dagblog - Comments for "Why Fraternities Are Out of Control"

Thanks for your thoughts, all

Doctor Cleveland — Sun, 22 Mar 2015 19:41:57 +0000

In reply to Why Fraternities Are Out of Control

Thanks for your thoughts, all.

The defense of the SAE boys is that they have a right to free speech, even if it's hateful. But they don't actually have a right to maintain a segregated fraternity - which is now illegal - and the song clearly indicates that they are doing that. And if the ringleaders who got expelled from Oklahoma want to sue ... Well, they will have to associate themselves, publicly and repeatedly, with their hateful speech.

There are stakes beyond the legal here. This kind of ugliness hurts the whole school. It (rightly) freaks out a lot of the other students, leading to anger and upheaval. It hurts the school's reputation, by which every school lives and dies. (Reputation is a bottom-line economic factor for any college or university. Schools are basically in the reputation business.) It means students are less li,soy to apply and more likely to go someplace else of given a choice. It makes it harder to raise money or recruit people. When the university president at Oklahoma saw that video, he had to feel like he was watching his last 10 or 15 years of work being undone in 20 seconds. And Penn State, ahem, didn't need another sexual-misconduct scandal of any kind. Schools just can't afford this stuff.

I joined a fraternity in

HSG — Sun, 22 Mar 2015 15:22:46 +0000

In reply to Why Fraternities Are Out of Control

I joined a fraternity in college and given my social awkwardness, of which I wasn't even aware, it was probably on balance a good thing. Thirty years on, I'm still close to several of my brothers. But, post-adolescent boys and young men are by nature the most sexually aggressive and possibly the most tribally-prone human demographic. When they herd together, trouble will brew. It is my sense that colleges and universities would be best served by refusing to recognize Greek organizations. Schools should do more though to help kids like me integrate socially.

Even in-state residents of

Michael Maiello — Sun, 22 Mar 2015 14:23:45 +0000

In reply to Why Fraternities Are Out of Control

Even in-state residents of public universities don't have a right to attend school. There are lots of ways for universities to deal with individual students whose off campus behavior either reflects badly on the school or makes the school a dangerous place for other students. While there is some risk of individuals being caught up in collective punishment, it's not so out there for a university to make membership in a notoriously misbehaving frat or sorority a disqualifier for admissions. A deal kind of like, "you have freedom of assembly and association, but so does the school. If you choose them, we don't choose you."

Nothing's ever perfect. Kids can assemble off campus. They can just rent houses together and not even call themselves a frat. But in practice, these things are organizing around the common experience of the university. Without that, they're difficult to sustain.

For my money, my college self never had any desire to live in a house with all boys. Just not the bonding experience I was after.

It's hard to argue with any

Verified Atheist — Sun, 22 Mar 2015 14:14:17 +0000

In reply to Why Fraternities Are Out of Control

It's hard to argue with any of this. When I first heard about SAE, I was not surprised. At Georgia Tech, both SAE and KA had a reputation for being "good ol' boys" with all of the connotations that ensues. Although I dropped out before becoming a full member (due to my grades beginning to suffer), I pledged Pi Kappa Phi, so I was shocked and saddened to hear about that incident for personal reasons (i.e., all of the events saddened me, but that one hit closer to home). We actually had our own racial incident while I was there, but it was far milder - there was a black student who wanted to pledge, but accepting pledges required 100% of the existing brothers to agree, and one of the brothers insisted he was never going to have a black brother. Note that in that particular case (and this was 25 years ago), fellow brothers were embarrassed for him, and reported this. Someone was brought in (I think by Georgia Tech) to talk to all of the brothers and pledges to see how widespread this problem was.

Good piece, and it will be interesting to see how this will play out.