I think enough is enough, while I wish people did not see the need to join frats and i wish they went away because collectively new college students rejected the concept, it maybe time to ban frats from colleges. ( I do not believe in banning or boycotts most of the time) but, I think it is time to really start to think about it on a campus by campus basis.
http://news.yahoo.com/michigan-fraternity-shut-down-vandalizing-resort-172847101.html
and at the rate frats are being forced to close it may just happen real soon.
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Clearly thousands of students and their parents disagree with you and find the benefits outweigh the negatives. My own sorority is adding chapters every year.
Last week I went to watch my daughter play her sport at her rather small tech school. In the stands there were parents of the players and a small group of students cheering for my daughter - her sorority sisters and a few fraternity guys who are neighbors at the Greek village. None of the other players are in a sorority and none had other students cheering just for them.
Getting rid of all fraternities will never happen. It’s too integrated into American college culture and there would be an uproar. However, it is good that universities are bringing down the hammer when particular ones cause problems. It’ll keep the ones that are “good” in line.
Can you effectively ban Greek houses? Or can you only drive them underground?
If you drive something underground, you can’t regulate it. Consider Prohibition.
There were not Greek houses on my college campus, but there were special interest houses that for the most part functioned like a “sorrority” or a “fraternity.” I happened to live in one particular house with a dozen women for almost 3 of my 4 years. For some odd reason a great number of my closest friends as adults were Kappas and I don’t find them particularly outre. Two of my kids went to small colleges where there was no Greek life, but one lived int he “Rugby” house. My sibling was in Triangle fraternity (an engineering frat) and enjoyed it. Many friends of my kids and kids of my friends participated in fraternities and sonorities without incident and with great enjoyment. As an adult, my husband and I belong to several private clubs. Birds of a feather flock together. I have no problem with fraternities and sororities. Pressure the nationals to run a tight ship. Give the universities the ability to sanction the birds that aren’t flocking acceptably with the rest of the birds. But to “rub” a broad statement that all fraternities and sororities are useless and bad is too expansive and is, in totality, one position.
Look at you go. Way to generalize and stereotype an entire group of people.
We have heard a lot of bad things lately about fraternities. I don’t doubt that there are some bad apples there and some very negative things going on. But there are likely more good people in fraternities. We just don’t hear about them.
we can revisit the subject again in 20 years and see what has happened…but the momentum is building! it is just my opinion nobody has to agree with me. but I think the snow ball is definitely starting to roll.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/usc-frat-suspended-after-student-death-making-it-6-frats-suspended-in-2-weeks/
not even including the michigan frat
I developed a great distaste for the Greek system when my youngest niece was in college. She decided after a very short period it just wasn’t for her.
The girls in that sorority and their BF’s made her life a living hell, she was basically bullied off campus.
Zobroward’s link shows 6 frats suspended in two weeks (actually it’s five, because Furman’s SAE chapter was actually suspended last month not this month).
Other incidents that have popped up in the last few weeks include:
A kid at Maryland’s Sigma Kappa sending around a virulently racist email to his fraternity buddies with advice on how to behave at their upcoming party, that included various racist slurs and ended with the sender’s apparent intention to rape a woman:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/13/umd-racist-frat-email_n_6863386.html
Penn State’s Kappa Delta Rho’s secret Facebook page, which allegedly contained pictures of nude unconscious women posted without their consent.
And, as Zobroward mentions, the hooligans from three fraternities and three sororities at Michigan who vandalized the ski resorts.
So that’s fourteen different chapters at various different colleges that have been in the news in the last few weeks for horrible behavior. I need a Bingo card here.
Yes, some fraternities and sororities should be suspended but don’t generalize. My experience and those of many others was entirely different. I lived in my sorority house for 3 years and loved it. It was a supportive, fun, safe, and vibrant place to spend my college years. My sisters include a Navy Commander, an architect, multiple software designers, nurses, a world-renowned interior designer, an art dealer, lawyers, an Italian historian, a political advisor, a dentist, moms, writers, and engineers. Dig a bit deeper before getting out the big paint brush.
Why do colleges need to regulate frat houses if the frats move off campus and reside in private houses? Colleges don’t regulate off-campus private homes, bars, restaurants, hotels, stripper clubs.
A lot of legal nuisance activities are prohibited on school campuses & workplace premises (e.g., smoking, commercial solicitation, peanuts/allergens, revealing clothing, loud music), and life goes on.
Why not? Why shouldn’t I generalize? When I was in college, the fraternities on my campus contained a large number of drunken, sexist louts. Now, as I scan the news, I see, over and over and over and over, reports of fraternity members being drunken, sexist louts, with a side of racism. Am I supposed to turn off my brain and ignore the pattern?
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Private universities can make not joining fraternities (or sororities) a condition of enrollment.
Public universities cannot prohibit students from such association, but they also need not extend any kind of recognition as student organizations. For example, at the University of Colorado, most fraternities are not recognized by the school, because they are unwilling to agree to the school’s conditions for recognition (see http://www.colorado.edu/greeks/downloads/rfoa0607.pdf ). However, those fraternities continue to exist as completely off-campus organizations.
Sigma Kappa is a sorority, not a fraternity.
Do you scan the news for the fraternities and sororities that make tons of money for charities, who organize events at colleges for all students to enjoy, who are the leaders of their schools? I read lots of news stories about sexual assaults in youth organizations, theft by the treasurers, cheating, bullying. Should we close all those too?
Schools can only supervise or punish the Greek organizations if they are student groups or are on university property. At CU Boulder, the fraternities left the university’s supervision many years ago and aren’t willing to go back under the conditions set by the university. All the houses are off campus and either privately owned or rented by the fraternities. at many schools, the universities own the housing and rent it to the organizations, so have a lot more control
Seems relatively rare that I read anything about Greek life in the paper. (rare enough that when it happens I notice it) But what I seem to be reading about all the time is public school teachers doing bad things to students! Seems I read a story along those lines several times as month!
Maybe we have to get rid of the public school system and its Albatross Teachers.
Although, maybe there are a few good teachers mixed in with the Bad Apples?
My husband and I are both Greek. We managed to get through four years of college without being involved with racism, dangerous hazing, sexual assault or alcohol poisoning, We graduated 30 years ago and still regularly communicate with our Greek brothers and sisters. My oldest D is Greek and I am currently arranging a graduation celebration with her sorority sisters and parents.
The truly good things about the Greek system don’t make the news because it would be boring.
“Why not? Why shouldn’t I generalize? When I was in college, the fraternities on my campus contained a large number of drunken, sexist louts. Now, as I scan the news, I see, over and over and over and over, reports of fraternity members being drunken, sexist louts, with a side of racism. Am I supposed to turn off my brain and ignore the pattern?”
It’s funny, if you generalize against a race, and hold them all guilty-by-association for the acts of a few, they call that racism.