If my fraternity chapter raises money for a charity: Yay me! That’s my fraternity!
If my fraternity chapter kills people by hazing: Not my problem, why should I have to pay?
All the credit, none of the blame. Got it.
Again, systemic need not be a part of a charter or business plan, one need only look at the practices of many law enforcement entities and either the abolishment or revamping of entire divisions. In short, it is what is institionally accepted and cultivated. Like any boardroom, what is more telling, is what is said behind closed doors, rather than a professionally released PSA. What you fail to either recognize or address, is the where they these young people obtain the impetus for profoundly chronic behavior…
PG,
What you are not seemingly getting is the fact that the distinction you’re trying to make is a meaningless one, especially if pan-Hellenic greek organizations like SAE want to claim they embody strong leadership principles.
I don’t know…but disclaiming responsibility for happening on the watch/oversight of a national SAE event under the “it’s not on the official agenda” doesn’t strike me or many other folks as an example of strong leadership. If anything, it presents at best, an attempt to abandon the responsibilities which come with exerting “strong leadership” precisely at a time when it’s most needed…when something/someone within the organization/event screws up. Frankly, it’s a cop out.
SAE national sponsored the cruise so it was an official event on their watch. One of the leadership’s responsibilities when sponsoring an official event on behalf of their organization is to be responsible for the conduct of their members and guests as rightfully or wrongfully, they will be held morally and sometimes legally responsible for it.
This is probably one of the factors for why national pan-hellenic organizations have been doing their utmost to unload their legal liabilities onto individual members and their parents. While legally and financially wise, this can understandably be viewed as the complete opposite of demonstrating “strong leadership” and the responsibilities which come with it.
Well, my sorority chapter didn’t haze, so I’m not quite sure why I should be strung up for that.
If belonging to a national organization means you have no association with the national organization whatsoever in any way, shape or form, why do you belong in the national organization? What does it even mean to belong to a national organization, if you disavow everything that they do that you don’t like? What is the point of your sorority chapter being affiliated with the national organization?
Hmmm, what you don’t address is that most all F/Ss are suppose to be dry and not haze–but, actually this is a most common practice–still no disconnect or problem, huh?
PG: In my opinion, the only appropriate response of any member of a greek organization, to any sort of hazing in greek organizations, should be:How do we stop that?
Since I’ve been thinking about this for 40 years and don’t see how we can stop it, since I think it is just too ingrained in the system, I support closing down the whole system.
Sure fraternities can be a positive experience. My brother was in a non-rapey, non-hazing fraternity, which was a wonderful social experience for him. He is still extremely close to several fraternity brothers decades later. During his fraternity years, several pledges at other houses on his campus were accidentally killed. One was left drunk, naked, bound, blindfolded, and gagged out in the country and was struck and killed by a car on a rural road. I guess it is possible to argue any student can potentially, accidentally drink him or herself to death, and sometimes do. I don’t think in other circumstances there is much chance of the rest of that scenario. I don’t think the loss of that student’s life was worth my brother’s positive experience. That fraternity was suspended a year or two. Hazing did not disappear.
and then there is rape culture…
How can the non-rapey groups possibly be worth the negative impact of the rapey ones?
How many positive experiences are worth one rape?
I saw Hunting Ground this week. It should be shown at first year orientation everywhere. imho
@boolaHi, it would be helpful when you address someone as “you” that you identify them. If you use the @ feature in front of their screen name, it will alert them that you have directed your comment at them, and it will help the reader understand which comments you are providing feedback on. I am not always sure at whom you are directing your comments.
Also: when people reference a post number, that’s fine if it’s on the same page or only one before, but when people reference post numbers which are way back in the thread, that’s annoying. Why don’t people use the quote function in those circumstances so we can all see what’s being referenced?
To those who propose ditching the whole Greek system, does that go for AA fraternities and sororities, Jewish houses, etc.? Or do we assume those groups do not engage in hazing or under age drinking? At my alma mater, there was a strong AA group presence, IIRC. I think there are even some largely Hispanic houses there as well. Do they all go?
As to hazing, D1 pledged a sorority at her school, but after a year decided it wasn’t for her and dropped out after freshman year. According to her, the main reason was that she began to resent all the required events which made it impossible to dedicate time to things she discovered that year that she wanted to do, such as Improv group and stage managing. She said there was NO hazing at all. She said she would have de-pledged before she would ever have been hazed.
D2 pledged a sorority as well and is also considering dropping for senior year due to time constraints and lack of interest after doing it for 3 years. She has gotten really close to a group of kids in her major, and most of them are dropping Greek life because of the conflict between time required for Greek and time required to do well in their classes. She also states there is no hazing at all in her sorority. They shower their pledges with gifts and treat them like princesses during pledgeship.
I don’t think hazing is done in sororities even remotely to the degree of the fraternities.
Nrdsb4: I don’t want any greek organizations on campus. I understand some groups have a huge positive impact on their communities beyond the university and don’t see why those groups can’t continue outside a university setting. There are all sorts of philanthropic groups not tied to universities. Shrinkrap has written in other, older threads about her sorority’s community service projects and I would never want to advocate for eliminating those projects. Never.
I agree hazing isn’t a big sorority problem. I agree the “time suck” is. That was discussed in the book some of us read, Paying for the Party. It was something I experienced. I needed more time for studying in my major (which I really enjoyed!) than the sorority allowed if I participated in all mandatory activities. So I skipped out and racked up some serious demerits.
Also, the argument comes up over and over, Of course, you can be friends with those not in your sorority. True, but if the sorority is sucking up all your free time for sorority activities, the theoretical option to socialize with those outside the group isn’t really practical.
ETA: Remember, I’m advocating for sororities going to random, lottery admissions for all women interested. That eliminates most of my objections to sororities. They are still organizations not all will be able to afford and they aren’t helpful in creating an inclusive campus unless all women decide to join.
Although hazing isn’t a sorority problem, imho, teaching and/or encouragement of behaviors associated with eating disorders was a huge problem back in the 70s. There were long term health repercussions. I don’t know about today. I hope not.
Many of my students join the Greek system, often with my support. My big complaint about sororities is that in every single NPC sorority system I have ever seen – whether it’s Harvard/MIT or Whoville State – the sororities are stratified by looks to a significant degree. There is always a “hot” group or tier of groups and at least one unattractive group. There’s no other kind of club or housing system where that’s true at every campus, not even performing arts clubs where you could actually make an argument that looks/stage presence are relevant.
I am sure that many individual chapters are not ranking the potential members by hotness, but (1) every group doesn’t need to do it to generate a campus where women are grouped by looks, and (2) when you go through recruitment, you have to submit yourself to the judgment of the “hot-girls-only” groups as well as the open-minded ones. That troubles me even though most of my students have good experiences after joining. The last thing America’s 18-year-old women need is more emphasis on their sex appeal.
I don’t think fraternities have this issue so consistently. There are plenty of campuses where handsomeness doesn’t seem to play much of a role in who joins which house.
I don’t understand why people can’t form groups with people they want to socialize with. There are various ethnic clubs on campus - Jewish, Asian, Black…even though those clubs are supposed to be open to everyone, but no one outside of the ethnicity joins the group. When you get whole bunch Asian kids together, I can’t believe they don’t talk badly about other race (especially when they are drunk), likewise when you get whole bunch black kids together they probably would talk trash about other people too. I would like to set up a recording at some of their social events to hear what they are saying. Not that it is ok to talk trash about anyone, but no one would think it is news worthy to post it on youtube when it is Asian/Blacks making racist remarks against white people. (I am Asian. Yes, I have heard Asians making racist remarks. Maybe Booha can tell us that black people do not)
For what it is worth, one of my nephews is in SAE. He is not white, not a racist, nor would he even think of disrespecting anyone, much less of women.
@oldfort without going into an overly pedantic analysis of race, power structure and society, I’ll concede no race is absolved from such ethnic meanderings. Far be it from me, as I have been privilege to things, worlds and institutions that I would have never imagined as a young man–that said, the fact that racism is inextricable intertwined with the class structure, well, it is quite another thing when historically white frats participate in such overt and aggressive acts.
Are you saying blacks do not participate in overt and aggressive acts against other race, like Asians? I deleted a paragraph from my previous post. It had to do with how my brother was physically and mentally abused by black students at his high school. He wasn’t the only Asian who experienced such abuse. He didn’t suffer similar kind of abuse from white students at his school. I believe that kind of behavior continues today, but it is not as news worthy as blacks being abused by white. Again, I am not condoning aggressive behavior by anyone, but we should try not to be too one sided when claiming discrimination and aggressive acts.
boolaHI - you thought your daughter’s abusive experience was a lot worst and relevant than my experience as an Asian.
With or without Greek life, those bigot people will still find each other and commit aggressive acts toward people of different race. It is too easy to blame it on an organization and think it would be an easy fix to wipe out discrimination by dismantling an organization. It is going to be through education and improving of economic oppression to change people’s behavior, not by taking away people’s freedom to form association.
@oldfort, We empower these structures, and for me, I can personally attest to both the racism and sexual exploitation that have long been their history. When it is up close and personal, it becomes quite another matter–these are not theoretical situations. I also can attest to the heavy handed manner in which they attempted to bully my family and I to back of charges. I pray you would not have to be cornered in this way in your lifetime. If not for my own legal credentials and connections, this could have gone entirely a different way…
How do you address the fact that frats are the 6th most difficult entity to insure in the US–right next to the transportation of toxic waste–care to weigh-in on this bizarre fact?
I was raised by a bigot who would have given Archie Bunker a run for his money. Very few minorities in my life, very little diversity in the areas where I lived. I knew a lot of words that were not PC even then, but I didn’t know what most of them meant or that they were not acceptable. I don’t think this was unusual in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s. I see a lot of people use the would ‘jipped’ online, when of course they mean gypped, and it comes gypsies being cheats. Once I learned this I stopped using the word, and I cringe when I see others use it. Of course I do not use any of the terms I grew up hearing, including Oriental or Chinaman and have requested, many times, that my parents not use them as I have a Chinese daughter. They try, but they still use the terms sometimes. They don’t really see them as derogatory because they don’t mean them that way, and don’t understand why someone would mind being called that.
My kids are so different, but in some ways so naive. They didn’t grow up hearing these terms and don’t know what many of them mean so if they heard one, they might think the term was acceptable. If they learned it in a song, they’d sing along. Should they know better? Yes. Do they? I know they aren’t always thinking straight.
I do think there is a herd mentality when a group of college aged kids gets together, with alcohol. They don’t think, they just sing along and everyone laughs and they are more encouraged. Was this same song being sung in 1988? 1996? Sure, there just weren’t recordings of it because there weren’t cell phones. Wasn’t right then, still isn’t right.
Kids are idiots. Kids get caught sexting and shoplifting in middle school because now everything is recorded. Teachers are recorded in class losing their tempers and belittling kids, and now everyone is shocked. It’s been going on for decades. Everything is bigger than life now because we can record it and see it on the news. I used the examples of kids getting caught doing stupid things all the time with my kids, the 8th graders getting expelled for sexting, the 16 year old driver being charges for kids riding on the hood of the car, the glee club being disbanded because they wrecked the music room, saying ‘see what happens when you don’t think!’ I sure hope they think before going along with the team, the group, the sorority prank. I hope they are kind, inclusive, having fun without hurting others. But they are 18 and immature so I can’t guarantee anything.
315, oldfort: If we dismantle fraternities, the individuals who would have been fraternity brothers will still be able to associate with each other and they can still exclude those they don't like from their friendship group if they so choose.
However, they won’t be attending conferences where they learn racist songs. That doesn’t mean they won’t sing racist songs, but they won’t be part of a national friendship group where those songs are a tradition of some sort and where at least some members have been handing them down to newer members for a while. They have less access to culturally approved racism. imho. ymmv.
What happens when we disband the rapey fraternities? I don’t know. Will all the potential rapists on campus find each other and continue to victimize women? Will a group of guys who meet in the dorm decide to set up a face book page showing photos of nude unconscious women? Will they have easy access to nude, unconscious women to take those photos? I would hope at least it will make it a bit more difficult for them. Fraternities make it really easy for like minded individuals to find each other and I do believe the culture corrupts.
I think some student deaths (like the hazing death I described up-thread) don’t happen in the absence of fraternities. Maybe some bands do this as well. I am not at all familiar with band culture. If it is a pervasive problem in bands, I’m for banning them as well. It is a long term, pervasive fraternity problem. it is nothing new. Education has not helped.
"If belonging to a national organization means you have no association with the national organization whatsoever in any way, shape or form, why do you belong in the national organization? What does it even mean to belong to a national organization, if you disavow everything that they do that you don’t like? "
That’s not what I said, CF. I am saying that a national organization only has so much oversight on the individual behavior of members. If they find out, of course they can sanction them, kick them out, etc. - my, just like SAE national once they heard of the OU situation. But there’s this oddness on here where it’s assumed that just because national says don’t do X, that they have some magical power over the individuals.
BoolaHi seemed to be under some delusion that the n-word chant was part of the SAE official agenda because it’s systemic. That’s completely ridiculous. Of course it’s not. But all they can do is say to their chapters - guys, this kind of behavior isn’t tolerated, if we hear it, we will shut it down. They can’t “prevent” Brother BillyBob from quietly saying to Brother JoeBob, “hey, ha ha, get a load of this funny chant I learned.”
My national was two blocks away from my house. (Actually, SAE’s national is two blocks away in the other direction! LOL) They were there as guidance and support. But if we decided to sing silly, ribald songs among ourselves in the privacy of our bedrooms, precisely how should they have monitored and dealt with that?