I never pledged a fraternity, and, in retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t. Don’t get me wrong: it was tempting in those first weeks of my freshman year at the small liberal arts college I attended. The campus was abuzz with fraternity life when I arrived, and all of us newbies were getting “dates” to attend this or that function with any of the many fraternities that promised “brotherhood” and “friendships that last a lifetime,” not to mention an active social life while you labored through the four years of collegiate life.
I was rushed by four or five houses, and I took a fancy to one that, most probably in my innocence and naiveté, I would have pledged. A few days before the bids were offered, however, a couple of the brothers from the fraternity paid me a visit in my dorm. They informed me, in the most solemn of terms, that I had—“most unfortunately”—been blackballed by one of their fraternity brothers on account of my being “too radical.”
I had no idea what a blackball was (the brothers gently explained its devastating existence, whereby one sole fraternity member could vote to keep out anyone from the hallowed membership). But I was far more surprised to be considered “radical,” since I was, at the time, a tee-totaling, God-fearing, most ardent supporter of Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. (Consider the irony that being too conservative was “radical” back in 1964.)
In any event, I licked my wounds and proceeded to live the life of a GDI (God-damned Indie) for my four years at Gettysburg, while would-be friends from my freshman dorm pledged the frats of their choice and succumbed to the ritual of sometimes brutal hazing that then led to the presumed social lives of their dreams as brothers in one of the thirteen fraternities on the campus at the time.
About a third of us managed to avoid the ritual, and yet somehow most of us were able to get our share of dates and otherwise live fairly normal social lives, albeit free of some of the “hijinks” our fraternity classmates were reportedly engaging in. What I was told I missed out on were nights of sexual ribaldry and drunken stupors along with the alleged “camaraderie” that could not be duplicated outside of a fraternity.
Nothing of course could be further from the truth. While I remained relatively free of the drunken stupors, I did form several lasting male friendships. I also had a few meaningful relationships with members of the opposite sex, without the kind of misogynistic sexual abuse that the fraternity jocks could be overheard clucking about from time to time. (These were pre-date rape times, but the practice was no less prevalent.)
Fraternities on a small campus like mine were the norm. But it was a perverse norm, accentuating all the sexist and degenerative aspects of late male adolescence that enlightened young men and women now regard as an anachronistic oddity.
And they represent an even more repellant form of “bonding” now, in the age of feminist equality and sexual liberation that most millennials implicitly accept as right and just. My sons did not even consider fraternities when they were in college a decade ago, albeit both were and are active socially and maintain strong bonds to friends of both the male and female persuasions.
And yet despite all of the indicators to the contrary, these anachronistic modes of promoting the youthful macho-man image of the Playboy mold continue to exist and even flourish on many college campuses. Every year, seemingly, some scandal or outrage is revealed. This year’s was the report earlier this month that a pair of dudes from the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house on the University of Oklahoma’s campus had sung a racist song in the presence of their female dates that heralded the fact that no African-Americans would ever be accepted into their fraternity. The young men were promptly expelled from the university, and that action has produced the predictable backlash from liberal groups demanding that the students be re-admitted in the name of freedom of speech.
Whatever the merits of that demand (I am far from convinced of its legitimacy), the irony of it is that it ignores the underlying problem. The real issue isn’t whether those two students should be permitted to remain in school; it’s whether their fraternity–or any fraternity–should be allowed to exist on any college campus. While I am not advocating Congressional legislation to that effect, I do believe that every college and university that has these behemoths from a long-past bygone era in their midst should consider closing them down.
Fraternities promote sexism and they prohibit non-conformity and individualism. They promulgate elitism and they reject inclusion. They are an analog to the culture that often exists in military units, wherein everyone must march to the same drumbeat and boot camp is where you lose your identity in favor of the corps. But military units have at least a presumed legitimate function, that being to secure and safeguard the homeland.
Fraternities have no such legitimacy. They do provide a social life (one, however, that most definitely can and does exist independent of them), but that meager benefit is far outweighed by the negative effects of sadistic hazing, sexist rituals, and self-inflated machismo. And when you add racism and homophobia to the list of ill-effects that flow from them or are promoted by them, their continued existence under the auspices of academic institutions of higher learning is an outrage.
Boys will always be boys, but college should be a time when they are taught to be responsible and morally upstanding men. Fraternities foster adolescent behavior in its most undesirable and unattractive form. They encourage conduct and promote life styles that most of mainstream society rejects, or at least finds distasteful. Their continued existence should be limited to “grandfather” allowances until all those currently members of recognized fraternities have graduated. Beyond those few years, colleges and universities (and the country as a whole) should be free from the scourge of their existence.
I agree that they are absurd, but I suspect your proposal would get serious pushback for being inequal treatment unless you include sororities too. Of course, both groups (but especially the sororities) will point to charitable works as a justification for their existence.
I think sororities are much more defensible. For one, they do not engage in misogynistic actions. On that point, I think the attempt to equate gender traits is foolish when it comes to adolescent testosterone, to which nothing I am aware of in women can compare. Sometimes the Mars/Venus distinctions need to be acknowledged.
Ed, I agree with your criticism of frats (sororities have their own issues, although they may be somewhat less extreme), but banning them seems inconsistent with free speech and free association. These are State schools, not privately owned. Universities shouldn’t facilitate them or show any preference, but I don’t agree with suppresion. The better solution is exposure of these troglodytes and more speech countering theirs. Does this make me a liberal?
I was going to make the same point MB made, and include another point. I was in a Sorority in College. I went to Hunter College, in New York City. Hunter is a commuter school. It took me a bus and three subway changes to get to school each day and reverse the process getting home. Without my sorority there would have been little social life and probably few friendships. It is difficult to make friends in a school that large when you only see someone in class. I l also developed leadership skills as over my college years I was elected to officer positions. My 4 years at Hunter were certainly enhanced by my membership in Delta Phi Epsilon. I suspect that my experience would be the same in many fraternities and sororities at both at residence and commuter schools. There are always going to be exceptions but throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater is not, in my opinion, the solution.
With respect to fraternities, there isn’t much evidence of a baby, and the bath water is beyond fetid. At most colleges, fraternities do not offer friendships that would be unattainable otherwise. I can’t speak for sororities, and Fern certainly makes the case for their existence in urban commuter school settings like Hunter College, but guys bond in any number of ways that exist apart from fraternities. In fact, my experience was that fraternities restricted potential friendships outside of the brothers in the house. One of my best friends in college was a fraternity brother who risked alienation within his fraternity by befriending (and ultimately rooming) with me.
I take Lance’s point that barring fraternities in state colleges might run afoul of the Constitution, but private schools shouldn’t have that concern, especially when a strong health and safety motivation can be claimed as the reason for eliminating them. Otherwise, strong public condemnation, and an early education on the negatives they promote (starting in high school counseling), would go a long way to eliminating the hold they currently have on so many entering freshman.
I have never been enamored with Frats and never joined one. Perhaps I followed my brother’s lead and was closed to the idea from the outset. In some ways, the Greek system might have been good for me as I was shy, introverted and it might have served to help expand my personality and openness to new ideas. But, I am who I am and my life has been relatively successful with having remained an Independent. I went to the University of Kentucky (about 14,000 undergrads back in the late 1960s) and the majority of on-campus students were not in the Frat/sorority scene. I think it must be much more difficult if you are at a smaller campus where most students are affiliated.
Ed,
Don’t you think that your generalizations are a bit too sweeping about fraternities? Really — all of them are mysogynistic, teach bad culture, etc.? Hard for me to believe.
I never had the desire to join a fraternity. Maybe I should have and would have been more successful in life. I went to small Catholic university (Gonzaga) during a period in my life where I shunned all social settings except where potheads could gather and discuss he meaning of life and the beauty of nature. ahh..the good old days.
In any case, I am sure you are rabble rousing but certainly there must be some good in fraternities. Unfortunately, I would not know.
I’m sure there is “some good in fraternities,” but that really isn’t the point of my column, Leo. I think that kind of reasoning can justify the existence of almost any organization or political affiliation. Just as an example, couldn’t we, if pressed, think of “some good” in the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazi party. I’m not sure what it would be, but if we dug deep enough into the inner workings of those groups I’m sure we’d find “some good” in their work or their purpose or their projects.
I’m not trying to compare fraternities to the KKK or the Nazi party. All I’m saying is the argument that there must be “some good” in fraternities does not per se justify their continued existence. It’s the overwhelming amount of negative action and results that they promote and sanction that leads me to call for the end of their authorized existence on college campuses.
Good stuff, Ed, as always.
God-damned Independently Yours,
Steve