Obviously all frats are not the same, but as a group, they are different than other campus organizations. Can you name another campus group with 30 hazing deaths in the last 5 years?
I don’t understand why people defend them.
Dorm? Library? Just not the same.
At one LAC I know without frats, some athletes do live together in suites, and have parties there. But it’s not their entire building (with an attic) and it’s not anything “regular” students don’t have. Anyone can try to get a suite, it’s a seniority/lottery system.
Valerie Smith, the President of Swarthmore, graduated from Bates College, a school which has never had fraternities or sororities, and she’s served on the school’s Board of Trustees. I’m not sure if that has any influence on how she’s handling this, but it’s an additional factoid.
@donnaleighg well you missed the point, and thanks for the snark.
"Minutes from 2013 refer to the school’s other fraternity, Delta Upsilon, saying, “Your parties suck, you have both a rape tunnel AND a rape attic (gotta choose one or the other).”
The documents include other jokes about sexual violence; derogatory comments about women, minorities and the LGBT community; pornography and descriptions of hazing activities.”
People are shocked by this? This sounds like a routine description of behavior in every frat on every campus that comes out every time there is an expose’ or an investigation into Greek life in US colleges.
I’ve long considered frats to be a blight on every campus they infect. The three pillars of frat life are Social Exclusion, Drunkenness,and Sexual Assault. It’s the nature of the beast. But I long ago gave up being shocked or advocating to get rid of frats. Powerful alumni with fond memories of their own drunken bacchanaliae in college always push back with the usual lame “one bad apple” and "my frat performed good deeds for charity"arguments.
For this particular case one or both of the houses will get disbanded. Some wrists will get slapped. There will be vague promises of reform. And then the whole wretched mess will continue unabated at hundreds campuses all across the country.
“my frat performed good deeds for charity”
Yeah, I’m surprised we made it to page 3 without someone pulling out that old, banal trope.
After the Piazza tragedy at PSU, where my nephew attends, my BIL said Greek alumni were grousing because of restrictions on drinking at some alumni weekend event. Also a lot of whispers of how the frat wasn’t to blame - aka “ no one forced him to drink” . He says that when you go there on big event weekends the Greek alumni behave worse than the students. But as long as those alumni are making contributions, nothing will change.
There may be some exceptions, like http://www.sigmaepsilonomega.com/ . But if they are uncommon exceptions, that may not be very complimentary on the other ones. It is often the case that chapter photos at fraternities and (even more so) sororities suggest a greater level of racial segregation there than overall at the campuses they are at.
Probably they were used to a bygone time (when they were students) when behavior regarding alcohol, sexual (mis)conduct, and hazing was looser.
@mamalion Do you have a source for those numbers?
Sure you can belittle it if you want, but at my kid’s school their two biggest fundraising events (over $4 million each year) would wither and die without Greek organization participation.
Stating the obvious but charitable money gets raised ALL the time without Greek involvement.
Belittling the concerns over bad behavior of these orgs is what I don’t get.
Not that kind of money.
And nobody is belittling concerns over bad behavior. But facts are facts. Most, the vast majority of Fraternity (and Sorority) members are fine upstanding citizens. They are not all drunken, racists, misogynistic, rapists. But people will believe what narrative they want to believe.
Your post #8 I would deem belittling of the situation:
“Yawn. So statements by students in a private meeting who are no longer there are “offensive.” Nobody keeps meeting minutes like that. They don’t even have a Greek system – it’s like two houses, which aren’t even houses. Time to go back to class.”
@yourmomma My stat came from my college newspaper after our recent hazing death. Here is Wikipedia on frat death https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hazing_deaths_in_the_United_States
The Wikipedia death list is a couple of years behind.
I see three deaths already this year (one woman drinking at a frat), but I am not focusing on hazing now, just death.
There were 4 fraternity (hazing related) deaths in 2017 alone according this article - http://time.com/5071813/fraternity-hazing-deaths-2017. There are many (easily googled) statistics on sexual assaults in and in connection with fraternities/sororities. Not claiming bad things don’t happen outside frat houses and sororities, but parents and students who want to eliminate greek life as a risk factor have options now, fortunately.
The claim was 30 over 5 years. That’s 6 per year average. While 1 is too many, 30 over 5 years doesn’t appear to be supported by evidence.
Not sure if you read the actual “minutes.” The stuff is from 2013 and 2014. The students involved are likely no longer at the school (unless they are on the 6 year plan). It’s primarily sophomoric embellished recounts of the week’s activities. At a small school like that, if half the stuff was actually true (and not embellished) it would have come out years ago. The protesters basically bullied the current fraternity members for writings they were not remotely responsible for. They achieved their goal.
Some of the hazing incidents listed were not fraternity related, and many were from underground or non-national fraternities, with accidents after drinking. I think there are a lot of deaths of college aged kids after drinking.
The FAMU band https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-ne-famu-hazing-conviction-appeal-20181213-story.html
1975 U of Penns.
1984, Texas A&M (corps of cadets)
There were even a few ‘adult’ hazing events lists, including some one at a job and a masonic lodge.