<p>The UVA frat song sets the tone for the ongoing lack of respect (I would even say contempt) for women. It’s no different from the Amherst t-shirt with the message “Roasting fat ones since 1847” over a picture of a scantily clad woman on a spit and a pig smoking a cigar. This, apparently, is what passes for humor among the privileged offspring from a certain subset of “good” families.</p>
<p>The only thing I disagree with in your statement above is that these cretins somehow don’t consider what they are doing “rape.” I don’t know what their little pet names for it are (and don’t care to) but this seems to be a rite of initiation similar to other hazing-type mandates of new pledges (and of course, the others who choose to participate).</p>
<p>These stories make me ever more aware of the need to educate my soon-to-be-freshman daughter on the targeting that could occur simply based on her perceived naiveté upon entering college. There’s nothing in her high school experience that is at all similar to what could happen in a frat house or other private residence, especially with mystery drinks being shoved into girls’ hands all night.</p>
<p>Here are other examples of charters being pulled. (Note: I have no knowledge of Greek systems at either of these places.) Of course, a national can pull a charter for other reasons, such as low / declining membership or financial troubles.</p>
<p>BTW, I am in no way excusing the bad behavior we’ve been discussing, but no discussion of Greek bad behavior can be complete without a discussion of the black fraternities, which are really known for serious physical abuse of pledges, including paddling (at a level to cause damage) and branding.</p>
<p>I’ve seen a few post talking about how ALL fraternities are this irresponsible and stupid. I’d just like to give an example of what happens at my house and at most houses on my campus when it comes to parties.</p>
<p>Here’s some background information: I go to very large University. I’m in a mid-upper tier fraternity that is pretty popular on weekends. I don’t believe greek life on campus has been in the news negatively since we instituted these policies. </p>
<p>So here’s what happens.</p>
<p>The party must be registered with IFC “x” amount of days in advance of the party being thrown (I’m not sure the exact number) so IFC can have a student representative check on it. A list of people being invited is created for every party along with the brother who invited them. This is so we have record of who is at the party and which brother invited them. That brother is inevitably responsible for anything the person does. People who are irresponsible aren’t invited because nobody wants to deal with that. NOBODY who isn’t on the list is let into the house.</p>
<p>10% or more of our brothers are required to be sober monitors for the party (the % might be different at other houses on campus). These people sit at the front door, check names off the list, walk people home, kick people out etc etc. There job is to keep everybody safe and sound. 99.99% of trouble makers are non-brothers and are swiftly kicked out and added to a list of people to not let back in. </p>
<p>The craziest thing is we don’t buy alcohol for public use, and people under 21 aren’t allowed to bring alcohol in. Sure there is a lot of pre-gaming. But it really deters people who drink too much. We have jugs filled with water and not alcohol. Hypothetically, people definitely can find ways around this rule. But it really deters people from drinking too much. </p>
<p><em>I’ve seen some misinformation going around on here, and I’d love to answer any questions you all might have about greek life</em></p>
<p>So, Gopher, do you have an intuition about whether the policies fraternities have to follow at your school are unusually harsh for colleges, normal for colleges or lax for colleges?</p>
<p>The parties described in the UVa case do not sound at all like the parties your fraternity has. The article describes a Saturday night where people line up at the door of fraternities, and the fraternity decides on the spot whether to let each person in. According to the article, the brothers select for young, naive-seeming, drunk women. That seems like a recipe for assault, but it’s a recipe your fraternity is not cooking.</p>
<p>Is it usual for fraternities to not serve alcohol to party guests? I read the Dartmouth fraternity proposal, and they were talking about how the beer they would serve to underage partygoers would be served, whether kegs or in bottles, and how the hard liquor they’d serve would be offered-- by bartenders paid by the university, as I recall. </p>
<p>Do you think that other fraternities at your school (Minnesota?) abide by the rules as strictly as your fraternity does?</p>
<p>CF - generally speaking, that’s the same policy followed at my son’s school. Parties with alcohol must be registered in advance, the guest list must be vetted and there are consequences if underage drinkers aren’t served.</p>
<p>To be transparent here, there’s way more likelihood of underage drinking when it’s just the brothers themselves hanging out (and the school doesn’t know), than there is at parties where a) it’s visible from the outside that a party is going on (all the frat houses are right on campus, literally right next to dorms, so it’s not as though they are on private property elsewhere) and b) the school has the ability to step in and monitor for violation.</p>
<p>I’m not saying everyone is a choirboy, by the way, or that these rules never get broken. I’m just saying that the general gist of the type of policy that Gopher is referencing doesn’t seem unusual from my point of view. It’s general good risk management.</p>
<p>TransferGopher, you are at U of M? I really appreciated your post.</p>
<p>The policies spelled out by your IFC just make good sense. I wonder too if it’s easier to enforce them at a school where Greek life isn’t so dominant, the way it is at UVa and other schools.</p>
<p>But you’ll agree that it’s a policy that is not followed at UVa, right? What about the other schools with big Greek presences? Are there typically different policies in the Northeastern schools like Dartmouth, in Southern schools like UVa and Georgia, in Midwestern schools? Or is it that some schools are strict, like your son’s school and TransferGopher’s school, whereas other schools are not, like Dartmouth, Georgia and UVa?</p>
<p>@cardinal fang I really have no idea whether we’re stricter or laxer. I could never see anything like this article happening at my school though. Yeah we have people line up at our door every weekend. Yeah our parties are very large. But we don’t let anybody random in. Thats just a recipe for disaster and any semi-competent fraternity knows that. </p>
<p>Not serving alcohol is usual at my school. 1. Alcohol is expensive. 2. It’s a risk management issue. 3. People are stupid and overdrink. 4. People will <em>hypothetically</em> sneak in anything they need in. And brothers are allowed to provide alcohol to friends but it’s not allowed to be served publicly.</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen, everybody pretty much follows the rules. If you are caught breaking the rules generally you are punished by not being allowed to rush pledges. Which is basically slowly killing the fraternity. </p>
<p>I’ve only partied at schools with smaller greek presences than ours. It’s not as formal of a policy as ours but it’s very similar. (Can we stop guess which school I’m from? I didn’t post on a new account because I wanted people to know I’m legit. But please stop mentioning the school name)</p>
<p>TG, it’s not “guessing” which school you are from. Your user name, plus threads you have started like “Ask a Current Student Anything” in the [school name redacted] thread, pretty much tells the story.:)</p>
<p>You are actually doing a great service to your university and its Greek system. </p>
<p>Do research how many fraternities, what % get sanctioned for gang activities. Getting charters pulled, getting into any kind of trouble. I think they breed trouble. Young people who would not do certain things alone, or even with some friends, random classmates will do so in a gang setting. Not just rape, but things endangering themselves as well as others. I think the bad outweighs the good in having frats. And I absolutely do not discount the good, and I agree that many kids in the fraternities are great kids. </p>
<p>Also, yes, these things happen in the “group homes” as well. A bunch of students renting a house can turn into a “frat” of sorts. They throw parties with booze and drugs and sex as well. The problem with a frat is that it adds that extra layer of being a clan, lends more reason to some sorts of behavior because there isn’t a frat I know that doesn’t have their great back stories, their lore on conquests and outrageous behavior. I’ve gone to function where CEOs and other major players have reminisced about their frat capers. No outright rapes, but things can skirt along that area. </p>
<p>Yes, I understand that but I didn’t want to create a new account for this because I wanted to have legitimacy. You drawing attention to my post history/name isn’t helping lol</p>
<p>CF - I have no idea what other places do or don’t do. I would imagine different schools have different levels of risk management philosophies and/or a desire to manage (or potentially stamp out) a Greek system. </p>
<p>I would think - though I don’t know for sure - that the presence of the houses on campus versus off campus is a major factor. As I mentioned (and Sally will attest), at S’s school, the frats are all together in a series of quads that are on the campus - literally right next to the dorms (indeed, when a frat leaves, the building is converted into a regular dorm). The college owns the houses and the frats rent / lease them. So their ability to monitor is far different from that of a Greek house that is on private, non-college owned property. A</p>
<p>But if there is a national fraternity, it has chapters at schools with lax policies. If these alcohol policies are so good-- and I agree that they are-- then why do national fraternities have chapters that don’t follow them? Either the fraternities at UVa are supposed to have pre-existing guest lists, but they are ignoring the rules and letting in drunk girls if they seem young and innocent and rapeable, or the fraternities at UVa are not supposed to have pre-existing guest lists and their national orgs are fine with their dangerous alcohol policies. Neither says anything good about their national orgs.</p>
<p>CF, in my opinion the university or IFC probably should’ve monitored the situation better. If this article is 100% true then the University should’ve been supervising better </p>