Greek life is huge at IU, I’m surprised they took this step. Articles say they are the 8th university to do so this year, though not all suspended both sororities and fraternities.
http://www.idsnews.com/article/2017/11/caifc is the article from the student newspaper there.
Looks like it is from the IFC, so it applies only to IFC fraternities, not sororities or non-IFC fraternities.
From what I saw on the news, the suspension is only through February. So with winter break coming up, it’s only really suspended for a few weeks
They have problems that really need to be fixed. Some have been caused by clueless administrators (i.e. It’s hazing to require pledges to attend study tables) but the kids are out of control as well. Same thing happened at Michigan.
I have to wonder if the suspension is anything like the one at Michigan. Yesterday, I had breakfast with some friends. One has a son in a leadership position in his social fraternity. He told her they’re still doing social activities, because the frats are allowed to hold an activity if they had already scheduled and paid for the event. It sounded odd to all of us.
If anyone is actually interested, check out penn state. They started the trend and basically busted the traditional model. The announced new requirements. They seem pretty tough. My guess is more schools will follow.
https://studentaffairs.indiana.edu/student-life-learning/fraternity-sorority/joining.shtml indicates that there are 28 IFC fraternities and 4 colonies.
Outside the IFC, there are 5 fraternities in the MCGC and 5 fraternities in the NPHC.
About 19% of IU students are in a fraternity or sorority.
I had only heard the Fraternities were suspending activities for a few months, haven’t heard anything about the sororities and my d is planning to go through Sorority rush in January and she hasn’t said anything yet about activities being suspended.
Your original post is somewhat confusing, especially to those unfamiliar with the greek system.
The IFC council voluntarily voted to suspend activity. This was not an action of the university.
http://www.idsnews.com/article/2017/11/caifc
In addition to fraternities @ucbalumnus mentioned in post #6, greek life also includes the Panhellenic Association (sororities.)
Re #8: In reading the articles, I got the impression that the fraternities are suspending activities with themselves, with other fraternities, and with sororities, but the suspension doesn’t include sorority activities. So, for example, it appears that Sigma Nu can’t party with a sorority, but the sororities can party with each other. Is that right?
Note that there are also 7 sororities in MCGC and 4 sororities in NPHC, in addition to the 20 sororities and 1 colony in the PHA. (MCGC and NPHC include both sororities and fraternities.)
As an aside, photos from the Indiana fraternity and sorority chapters suggest a relatively high level of racial/ethnic segregation in the fraternities and sororities there.
I think my headline was clear that the fraternities did it, perhaps “they are the 8th u to do this” should have been “they are the 8th u where this happened” or some such. It was unclear at first from the articles i read (like this USN article https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/11/28/indiana-university-suspends-fraternity-and-sorority-activity/900880001/ ) who initiated the suspension of activities, also whether it was only fraternities or both. UCB corrected that point in Post #1 though.
So here is what is happening. Fraternities and Sororities are “self governed” by separate bodies, i.e.; IFC. Due to the problems fraternities have been causing, administrations are strong arming the IFC at particular schools to “voluntarily” suspend activities while they develop solutions. It’s “you do this voluntarily or we’ll shut you all down.” If you look at Penn State, the big thing that happened is they took the discipline function away from the IFC and put it into the University. They hired monitors and all sorts of other things. It’s a big change, which I suspect will be replicated at schools across the country.
“I had only heard the Fraternities were suspending activities for a few months, haven’t heard anything about the sororities and my d is planning to go through Sorority rush in January and she hasn’t said anything yet about activities being suspended.”
It does not affect Sorority Rush. They are governed by a different organization.
“Re #8: In reading the articles, I got the impression that the fraternities are suspending activities with themselves, with other fraternities, and with sororities, but the suspension doesn’t include sorority activities. So, for example, it appears that Sigma Nu can’t party with a sorority, but the sororities can party with each other. Is that right?”
As a general rule, Sororities can’t sponsor parties – They don’t have parties at their houses. So they wouldn’t party with each other.
An Sigma Nu is toast – they can’t party with anyone. 
Sororities CAN have parties at their houses, but they can’t have alcohol at those parties, so therefore they don’t have parties at their sorority houses. They do host parties at off campus venues, sometimes with fraternities as co-hosts.
CU frats have been independent for years. They do have an IFC but they are not a student organization. Sororities are PanHell members and a students organization. That all is possible because the houses are off campus and so the frats didn’t have to get out of leases or listen to CU.
Even when UVa shut down the entire Greek system after the Rolling Stone article was released, the school had to quickly change that edict. They had to keep the actual houses open as there isn’t enough housing without the Greek houses. The houses don’t run very well if the students living in those houses can’t have meetings to enforce discipline or give out information.