Hey, there are schools without Greeks and those for whom having no Greeks on campus is a priority can opt to go to one of those schools. What the student can’t do is go to Dartmouth or Standford without Greeks (or sports, or marching bands, or 10 other things the student might not like). In fact, wanting to go to a school with no Greeks is really going to limit the number of schools available, but that’s a choice the applicant has to make. Some people choose to skip all religious schools, or single sex schools, or schools below the Mason Dixon line. Lots of choices.
What students (or their parents) can’t do is remove the things they don’t like from the schools. Don’t like crucifixes on the walls? Don’t go to Notre Dame (but no Greeks!). Don’t like required core curriculum? Don’t go to schools that require those courses. Don’t like big time sports? Plenty of small schools that don’t have football or basketball.
Dartmouth and Stanford are likely very different in fraternity and sorority presence. About a quarter of Stanford students participate, while about two thirds of eligible Dartmouth students participate. A student not interested in fraternities and sororities is more likely to find the fraternities and sororities at Dartmouth to be an overbearing presence (particularly with the school being relatively isolated), but less likely to find that to be the case at Stanford.
I will also say my experiences are colored and informed as having an academic appointment at a historically top 10 rated university and as an attorney. Long story short, under-reporting is rampant at most universities and from the legal side the amount of payouts and settlements with these organizations are astounding.
The studies so far haven’t demonstrated that fraternity men rape more than other students (that would be difficult to demonstrate if it were true), but the studies do demonstrate that fraternity guys have rapey-er attitudes.
Fraterity members according to studies score about .2 of a point lower on gpa, They miss class more often. They also are almost 3 times as likely to use stimulants than nonfraternity members by the time they graduate according to a kentucky study
But the OP wants to get rid of all fraternities and sororities, at Stanford and at Dartmouth and the hundreds of other schools that host them. He/she doesn’t care that schools offer different experiences, wants them all gone. I was just pointing out there are schools without Greek houses, but choosing one of those schools really limits the pool of schools from which to pick. No one should pick a school with Greek houses and expect to eliminate them.
Hmmmn, really. What would you call an organization that for the last 45 years, yes 45 years, has accounted for at least one death, per year, via hazing. Or organizations that have been reasonsible for gang rapes? Or organizations, that asked their potential members to be subordinate to forced drinking, assuming racists positions or even physical torture? Or organizations that lead and promote taking, unauthorized pictures of our daughters and sisters, in the nude or in the act of sex? Or even after over 50 years have incredibly low participation of people of color? Or that more than several presidents of major universities, are considering a total revamp or abolishing the entire system all together.
So, while many do good, does any of the above, in the aggregate, and certainly cumulatively, say something that things are just not awry, there is a profound disconnect with societal norms and expectations.
People vote with their feet. If enough young adults decide that Greek life isn’t something they want to do or it goes counter to something they perceived, Greek life will die away. The disconnect between societal norms may or may not lead to change. My fifties generation sure thought my generation was far afield from societal norms of their time. But change is not necessarily going to come from out generation through sheer will, it will come from the young adults who make their own choices.
Well, a few members of the Vanderbilt football team also participated in a gang rape. Should we get rid of football everywhere? The FAMU band committed hazing resulting in death. Should we get rid of all marching bands? Do any schools without Greeks ever have any rapes, crimes, cheating, partying? If you can’t blame the Greeks, I guess you’ll just have to get rid of those schools entirely as the only explanation is that the culture at those schools promotes violence and the bad outweighs the good.
“Well, a few members of the Vanderbilt football team also participated in a gang rape. Should we get rid of football everywhere? The FAMU band committed hazing resulting in death. Should we get rid of all marching bands?”
Exactly. This is EXACTLY the logic (or lack thereof) that some of you are engaging in.
Look - no one is saying that racism, hazing, etc. aren’t bad things and shouldn’t be stopped / punished / eliminated. We’re saying that you stop them where they are present - you don’t just blanketly assume all Greeks are like that.
I guess if the enlightened thinkers out there understood freedom, they would stop attacking groups , speech, the righ to bear arms, etc, just because THEY DON’T LIKE IT! The crime is already a crime, as Pizzagirl articulates, the existence of a fraternity or group is not in itself a crime, nor necessarily the cause of criminal or immoral behavior. I am going to go out on a limb and say date rape and drunken lewdness will not disappear because fraternities do, it is a character flaw already present in the individual. Personal responsibility and accountability please come back to our culture.
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Well, a few members of the Vanderbilt football team also participated in a gang rape. Should we get rid of football everywhere? The FAMU band committed hazing resulting in death. Should we get rid of all marching bands? Do any schools without Greeks ever have any rapes, crimes, cheating, partying? If you can't blame the Greeks, I guess you'll just have to get rid of those schools entirely as the only explanation is that the culture at those schools promotes violence and the bad outweighs the good.
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While it would not distress me for football teams and marching bands to disappear, I do understand many students enjoy games and half-time shows. An argument can be made these groups enrich campus culture as a whole. I don’t see how greek organizations enrich campus culture as a whole.
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I am going to go out on a limb and say date rape and drunken lewdness will not disappear because fraternities do, it is a character flaw already present in the individual. Personal responsibility and accountability please come back to our culture.
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What some of us are wondering is if the bad fraternities are teaching and encouraging sexual assault behaviors to those who might not otherwise participate. They provide an environment where this behavior becomes a norm instead of an aberration. One theory is that there are really only a few serial rapists on college campuses. If that is true, in these gang rape situations, they somehow all found each other to participate. Another theory is that our sons are being corrupted by exposure to rape culture images and behaviors. Either way, it would seem to me most students are better off when these groups are eliminated, even though it won’t solve the problem of college sexual assault and rape. It should help. Why don’t we support that idea?
Bad stuff happens at a relative few greek chapters. Those chapters should be closed/booted off campus and members involved should get punished (to include prosecution for criminal charges if a crime has been committed). Absolutely. Zero tolerance for rape, racism, hazing, criminal damage to property etc.
But why shut down the chapters that were not involved and would not tolerate these things?
Well, I think this is exactly what sets up the underpinning for public discussion and discourse. And like many things in society the issue is not entirely black or white. My thoughts and rationale, are again, tied to my own experiences (as a person of color and an attorney) and the evolution, if any, of this specific organization. A death a year, and in some years, multiple deaths, coupled with all of the other documented behavior, frames the contemporary posit–should they be reformed or all together abolished?
When sitting university presidents articulate this same thought, make no mistake about it, the issue has reached an inflection point. These are not reactive or uneducated folks making these questions, they sit at the top of academia, with the ability to access all data points. Some of which the general public will never see; including
judgements and settlements that rise to the 100 million level, on behalf of these organizations. Frankly, I know of no other organizations (outside of the military, law enforcement and occupations like off-shore drilling) that annually tally a death/deaths, for the last 45 years…
I’ve been working on college campuses for 30 years. I have lots of stories about bad frat events, and in all honesty, I can’t come up with a good one. I suspect there are some good ones, but I’ve never seen them.
@alh, you are merely speculating that if we eliminate fraternities, then behavior will or might change. While it certainly sounds and feels logical, that does not make it so. I seriously doubt my son would date rape a girl just because he was a member of a fraternity. He was raised to respect women and understands right from wrong. Peer pressure exists in all walks of life, we are social creatures and belong to all types of groups, including our employers, sports teams, charities, churches, etc. To ban one form of social structure because there is a perceived problem with behavior CAUSED by such a group, is to open up a very slippery slope. There is bad behavior associated with nearly any group, look no further than governments, corporations, churches, etc…do we ban them all?