"The University of Texas at Arlington has suspended all social activities of Greek organizations due to “concerns regarding the culture of the fraternal community,” the school said Wednesday.
The university, which has about 28,000 undergraduates among its more than 40,000 students, began the suspension of social activities of fraternities and sororities Monday so that it can study their communities’ culture, the university’s chief spokesperson said in a statement." …
I am not a fan of the fraternal community but this seems to be overkill. To shut down these organizations just because it is happening on other campuses seems very arbitrary. Maybe there is more to the story. I do know the fraternal organizations at UTD and their social activities are important for many students and these organizations adhere to the boundaries that have been set.
Yeah- I don’t get lumping all counsels together. There has to be more to the story - like concerns about activities at mixers or something.
According to reddit, it was because 1 person got alcohol poisoning at a hazing event and there has been other sexual assault charges brought up. So not one big event but a culmination of smaller but serious events.
Yes - back in the dark ages - I was in a sorority, and would have no problems allowing my daughters to join if that is what they wanted to do. There was no hazing etc. But if I had a son - I would seriously question joining a fraternity. So lumping the all the different councils together pretty major. I’m assuming it also covers the multi-cultural and national Pan-Hellenic (in addition to the IFC and NPC).
It appears the state legislators are also getting involved, not because of UT Arlington but other incidents in the state.
https://start.att.net/news/read/article/austin_americanstate-crackdown_on_hazing_gains_momentum_among_state_law-tca-2/category/News
As that article points out - hazing does happen across all types of student organizations, not just greek letter ones. But all of the examples presented involved male students. I believe it is more prevalent in male only groups. Back in my day - as a pledge you had to interview every single active member of the sorority and keep the interview notes all in a notebook. It was a way to get to know everyone it the chapter. But even that is now deemed “hazing,” mainly because of its potential for abuse. In theory the active could withhold a signature if you did not complete a task or something. The sororities at my school went out of the way not to haze. But the business and theatre fraternities did minor (not physically risky) hazing.