Kevin Moye
Penn State, Florida State and Texas State all have something in common — other than being state schools. They have all suffered tragedies where members of their respective Greek organizations have died, and in response, the universities cracked down on the presence of Greek life on their campuses. While I wholly disavow the actions of the responsible fraternities and would like to see the negligent members reprimanded, I believe that putting an end to Greek life is entirely the wrong way of remedying the problem.
By banning Greek life, colleges will be removing their visible presence, but it is likely that the actual organizations themselves will remain as clandestine versions of themselves. Universities oversee Greek organizations through governing bodies like Interfraternity Council, National Panhellenic Association and Panhellenic Association, but a suspension of Greek life would do away with these authoritative bodies. The drive to secrecy and lack of governing bodies to hold the organizations accountable could exacerbate the current problems.
Suspending Greek organizations will not have as great an effect of curbing underage or irresponsible drinking that colleges are looking to have. Drinking is not a phenomenon exclusive to Greek life members. It is a hobby of college students independent of their organizations. Even at schools like the University of Notre Dame, where Greek life is abolished, students are reported to have drinking tendencies equal to all colleges in the country, including those with Greek life.
Furthermore, throwing the baby out with the bathwater in the case of Greek organizations will result in doing away undeniably great aspects of Greek life as well. Arguably the best contributions these organizations make are their acts of philanthropy. Many of the contributions Greek organizations make to charities and fundraisers goes unnoticed, but the impact that they have on the world is undeniable. In 2016, our Panhellenic Association was able to raise $33,000 to construct a school for children in Nicaragua. On average, $7,000,000+ dollars is raised by Greek members every year, but little attention is given to this.
It would be completely warranted to punish the problematic fraternities whose recklessness killed these young men; however, if universities are looking at ways to prevent incidents like this from happening a more comprehensive and nuanced policy change will be needed to do so.
One of the ways in which we can stop these tragedies from occurring is to pressure fraternities to change the culture of pledging. Members of fraternities see pledging as a necessary evil to truly integrate new members into the fraternity. Creating a realistic line between what is and is not a permissible act of pledging could greatly curb the incidents like we’ve seen in the past months. As it currently stands, all acts of hazing are viewed as impermissible, but this is simply not feasible. Firm stances by both universities and Greek organizations should be taken to do away with pledge processes that involve the forced consumption of alcohol in any capacity.
It should also be mandated that Greek organizations have proper risk management protocols that they can follow in the event of someone appearing to need medical attention. The stigma of dialing 911 in emergency situations needs to be forgotten.
Fraternities in particular could also improve their images by moving away from the image of them that is propagated by sites like Total Frat Move. When an organization is constantly portrayed as a group of immature alcoholics who objectify women, it is hard to see the value that stems from it. This is certainly not to say that this is what fraternities actually are like, but this constant image of fraternities being like this makes it difficult to dispel the notion that they are.
Greek life is by no means a flawless system, but getting rid of the system is not a feasible means of fixing these flaws. In order to fix these problems, we Greeks should begin to address the problems we have and execute these possible solutions to our problems. At the same time, university administrators should accept that Greek life is too entwined into the college experience to be removed, and should progress by aiding in the process to fix the structural problems it has.