nor that it is the fraternities and not its members who are the cause.
So the alcohol abusers have all banded together to enable their alcohol abuse. If you’re suggesting that the problem here is alcohol abuse, why not address that problem. Maybe, ban anyone who drinks alcohol from joining a fraternity. Maybe, enforce the underage drinking laws and school regulations.
I agree they are not hesitant to jump in, I’m saying they shouldn’t do that. I think it goes beyond the scope of what they should be doing.
As a member (alumnus) of a fraternity I agree with what seems to be the general consensus of the thread. Ban activities that are dangerous enough to be worth banning, and let people associate with whomever they choose. Individuals should be sanctioned for participating in banned activities. If it is found that a given fraternity is encouraging a harmful activity it can be sued (I think that for many fraternities loosing their house would pretty much kill them). Of course, if fraternities are affiliated with the university they can be sanctioned by the university.
I realize that this kid died, so his BAC was probably somewhere up around .40%, but stats like this can be misleading.
In PA an underage person (someone under 21, as most rushes are) would be at the legal limit for proof of intoxication at .02%, and it wasn’t long ago that five times that limit was the line for a DUI.
The media tends to use phrases like that to be as sensationalist as possible.
I’m no fan of frats myself, but let’s be honest about the media: it does what it can to sell advertising.
My personal experience in college was that the frat boys (and sorority chicks) that I ran across drank a hell of a lot more, a lot more often, than the non-frat ones. I also much preferred non-frat parties because the guys at a non-frat party aren’t among their ‘brothers’ in a pack mentality hunting meat. Sure, cheesey pick up lines existed at all the parties, as did the potential for some asshole to grab a body part, but it was so frequent at the frat parties that I stopped going to them when I was still a freshman.
I was an undergrad at Rice University. Incoming freshmen signed a pledge to uphold the honor system and to not join fraternal organizations. If they caught you cheating, or you joined a fraternity, they kicked you out. Simple.
(The honor system was really sweet. Many of my exams were take-home tests. You timed yourself. Want to start your exam at midnight – no problem.)
In place of fraternities and sororities Rice has residential colleges. They’re like student-run dorms. Everyone was randomly assigned to a college their freshman year and most students lived in their college for at least their first two years. The colleges hosted most of the campus parties as well as other social activities like student plays and intermural sports.
The nice thing about focusing all social activities through the colleges was that the social energy of all the popular people and natural leaders got channelled into an outlet that everyone could enjoy. Every weekend there was a party somewhere on campus.
I suppose someone could have formed a super-secret fraternity off campus, but why bother? Twenty guys (even twenty rich guys) weren’t going to have the resources to throw the kinds of parties the residential colleges threw week in and week out.
Binge-drinking being defined by those conducting the study, and which a lot of people on this board would probably also identify as, by that definition. I don’t know what the precide definition the School of Public Health used, but I’ve often seen it defined as 5 or more drinks in one session (sometimes less). I have a hard time getting worked up over that.
Moreover, I think one of the reasons that drinking is more common in Greek organizations is that they mix people able to legally purchase alcohol with those that can’t legally purchase it, but everyone is a social peer. Younger students living away from home for the first time are more likely to overindulge anyway, and here they’ve got unfettered access to the stuff. This differs from people who live in residential colleges or dorms, which tend to me more segregated by age AND are often on campus. Many colleges ban alcohol on campus (mine did – all Greek houses were two blocks away).
I was in a sorority in college. Like i am a scientist, it’s not something I am proud of, but social options were limited at my school and I knew no one when I arrived. Going through Rush helped me meet lots of people, and the girls I rushed with became some of my closest friends – a couple to this day. Hazing was banned on campus and was absolutely not allowed by my sorority. Nor was there any wink-wink hazing; it just didn’t happen. When a chapter at a different college got its charter revoked for hazing, you better believe we all had to sit through a lecture about it, reiterating why we did not and would not haze. Banning Greek orgs won’t fix the problem. Targeting the bad behavior will.
I was reading through this thread intending to also mention Rice. I was an undergrad there as well. Nice to see that there’s another Rice grad on the board!
I’d just like to add that the residential college system is a very robust and strong system at Rice, to the point that one of the first questions a Rice student/alum asks another when meeting them is, “What college are/were you in?” One of the nice things about the system is that no one is left out.
All undergraduate students are assigned to a college, even those who never live on campus. I lived on campus for two years, and then moved off campus, but remained a member of my college.
So, Pochacco, what college were you in? 
Sid Rich. Back before it went coed! 
What college were you in? 
My wife went to Smith College, which operates under a similar house system. They don’t have Greek organizations there either.
I can’t figure out why more universities don’t adopt this model. It takes the tribal impulses of the students and channels them into something that supports the university community as a whole. Much better (IMHO) that the state of affairs at most universities where the dorms are a social wasteland and the Greek organizations are clubby and exclusive.
Sid Rich, before it went coed! 
(Actually, it went coed my sophomore year.)
When were you in Sid?
At least nobody here was in Lovett. (Lovett?? Lovett SUCKS!!)
Agreed.
Yeah, I felt the same way. If I passed out at my mom’s house, I’m sure my sisters could write stuff just as offensive on me if they were also drinking. No gay jokes, likely - we’re all sisters and not really into that kind of humor - but “I Smell!” and crude sexual references, absolutely yes. Phrasing it as some kind of a hate crime just screams sensationalism.
As for frats - well, I agree, when it comes to mixing 21+ students and under 21s, you are going to get binge drinking. I drank in college, and I fully confess I would have drunk far more if I had been able to get my hands on alcohol more often. Plus, the whole aspect of it being illegal made binge drinking more enticing - in the dorms, if they caught you with it, you’d lose it, so we’d try to kill the bottle.
Frankly, I think a lot of problems would be solved if they lowered the drinking age but handed out more public intoxication tickets and noise level tickets, which would pull down the worst of the frat parties.
82-87. I took a year off in the middle of college then lived off campus for the last year and a half.
Agreed. It’s a giant fucking toaster!
I have to agree with John Mace. At least on-campus fraternities are subject to the rules and regulations of the school.
The OP is painting with an overly large brush. My school was heavily Greek. About 50% of a male population of about 2000 were in one of the thirty-something national fraternities. There were all kinds of fraternities with all kinds of people. (Well, as diverse as 92% of a student body consisting of white, upper-middle class or rich kids can be). Basically it was a top school where people had a work hard/play hard attitude. They drink and party a lot but they also go on to work in engineering or business.
I’ve also visited schools where the fraternities were practically gangs. Basically houses where dumb meatheads sat around drinking, fighting and selling drugs.
Now I won’t lie to you and say there weren’t problems. Obviously alchoholism and drug use was rampant. The sense of entitlement and groupthink can get annoying as well. Also, I found that the Greek system tends to create factions on the freshmen halls (all freshmen lived in freshmen only dorms) as people tended to split off Greek/GDI and by fraternity house. Sometimes this wasn’t necessarily by choice as you don’t really have a say over which house offers you a bid to join.
Still, once you are in, there are some great social and professional networking benefits.