There was a recent, shameful incident at U Mich where some frats/sororities trashed hotel rooms. Your solution is rather like telling the remaining houses that they’d better encourage vandalism, too, or be kicked off campus.
133, Cardinal Fang: [quote] I was assuming that the college would prefer to have both fraternities and sororities serving alcohol to have neither serving alcohol-- because if the college wanted to just stop the fraternities from serving alcohol they would already have done it.
[/quote]
I’ve been assuming colleges don’t enforce rules where fraternities are concerned because fraternities hold so much power. They have power beyond the campus. They have important alums who support the status quo.
We only have to compare male/male couples with female/female couples to see the truth of what dstark says. How many men married to other men are in “open” marriages? How many women married to other women are in “open” marriages?
“I was assuming that the college would prefer to have both fraternities and sororities serving alcohol to have neither serving alcohol-- because if the college wanted to just stop the fraternities from serving alcohol they would already have done it. Colleges that have fraternities that serve alcohol have shown that they want social groups to serve alcohol, otherwise they would have enforced the law already.”
Let’s see. The lacrosse team hazes and I wasn’t able to stop it - therefore, I must equally desire that the tennis team start hazing too. Dorm A throws wild parties where people trash the common room furnishings, therefore I must equally desire that Dorms B, C and D throw similar wild parties.
CF, the administration would prefer not to have multiple moles to whack in the whack-a-mole game. On most campuses, at least they don’t have to worry about the sorority houses being dens of iniquity.
The biggest impediment to “patrolling” alcohol use is whether the houses are privately opened / off campus, or whether they are owned by the university and leased by the chapters (and therefore still subject to university rules). THAT’s what makes enforcement difficult.
Stop saying that the colleges “must not want” to stop fraternities from serving alcohol. Of course they do. This is what keeps college presidents up at night. But if the fraternity house at 123 Main Street is privately owned, they can’t enter it any more than if they want to enter the privately-held apartment complex at 246 Main Street where a dozen students live and throw their own parties.
Good point. You could be right. Do we have evidence about why so many colleges aren’t enforcing the law at fraternities? Why do they say they’re not enforcing the law?
“I’ve been assuming colleges don’t enforce rules where fraternities are concerned because fraternities hold so much power. They have power beyond the campus. They have important alums who support the status quo.”
This is where the northern and southern experience diverges, as in the north there is no “power” beyond the campus and it would be laughable to think that membership in a fraternity would be meaningful if you sought public office or whatever.
The reason that the rules aren’t enforced is simply the existence of private property. Schools with houses that are university-owned / on university property and leased by a house board are subject to the same “inspection” that a dorm might be. Schools with houses that are privately owned on private property aren’t. In the north, it’s as simple as that.
Fraternity parties are not a secret. The campus police or the town police could easily raid them if they wanted to. Do you imagine that Stanford didn’t realize that the party with the Stanford swimmer had alcohol, and if only they’d known, they’d have raided it? Colleges will stop hazing if they catch teams hazing, but the teams hide the hazing. No fraternity is hiding that they are serving alcohol.
Here’s a tangential example, CF - the university-owned Greek houses at my alma mater were mandated to become ADA-compliant, which they have since done by adding wheelchair ramps and the like. If they didn’t do so by x date, the u would do it for them and charge it back. They all did so, which cost them $x million.
Could a u mandate that a privately owned house become ADA compliant? How would they enforce that?
“No fraternity is hiding that they are serving alcohol.”
Lol! Sure they do. If they know they will be on probation if they are found out.
There is no evidence, only conjecture, that women would be safer if sororities hosted events with alcohol. I am not so sure that is true. Some women would be unhappy that their homes would now become party scenes so that even if they didn’t want to go to a frat party, it would come to them. The idea is somehow the women would have more control, but not necessarily true.
From what i hear, frat houses are generally pretty disgusting. Women may not be as tolerant of that level of filth as men are. Lots of negative stuff, not to mention liability, would come from sororities hosting keggers.
I agree with PG that colleges can’t control drinking now. Why would they want to require sororities to host such parties? If they want the frats or athletic teams or the drama kids to stop having parties with booze, they could come down harder on those events. The problem is that kids may stop wanting to attend that college - especially big, party hearty schools. And there is likely ambivalence among administrators, who likely went to college either when the drinking age was 18 or when it was 21 and they drank anyway.
The thinking seems to be that the women wouldn’t go to the frat houses to drink if they could drink at their own houses. That is silly because it assumes they are not interested in the frat boys at those houses but are instead going there for the beer. Somehow, I doubt this very much.
They are probably going for both. Plus, why would the sorority host a party where they have to supply the alcohol if they can go next door and get it for free?
The drinking (and raucous behavior) at my nephew’s coed eating club at Princeton makes my son’s fraternity look like choirboys. So much for the “civilizing” effect of women.
Look, young people getting sloppy drunk is a bad, dangerous thing regardless of whether it is concentrated in 10 fraternities or divided amongst 10 frats and 10 sororities.
I have zero problem with administration cracking down on frat drinking and am agape at the idea that some think the solution is encouraging the sororities to host parties too.
It really shocked me to find out that at Princeton, even at a less high status eating club, the unwritten rule was that only a man could be president of the eating club. A woman would just never win that post. How is that still the case in 2015?
It is hardly in keeping with the ideals of sistercare to say “hey, the way to keep you safe from going to the fraternities and getting blitzed is to have you sit here in our very own pristine living rooms and get blitzed there, instead.”
Pretend this was anything else other than alcohol which enjoys a lot of don’t-ask-don’t-tell status (whether that’s right or not is another topic). Let’s make it cocaine. And let’s suppose there is a trend where sorority girls go to the frats and they all do lines of coke together. Not that this has never happened in the history of young adult life.
No one would seriously say - the national sororities ought to then relax their prohibitions on doing illegal drugs in their houses, so the girls will be “safer” doing coke in their own living rooms. No one would seriously say - the universities should insist that the sorority houses allow coke, so the girls are in less danger. They would say - go after the problem, ensure that coke isn’t done on campus! And not that you could eliminate it entirely, but make the punishments / consequences far more severe.
And yet what you guys are advocating is precisely the above.
PG: It goes against the idea of sistercare to have sororities going to fraternity parties where we know sorority girls are at risk. A house where you need a buddy system is probably a house sorority girls would be better off avoiding. You and I agreed National was justified in forbidding sorority girls participating in fraternity rush weekend at UVA. I agreed with the point you raised about sistercare there. I am ready to go a step further and support banning all sorority girls from all fraternity parties. Is this paternalistic? Yes. But the girls will have a choice. They can be in a sorority or they can go to fraternity parties. Paternalism is built into the greek system. So is an emphasis on appearances. What we show the world may not be reflective of the inner workings. Officially there are no boys upstairs and no drinking. Unofficially this is pretty common.
I am moving back to the Emma thread. Two threads is too much for me.
"I am ready to go a step further and support banning all sorority girls from all fraternity parties. Is this paternalistic? Yes. "
Still doesn’t solve the problem to me, though. So now the “bad guys” prey on unaffiliated girls who go to their parties. That’s hardly “better” IMO. Every girl should be safe on campus, regardless of Greek status.
Oh, I am still closing down the fraternities. Now we just have official sorority support for that move.
Or we can just say closing down all the parties and sorority support for that, but I prefer just closing them down.
And then they move off-campus, become unofficial, etc. The problem still isn’t solved but sorority girls are no longer officially enabling the behavior. Unofficially the sorority girls will still be there. Of that, I am fairly certain.
“The problem still isn’t solved but sorority girls are no longer officially enabling the behavior. Unofficially the sorority girls will still be there. Of that, I am fairly certain.”
Agree. Girls like guys and vice versa. That’s kind of a universal truth here.
I guess the real question is - is it better to shut something down so that you (college) have NO control over it, or to allow it but keep a tight rein? I mean, shutting fraternities down completely doesn’t mean that everyone in the college will now just play tiddlywinks on Saturday night. There are plenty of drinking parties available at colleges who don’t have Greek systems; they’re just now held at Bob and Ted’s house off campus instead of Tappa Tappa Keg’s house.
CF, I still want to understand what you mean by the bolded part of the below post:
"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?”
Colleges who decide to go after fraternities for drinking don’t need sorority “support” or “approval” to do so. They’ll just move in as they see fit. It’s like saying that if the college goes after the lacrosse team for hazing, they need the support of the tennis team to do so. I don’t think those of you outside the system truly get that these systems are NOT hooked / linked the way you think they are.