I agree with @jjfree83. I have personally heard frat boys laughing at an offensive homophobic joke. Don’t blame the victims, Charliesch: Often, minorities don’t feel comfortable engaging with the white population due to the rightful fear of racism at UVA. It’s ridiculous that fraternities and sororities judge members based on looks and financial status as well. The Greek system, especially at UVA, is toxic and should be eliminated.
I’m not a victim of the Greek system. I’m white and my family was wealthy when I attended UVA from 2000-2004. I could have joined a number of fraternities in my time there (and I did join one of them), and a number of houses attempted to recruit me based solely on where I went to high school. Every fraternity at UVA isn’t racist, homophobic, and full of wealthy people–the most popular ones very much fall into this category, and you will see varying degrees of this character as you descend a list ordered by popularity. The system has a serious problem when students look up to organizations that are racist, homophobic, and use only wealth and physical appearance as a determinant for membership. The school has a serious problem when Greek life is the university’s major social scene and is dominated by this mentality, and an even more serious one when the worst houses receive preferential treatment. It leads to self-segregation and unhappiness except for those individuals who decide to fall in line with this mentality for the sake of their own status. I have experienced fraternities at UVa–I’ve witnessed brothers laugh at the black cook on their composites and throw around racial slurs in a bizarrely casual fashion during rush (especially those houses that tried to recruit me solely by where I went to high school.) I’ve seen brothers scream racial slurs at events hosted by African Americans. I’ve witnessed my own friend ejected from a party for being black. I had a friend from my first year tell me his pledge job was to find and kick out black people from their parties. It’s a reality whether you want to believe it or not.
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To suggest that all or most of the 31 different fraternities at UVA are “toxic and should be eliminated” seems nothing short of shallow and superficial in and of itself.
With 31 fraternities (or 31 of any type of group for that matter) there are sure to be some bad ones. As a general statement the students at UVa are amazing people. Most of those 31 fraternities are made up of those same amazing people. Are there shallow and superficial people represented in the Greek system? Of course there are. Are some of the sororities and fraternities shallow and superficial in their selection processes? Very likely. But to slam 30-40% of the student body is unfair.
I have a son at UVa and he belongs to a fraternity with a bright, engaged, diverse and respectful membership. They are only one of 31, but I’m sure it isn’t the only good group of young men within the Greek system.
Being part of a fraternity has been an important experience for my rather introverted son. I belonged to a fraternity at another school 30 years ago and the experience was not as constructive as I see at UVa today. Let’s keep encouraging the Greek community to play a more and more positive role, but let’s also recognize them for the good they do today. And please, let’s not get carried away and be so naive as to suggest that any population of students is all good or all ripe for elimination.
With 15,000 students, there are bound to be some that are bigoted and superficial. Let’s celebrate the vast majority that are young people we can be proud of.
Hi appzilla. I just read your post. My son is a first year there and did not pledge this year, but is thinking about going through rush next year. Would you be willing to talk to me about your son’s fraternity and experience?
@1600mPenn - over the past couple of decades, fraternities have gradually been required to use stricter controls on parties. Guest lists, BYOB, etc. This isn’t unique to UVA though. It’s simply a sign of the times. But it does make it harder for non-Greeks to be part of the Greek social scene.
In any event, if joining the Greek system isn’t your thing, it just means you need to build your own social circle whether through clubs and whatnot. Note that after first year, a large number of UVA students live off campus, so I imagine a lot of Non-Greeks simply have get togethers at their apartments or even hang out at the Corner (lots of restaurants and bars there).
The Greek system is certainly a significant part of UVA’s social scene, but there’s plenty of other social outlets.