So let 'em round up the underage sorority girls when they start busting frat parties. Fine with me. That’s a better solution - “punishing” those who drink underage - than stupidly insisting that sororities should start serving underage students.
And if the university decides to go after the underage students at frat parties and/or close down a frat house for serving underage students (of either gender), there is no NEED for “support” or “backup” from the sororities. Why on earth would you think the university would need to enlist a sorority’s “support” in this matter?
PG: I’ve been thinking a lot about the banning of sororities at UVA from fraternity bid activities and kind of daydreaming about banning sororities everywhere from participating in any official fraternity events. I like that idea a lot. In my scenario, choosing to be in a sorority means you will not attend fraternity events. It’s a free choice.
“You can’t tell the organizations what to do. You can tell them that if they can’t agree to common rules with fraternities then they lose their privileges on campus. They can then decide what they would like to do”
Yes. Tell a sorority they need to defy their national and serve alcohol. Oh, and incur the liability. Which means losing their house insurance because no sorority house insurer is going to write a policy covering them then. Are you insane? You continue to demonstrate a complete lack of knowledge about who owes fealty to whom.
Your solution is about as goofy as saying - oh, the lacrosse team has a hazing problem, so we better insist the tennis team start hazing too.
PG: There is no reason she should understand. It is not a system that makes the least bit of sense to those outside it. It requires explanation. imho. ymmv.
PG: Well, we will have to agree to disagree, but I don’t think it is reasonable to expect those with no experience of greek life to understand these things. It does seem obvious to us. I don’t expect it to be obvious to others without our experiences. I understand that it makes no sense to them. It makes no sense to me!
I know I’m being lazy by not looking myself, but those papers looked really complex and I’m wondering if he only counts sexual encounters involving at least two or more students and do you further divide by the number of participants?
Because, each time sex is…had…an argument could be made that there are two (or more) people experiencing it and that could potentially halve the cost. Or, is he considering that only one partner is getting “benefit” when it occurs?
Again, SO WHAT? If the university decides it wants to go after fraternities for serving underage students, it needs no “backup” or “support” or “consent” or “acquiescence” of sororities to do so. So this “sororities, wish to rethink your stance?” makes no sense. If the u wants to go after Tappa Tappa Keg, it’s completely irrelevant what a sorority “thinks” of that move. Yes, some of their girls may or will be caught up in it. What are they going to do - whine that their girls shouldn’t be subject to the relevant drinking laws?
“Did we ever figure out what the actual price of sex at USC was? Is it as simple as “cost of putting on parties” divided by number of …uh…hookups?”
To listen to this, you’d think that college aged boys and girls - including those who are Greek - never dated or had sex outside the context of a frat party.
"True, alh, but the university can play hardball too. Say that the sororities piously say that gosh, they don’t want to serve alcohol to underage people because it’s illegal, so sorry. The university could then say, “Glad to hear that you’re so concerned about underage drinking! So are we. Good thing we won’t find any sorority sisters when we start busting fraternity parties for underage alcohol. Glad you’ll back us up when we start closing down fraternities for serving alcohol… Do you want to rethink this stance, sororities?”
The reason this makes no sense, CF, is that the u doesn’t NEED to “play hardball” with a non-alcohol-serving sorority in order to enforce the relevant drinking laws at a fraternity. The u can enforce those rules tomorrow if they so choose - of course, whether the physical house is owned / on campus or off campus impacts their ability to monitor. But the sororities have no power to stand in the way of whatever enforcement the u chooses, so “hardball” is just an irrelevant concept.
The Hernandez paper, and a lot of stuff I’ve read, say that the fraternities are marketing their parties to sorority women: that sorority women go to fraternity parties, and like to go to fraternity parties. And my impression is further enhanced by the reaction of the UVa sororities to their nationals’ demand that they stay away from fraternity parties for a weekend-- they were outraged.
I conclude that sorority women like to go to fraternity parties. They want to drink alcohol at parties with fraternity men-- they just don’t want to have those parties. For that reason, I’m assuming that sororities would not be happy if their universities shut down fraternity parties.
Colleges and universities assuredly could shut down fraternity parties. I would be perfectly happy if fraternities and sororities were both forced to be dry. But I very much doubt if the majority of current sorority members would be in favor of that solution. I think if colleges and universities nationwide said, “Sororities and fraternities both have parties with alcohol, or neither have parties with alcohol” sororities at most schools would choose “both.”
115 Cardinal Fang:
[quote]
Colleges and universities assuredly could shut down fraternity parties. I would be perfectly happy if fraternities and sororities were both forced to be dry. But I very much doubt if the majority of current sorority members would be in favor of that solution. I think if colleges and universities nationwide said, "Sororities and fraternities both have parties with alcohol, or neither have parties with alcohol" sororities at most schools would choose "both."
[/quote]
I don’t know. I think the majority of current sorority members would be devastated if fraternities were banned. I don’t know if they care that much about the alcohol. I think it is about access to those boys, not about access to alcohol. They can drink in their rooms before the parties. I doubt any sororities are dry.
However, I continue to be amazed at how the drinking culture seems to have changed since I was in college in the 70s, and the drinking age was 18, and maybe I’m flat-out wrong.
ETA: Those UVA sorority girls weren’t denied access to alcohol that weekend. They were denied access to fraternity boys. That was the outrage. imho. Sorority women generally have large enough allowances to buy their own alcohol.
