If fraternities have no value, why do schools continue to add houses and increase membership every year? Why did the fraternities and sororities at Harvard fight so hard (both state and federal law suits) to be able to join them?
It’s easy not to join. At most colleges the Greeks make up less than 10% of the student body. Ignore them if you want. Why does it matter so much to people to ban them so that no one can join them? At many schools they are providing housing and meals so that the college doesn’t have to, do a lot of service activities on and off campus, run some activities (homecoming, winter carnivals) that benefit all students.
At best? Well I think the hundreds of charities they help each year would disagree. The college students in my organization raise hundreds of thousands and volunteer their time too for national and local charities.
Drugs and alcohol are not allowed in any sorority house in the national. We as alums can’t even use our local chapter houses for social events or rent them for weddings unless we want a ‘dry’ event. No alcohol allowed. Not saying that some students don’t have drugs and alcohol hidden in their rooms, but they have them in dorms too (not allowed) and they have them in their off campus housing and don’t even have to hid them.
But just ignore the Greek if you don’t like them, or go to a school that doesn’t have them. Of course, that means you strike Yale, Dartmouth, Stanford, MIT, Tufts, Duke, The Big Ten, the SEC schools…from your list.
In the case of Duke, it looks like the Greek system will be gone after next year. The School is completely revamping with a Residential College system:
"Under QuadEx, students will continue to have the opportunity to rush and join Greek and non-Greek SLGs during their sophomore year. However, the university will no longer provide housing for SLGs including Greek groups after the 2022-2023 school year. "
I read a lot of support in this thread for universities dictating who college students are allowed to socialize with. 99% of college students are 18 or older, which means they are old enough to serve in our armed forces and give their lives for our freedom, but apparently there is a growing consensus that these same adults are not old enough to decide who they socialize with or in what manner they are allowed to do it.
No one is making anyone join a greek organization. If you don’t like them, then don’t join. These crusades to eliminate them feel like bullying and stifling of the very open and intellectually curious environments that universities claim to be fostering. How can you have an open intellectual environment that fosters learning when universities are forbidding certain kinds of purely social relationships between students?
What other social activities should universities be banning?
To be fair, social fraternities are about a lot of things, but they’re neither debate nor academic societies (even though you can find nerdy, quirky, or intellectual fraternities on some campuses - thinking of Beloit for instance; but if you want MUN, quidditch, or Settlers of Catan, you don’t immediately think “let’s join a fraternity” and you do have other groups to join). So, you can have an open intellectual environment with social clubs of all sorts that are not fraternities.
While no one can “make you join”, there can be social pressure, which for 18-20 year olds is still very hard to resist; if half your friends want to join and ask you to, and the parties are not open to all on campus, it’s difficult to say no if you want a social life. That’s why many universities have no rush Fall freshman year, some only Sophomore year.
In addition, one big issue tends to be related to alcohol consumption, which, till beer and low-alcohol content beverages are legally avalable to 18-21 year olds, is not merely a social issue for universities or students but a legal one.
When universities enact restrictions upon fraternities, these restrictions or bans often follow manifest, repeated alcohol violations, and, sometimes, hazing incidents or bodily harm - the universities’ actions are not related to the intellectual environment fraternities foster or not. Basically, all organizations that repeatedly lead to alcohol abuse, hazing, or “incidents” should be banned, regardless of how they call themselves. Simple and legal.
I do not believe that universities should be dictating who students can freely associate with at a school, nor do I think those students should have to justify their association, social or otherwise, with anyone. It is their college experience. Any time a university dictates how a student should think, especially about something as mundane as social associations, it has a chilling effect.
I am certain that fraternity members are not the only underage consumers of alcohol, so I am not clear on why a 21 year old drinking age is a rationale for banning fraternities.
I do see that a common rationale for banning fraternities is based on guilt by association. In other words, all fraternities are responsible if one member of one fraternity does something illegal or socially unacceptable? Guilt by association is a very slippery slope, and is a tactic most frequently used to demonize, bully and divide. It should be rejected by anyone who believes in diversity, equity and inclusion.
Some of my most thoughtful and insightful discussions in my college experience came through my fraternity relationships. I also had a lot of positive relationships outside of my fraternity that enriched my college experience. I have lifelong friends and business relationships from both groups. I am less clear how you or anyone else dictating who I could associate with would have made me a better, more intellectually well rounded, person, or helped me build a better career network, but I am open to hearing an argument for why that is the case.
Agreed!
Just feel that fraternities should be completely unbundled from colleges, rather than being almost an integral part of some colleges, their facilities, calendar, etc. Only then can someone truly “decide” not to participate, without being on the shut out from those colleges’ social life.
The reason Harvard punished their students for joining frats or sororities was because they are single sex organizations. The organizations could exist, but any students who was a member couldn’t have a leadership position in a campus organization (no team captain, student government) or get a letter of recommendation for grad school or a scholarship (Rhodes, Marshall). The school allowed Final clubs and Hasty Pudding to remain, required they accept women, but allowed them to continue to limit the roles of women. I don’t think there were ever issues with these groups hazing or drinking or doing anything illegal; Harvard just didn’t want single sex groups.
There are other campus groups that have reputations for hazing and drunken behavior. The Florida A&M band had a death and lots of hazing. A friend’s daughter went to Colorado School of Mines and did NOT like having to climb a mountain in 100 degrees heat but it was required to paint the M on the mountain.
I was surprised to learn on CC that many schools, including some of the Ivies, have ‘try outs’ for all kinds of clubs - athletic, government, special interests like drama or video games. How are those, that may be sponsored by the universities, any different than trying out for a Greek house? A new student at Columbia said he tried to join several clubs but was shut out of all of them. If the university is sponsoring the club with student fees, all students should have an equal chance to join. At least the Greeks are self supporting.
I think it’s more of the Emperor’s new clothes: it looks like Duke is dealing with fraternities but the real life situation is they’re all still a part of campus life. Either the local or national chapter will purchase an off campus house or a bunch of the brothers will live together in a house and pass it down each year. If fraternity brothers want to live together they’ll figure it out. If lots of fraternities lose their residences but the college still recognizes them as affiliated with the college it’s an empty gesture as many colleges don’t provide housing for fraternities. The houses are owned by the chapters.
I think most (if not all) disaffiliated from the University last year, given how they’ve been treated over the years… Given that students will now be living in the Residential Colleges, the Greek system does not appear to be relevant anymore (at least not from a social life or residential standpoint). Seems like this trend has been a long time coming…
The issue with Greek life, in my opinion, is the exclusiveness factor together with hazing and poor behavior/choices (I’m not going to list all of those, you can easily google them). Get a bunch of boys (and often girls) together and their lack of a fully developed brain is on full display.
Not all clubs and organizations require try outs but all Greek life requires rushing and is exclusive based on no discernible criteria other than you’re “liked” by the house/chapter members.
The majority of those clubs and organizations require actual skills and knowledge to make the cut, where try outs are required; not so with acceptance into Greek organizations.
All students do have an equal chance to join. That doesn’t mean every student will be invited to join. My son tried out for the men’s volleyball club, he’s tall enough but never played before. It is a competitive club bc the school has no varsity men’s volleyball team. He didn’t make the cut. Should the club team be required to accept him? Maybe, but he didn’t have the skill set required. What’s the skill set required to join a fraternity?
There are all kinds of arrangements for Greek housing - or no housing. Some schools reserve wings in the dorms for groups, others have houses on campus owned by the group but the land is rented from the university. At CU the houses are all off campus and individually owned or rented, but the fraternities haven’t been recognized as a student group since 2005 (a small group of frats are now recognized, but they aren’t part of IFC). Hasn’t hurt the off campus groups.
The Duke article said upperclassmen can live off campus. Even at campuses that have huge Greek participation, only a small number of members live in the houses. At Alabama some of the sororities have 400 active members but only about 75 live in each house. They EAT at the houses, so if the school closed the houses, suddenly the school would have to figure out how to feed a lot more kids.
I’ll be interested to see how it goes at Duke. My D attends a school that’s investing in the residential college system but still has Greek life (although it’s supposedly on the wane). So far the RCs haven’t supplanted Greek life in the social sphere. I’m curious how things will eventually shake out there as well.
My opinion is fraternities, in particular, fight extinction in long drawn out battles. Since I’m not a fan I’m very happy to see schools turning to the residential college system. But it’s an expensive proposition that takes many years so the big state schools like Alabama, Auburn, Kansas, Michigan and so forth are unlikely to partake anytime soon. In addition, there’s a lot of money interwoven with fraternities and alumni. It’s a complicated relationship.
Isn’t the history of this kind of ugly? As in, there was an incident involving a pledge death in a CU fraternity, and the campus wanted to add conditions for recognition as student groups. Most of the fraternities refused the conditions and became completely off-campus as a result.
It looks like there are currently 13 fraternities with campus recognition at CU (CU IFC, MCGC, NPHC), and 22 completely off-campus fraternities around CU (independent IFC).
What is the proposed alternative to fraternities? That everyone has to be friends with each other? Are we proposing treating young adults like a 6 year old play date, forcing them to be friends with each other because that is what the parents want?
Maybe, rather than place more restrictions on fraternities, schools should be providing more social opportunities for non-Greeks. I remember some semesters at school where my fraternity’s parties sucked, in a large part because there was a lot to do on the weekends at my school and if our Social Chair was not that good, people wouldn’t come to our parties. Doesn’t giving students a choice rather than dictating how they have to act feel like a better solution?
America has always had a very dysfunctional relationship with alcohol, preceding prohibition. There is evidence that the 21 year old drinking age fuels binge drinking by driving it underground and away from responsible supervision. Conversely, there is no justification for a 21 year old drinking age that could also not be used to justify wholesale prohibition of alcohol in society, and we know how well prohibition worked. Maybe schools should dial back prohibition of alcohol consumption and focus on addressing binge drinking and drunk driving. I believe that strict on campus alcohol consumption rules force parties to fraternities and off-campus, increasing binge drinking, and it is quite obvious that forcing parties off campus increases drunk driving. No one has to get behind the wheel to go to a party in their own dorm.
Schools could allow more social alternatives for students, both alcohol and non-alcohol related, or schools could just impose increasingly arbitrary restrictions on students and see where that takes us. Unfortunately, as a society, punishment seems to always be preferred as a solution over prevention and management. Our society criminalizes all kinds of activities that are preventable, and the criminalization effectively creates more of the problematic activity.
I’m not sure of your point. There are already many, many schools that don’t have fraternities and students seem to manage just fine. Fraternities are not necessary to provide a good social life in college. The lack of fraternities doesn’t result in all kids being forced to be friends – that makes no sense. Like many people my main opposition to fraternities isn’t due to their exclusivity - people should be able to socialize and congregate with whoever they want - it’s the hazing and, frankly, the incidents of sexual assault.