The Challenge of "Self-Regulation" As

Applied to Fraternities and Sororities

This is a draft of a document, written in 1988, that was commissioned by the American
Council on Education for its "Self-Regulation Initiatives" series. It has never been
published.

INTRODUCTION

Organized social fraternities and sororities commonly called the "Greek system have been receiving a good deal
of attention in American higher education in the last few years. In the decade before 1980, they were thought to be
suffering from a decline due to changes in student culture resulting in a decrease in student interest in the Greek way of
life. During that period of their decline they were, relatively speaking, left alone by college officials who concentrated
on other priorities. In the last few years, however, this trend seems to be reversing itself. Today increasing numbers of
students are choosing to go Greek.
In light of this new interest, many campuses are faced with new challenges. Institutions are having to cope with a
number of problems, including: deteriorating facilities, only partially active and episodically supportive alumni,
nationals (the national fraternity organizations) whose power is great but whose influence over locals (campus
chapters) is marginal, poorly defined or compromised administrative relationships, a persistent threat of litigation
arising from incidents involving alcohol misuse and other injury-producing practices, a plurality of styles that
undermine a unitary view of the Greek way (as in the increasing numbers of Black and other minority Greek
organizations at predominantly white institutions and the development of openly homosexual social sororities), and
fewer resources to place in service of increasingly diverse and mounting needs for funding support.

This paper will provide an analysis and recommendations that are intended to aid institutions of higher education as
they examine the Greek systems associated with their institutions and as they seek to align these relationships to their
own missions.

PROMISE VERSUS PERFORMANCE

Perhaps there is no element in higher education where claims about the potential of a system are more at odds with the
general perceptions of the systems actual performance than with social sororities and fraternities. It is claimed that the
Greek system has the potential for leadership development, creating long lasting friendships, and becoming a
community where as one instilled, and people are educated in a forum which is simultaneously a part of and beyond the
college or university experience.1

Even its most ardent proponents seem to acknowledge a gap between promise and performance. President Roskens,
author of the foregoing, writing under the title, The Stuff that Dreams Are Made Of, notes:

In my estimation, perhaps the single most important challenge facing the fraternal movement today is to
ensure that these potentially vibrant communities do not themselves become dream killers. 2

1
Ronald W. Roskens, President, University of Nebraska, in The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of published in the Alpha Chi
Omega Sorority newsletter.
2
Ibid.
Another author, the president of a national fraternity, writes:

Before Delta Upsilon, college men had two choices: they could remain independent and in so doing forego
the learning opportunities of group association and suffer the loneliness and isolation of going it alone';
or they could join an existing social' fraternity bound, as most were, in secrecy, racism, religious
discrimination, elitism and hazing. These unattractive alternatives created the frustration which led our
Founders to create Delta Upsilon the third alternative...The campuses of our two nations still desperately
need and want a third alternative...Vive la difference! 3

But, in the same publication where these remarks appear there is a persuasive article entitled Hazing still lurks in
the minds of lazy men; will you wait until someone else dies? In it the executive director of the national fraternity
writes:

Anything that hazing might hope to teach can be taught in a much more positive, caring manner...Yet hazing
persists in the fraternity world. And not just any fraternity can get rid of it. But again, DU is not just any
fraternity. Or is it? 4

The fact that it seems so necessary for so many of the proponents of the Greek way of life to speak in terms of
potential, dreams, and promise suggests the discontinuity between theory and reality. And indeed, if this were not the
case, why would so much attention be being given to the relationship between the system and its various host
institutions?

According to the Guidelines on the Relationships of General College Fraternities with Institutions of Higher Education
prepared by a consortium of national fraternity and sorority groups, this gap between promise and performance can be
accounted for by looking at the relationship between the Greek system and its host:

In those instances, where institutional support (of fraternities and/or sororities) has been unquestioned
(emphasis added), some of the most excellent fraternity chapters are to be found. There is a strong
relationship between college support and excellent fraternity chapters.5

A section of the Guideline entitled effective partnership makes the following claim:

The purposes of general fraternities are congruent with the missions of colleges and universities as they
have been expressed.6

Thus, some form of interdependent relationship seems necessary even to begin to reform the system so that its
performance could match its promise. Jonathan Brant, executive director of the national interfraternity council, writes:

Our mission is to promote a set of values which are manifested in the personal development of fraternity
members through intellectual, leadership, social and humanitarian pursuits. At the same time, we wish to
improve the quality as well as sustain the heritage of the fraternity system. This educational mission can

3
Terry L. Bullock (President Delta Upsilon National Fraternity), DUs newest chapters show the competition what it really
means to be a fraternity, Delta Upsilon Quarterly, April, 1988, p. 54.
4
Thomas D. Hansen (Executive Director, Delta Upsilon National Fraternity), Hazing still lurks in the minds of lazy men; will
you wait until someone else dies?". Delta Upsilon Quarterly, April, 1988, pg. 56.
5
Guidelines on the Relationship of General College Fraternities with Institutions of Higher Education, issued by the National
Interfraternity Conference, with the endorsement of the National Panhellenic Conference, Association of Fraternity
Advisors and the Fraternity Executives Association (No date), pg. 5.
6
Ibid., pg 5.
 only be conducted in harmony with other organizations and associations sharing common interests. 7

Discussions of the relationship of Greek institutions to host institutions are not simple speculative exercises, rather they
are the product of a growing number of institutional reviews that are resulting from mounting interest in the Greek way
of life by contemporary college students and a perception of an increasingly difficult fit between Greeks and other
institutional objectives.

DIFFERENT OR JUST MORE VISIBLE?

The Greek system like any visible, identifiable institution attracts attention to itself. Indeed, part of the Greek way
of life is self-consciously designed to be attention getting in the forms of individual identifiable brotherhoods or
sisterhoods, individual houses, individual and well-established and cultivated reputations and routines, individual
associations with particular interests, sports or even drinks, and the omnipresent regalia bearing symbols of affiliation.

In spite of its own quest for attention, for the most part, Greek behavior forms just one part of the general tableau of a
campus identity. Although the influence over the social and intellectual life of a particular campus varies greatly with
the traditions of individual institutions, members of an academic community, as in any community, become
accustomed, indeed inured to the elements that make up the community. Notice is taken, not of the small issues and
circumstances the petty disappointments, the little pleasures but of the larger manifestations of rupture and
discontinuity ("triumph or tragedy," as the phrase goes).

When something outrageous or tragic occurs, campus reaction traces a course not unlike the patterns described (by E.
Kubler-Ross) for those who are told they are terminally ill: denial, disbelief, anger, negotiation and acceptance. In any
given community, some members never complete the cycle but get stuck in one or another of its phases. To the
proponents of the Greek way of life these reactions often seem unjustified they are disproportionate, they argue, to
the real day-in -day-out situation in the Greek system. Proponents see each rupture as a gross aberration. To those who
see little general merit in the Greek way of life, these ruptures represent only the most blatant manifestations of a
system that they regard as pathogenic a system whose daily excesses have become an unacceptable norm.

THE PROBLEM OF INCIDENT-DRIVEN REVIEWS

In the last few years interest in membership in Greek organizations has grown and with it the evidence of problems.
Attention to the relationships between the Greek systems and their host institutions has also grown, often in response to
a rupture, a critical incident that commands formal attention. These reviews often follow on the heels of an outrageous
or tragic incident.

Incident-driven reviews of systems suffer in a variety of ways:

First, these reviews tend to be conducted in the glare of public attention, a condition that can lead not to sober reflection
but to posturing and sensationalism. Sometimes also, the incident itself is not reviewed due to its status during a
pending or active investigation or related litigation, or due to a general aversion to bringing the subject back to the
forefront of news. This has the unfortunate consequence of encouraging each participant to develop the most self-
serving version of the incident and can deprive the review of case material that might lead to a useful insight.

Second, such reviews tend to get focused on the sub-issue or sub-institution and not on the larger issue of institutional
mission and the theoretical and normative relation of the sub-issue to it. So it can become "the Greek system as a part
of the host institution that gets discussed, not the host institutions mission and aspirations and how it can achieve
those aspirations, with or without a Greek system.

Third, such reviews tend to follow a reformist approach. They leave the basic system intact, for the moment at least,
because the rupture that is attracting attention becomes regarded as an excess. Precisely what draws our attention to the

7
Cover letter accompanying the Guidelines by Jonathan J. Brant, Executive Director, National Interfraternity Conference.
Greek system in the first place is what makes it easier to explain the aberration in its afterglow. That condition,
combined with the interests that the Greek system has its own survival, leads to repair and reform, and away from the
more fundamental questions of role and mission.

Fourth, at least in large institutions with diffuse governance, a committee approach tends to be employed to do the
review. These committees, due to an attempt to be fair and representative, tend to suffer from all the problems of
interest group pluralism. They have an added problem in that those members who are the representatives of the Greek
system may feel that they are being attacked or at least scrutinized and thus may feel obliged to defend a system even
when they may have doubts or information that would be damaging because to reveal defects would only provide
their partisan opponents with more evidence against the system they represent.

Fifth, such incident driven reviews tend to produce the most elaborate defenses. This is due in part to the little attention
or focus on the banal and standard, day-in day-out behavior which may or may not have given rise to the incident. In
short, everyone in the Greek system stands accused of being to a degree mostly falsely if only because the incident was
so critical and unusual. This is a condition that creates a defensive unity instead of encouraging serious self-
examination.

Sixth, since it is an institution or system that is being examined, a lop-sided politics results because there is no
organized countervailing institution, interest group, or organization. Thus, in the absence of two or more organized,
financed, institutionalized competing forces, there is not one to "please" in a political sense, only someone to
"disappoint" or, indeed, to destroy.

Last, in the contemporary situation where so many students can feel alienated and left out of the overall university
community (a condition which accounts in part for the increased interest in the Greek way, as a counter to the
impersonal, a friendly place in an unfamiliar world) such incident-driven reviews can create a peculiar general
sympathy of students to one another. Such a general sympathy accrues against what students see as the powerful
institutional forces that are dominating the rest of their lives. In case of Greek institutions such sympathy can get tied
to the issue of alcohol because Greek institutions are often the last bastions of an organized party-centered use of
alcohol. (Such alcohol use, for some, is an emblem of freedom from control; it becomes a kind of countercultural
statement.) This sympathy encourages a denial of reality because the reaction is often coupled with adolescent
confusion about the nature of individualism and individual responsibility, a condition that permits them to blame
victims for their problems while discounting the influence of peers, the environment, or other institutional forces.

Except in situations where there is very strong faculty governance and strong interest in general questions of mission
and purpose, the Greek system has more organized power than do its detractors. Given that fact plus the press of other
business and a general inclination to not fix it if it isnt broken most presidents will find themselves thinking about
other things than the Greek way of life. When they do turn their attentions to the Greek system, it will most likely be as
a result of something having gone very wrong. And thus, the review will be incident-driven and subject to all of the
problems just discussed.

A TOPOS OF AMBIVALENCE THE NERO/AHAB PROBLEM

Even though college presidents are well practiced in dealing with ambivalence the on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-
hand form of analysis a consideration of the relationship of an institution to its Greek system or the broader
question of the appropriate role of Greek systems as we know them in the context of the mission and future of
American higher education will be vexing. As in so many areas, presidents, as leaders of institutions, will be offered
a real Hobsons choice: a chance to be either Nero or Ahab. Choose Nero and attempt to achieve an antiseptic
separation from the Greek system and you will stand only to be accused of having sat by and watched if it suffers and
burns. Choose Ahab in some attempt to get to really know the system and you may become so enmeshed in it that it
takes you where it decides to go.

Were it not for the perception that there is such a gap between promise and performancedefined by a persistent and
steady accretion of critical incidents of violence, antisocial behavior, hazing, racism, sexism, homophobia, alcohol
abuse, and anti-intellectualismperhaps the relationship between host institutions and the Greek system could be one
of "unquestioned support"as the Guidelines referred to above advocate. However, the real dissonance on many
campuses between the claims made about the system and the day-to-day observations that people make about the
functioning of the system means that it will be hard indeed to agree on what unquestioned support is, let alone how to
provide it, even if an institution wanted to do so.

The need to have a relationship is a product of several factors, perhaps the most important of which is that Greek
institutions are not "of", but rather "at", host institutions. Unlike most other student organizations, the Greek system is,
in its several chapters, legally independent of the host institution. While some nationals require recognition of the local
chapter by the host institution as a condition for their own recognition of that chapter as a member of the national
Greek organization, some college officials believe that Greek organizations would continue to exist even without the
recognition by a host institution. There is even some talk by nationals aimed at ending the requirement for local
recognition because of the increasingly controlling impulses of host institutions.
OPTIONS FOR RELATIONSHIPS

Several options, or postures, defining the relationship between the host institution and the individual Greek chapters
exist:

One is the Crisis Management Approach: dealing with matters or incidents in the Greek system as they arise,
this approach may characterize institutional interventions regardless of the general relationship formed with the Greeks
(this could range from laissez faire to activist supervision on a daily basis). This approach improvises as the need
arises. The strategy views each crisis, to a large extent, as an idiosyncratic event, not connected to long-term planning
obligations or general institutional management strategy.

Another is the Arms Length Approach: seeking to separate the identity and activity of Greek systems from
institutions which are host to them, this strategy nevertheless requires the explicit cooperation of the Greeks in
fashioning the agreement defining the separation, especially in cases where this approach is being adopted as a change
over existing arrangements. This strategy favors adopting policies that respect the difference between the institution
and the Greek system. Such an arms length policy sometimes implies nevertheless a recognition of and form of
relationship to the Greek system. This approach, however much it tries to achieve distance, nevertheless is engaged
with the Greek system, even though it may have ceded away any leverage the host institution has with the system. Thus
the host is at arms length on a strategic basis, but hardly so in a day-to-day management sense. The risk is that while
the formal arrangement may be an arms length one, the actual functioning relationship may be far less antiseptic and
removed, so, when something does go wrong, the path back to the host institution is readily traceable. Moreover, any
form of relationship will beg the question, legal or otherwise, about why more was not done to reduce the chance of the
incident that brings attention to the system.

Still other hosts have adopted an Activist Approach, one that seeks to bring the Greek system within
the orbit of the general campus life (often its student affairs department) seeking to describe the Greek lifestyle
as just another option that the campus has to offer. Promoting an integrated approach with regards to Greek
systems and host institutions, this strategy takes the form of increased supervision, developing expectations
and insisting on certain performance requirements, and other strategies designed to blunt the negative
consequences of the Greek system while enhancing its chances to achieve its stated promise. Such an
approach might organize and supervise rush activities, or participate in the bidding procedures to try to make
sure that everyone who wanted to be Greek got an opportunity to do so. It might do education in Greek-
specific issues, like hazing. It might provide on-sight supervision in those Greek organizations that have
houses. The activist approach could engage alumni, get involved in providing financial support for repairs and
system enhancements, sponsor leadership training programs, alcohol awareness weeks, programs on date rape,
sexism, bigotry and prejudice. It might even provide housing for Greek chapters as a part of campus housing
under some Greek village or special interest residence rubric. In so doing, this approach would be taking
responsibility for a large part of behavior that takes place within the system. And, by so doing, the institution
is betting that its involvement will reduce the chances for things to go wrong. If the institution fails to deliver
on its promise to succeed in stopping excesses in the system, surely the institution is placing itself in a position
of being partially or mostly responsible for those excesses.

One last option is a Termination Approach: the host refuses to recognize or allow itself to be a part of the
Greek system. This may be done by withdrawing all support, declining to make information on grade point averages or
other eligibility requirements available to Greek groups, dis-allowing the use of host institutions facilities for any Greek
system activities, reclaiming any property or real estate it had allowed the system to use, actively announcing its
opposition to the system, making no mention of the system as an option for students, advising the public of this stance,
offering no special police or other life safety supervision or protection to any chapters (except for what would be
ordinarily offered to a boarding home off campus, for example). This is an abolitionist approach.

DETERMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE HOST INSTITUTION AND THE GREEK SYSTEM

Despite the reported demise of in loco parentis and no matter what they might say or do, institutions are expected to
some extent to manage the lives of their students. While the intensity of this expectation rises after something goes
wrong, parents and the public have expectations even if all would fail to agree in advance of a particular incident on
what an institution should do to manage student behavior. (The parent who is upset because of a drinking incident on
campus might not have cheerfully agreed, in advance, to a given penalty were his/her underage son or daughter
caught with alcohol, for example.) Even if all of the stakeholders could agree on a single standard of behavior,
institutions would still be faced with the problem of how to enforce the "will of the people on those who are to be
subjected to that will (think about the problem of underage drinking).
The view of the student as a contracting party with the institutionas a person legally responsible for obedience to
rules and laws and standards of behavioris very appealing to an administrator. However, while this may be the theory
of the relationship, it very rarely is the form of the relationship and it almost always fails to predict how an institution
will act after something goes wrong. The view of students as adultspeople who can and should care for themselves
and who have adult like obligationscannot be abandoned. However, in adopting that view, institutions should act to
ensure that they are behaving as if they believed this theory, especially if they espouse it.
No matter how forcefully an institution adopts this emancipated adult view, there remain genuine doubts in many
minds about whether eighteen, nineteen and twenty-year-olds are fully adults. For some, this view of undergraduates is
a form of wishful thinking. The ambivalence that is felt on the "are they adults or not? question gets reflected in the
expectations of members of the university community, including parents of students and people residing in the
neighborhood of a campus.
Given these problems, institutions cannot, from a management or a public relations point of view, effectively
disentangle or divorce themselves from Greek systems even if they want to unless they decide to actively oppose Greek
systems, as they oppose other things that seem to fall outside their values (as in South African dis-investment, for
example). If they see Greek systems as being compatible with their institutional aspirations and values, then they are
bound to try activist/reformist approaches. If they do, they will need to go beyond an approach that relies' on self-
discipline by Greek members.

Making policy, especially on controversial subjects, requires serious thought about institutional objectives, just as it
requires due regard for the sensibilities of those who will feel the immediate effects of policy. Which approach an
institution should take depends on a number of factors: its stated values and mission, its general theory of its
relationship to its students, its resources, its legal status (public or private), its sense of capacity to influence behavior,
the extent of its current dependency on a Greek system to provide housing and dining for students, the influence of
alumni, and other factors. Ultimately, an institutions policy will reflect its sense of the nature and source of its own
authority.

The legal/liability dimensions of these choices have been described by Sheldon Steinbach in a white paper published by
the American Council on Education.8 Although the clear implication of that paper tends in the direction of a posture of

8
Steinbach.
relative disengagement, institutions are nonetheless urged to continue to do things that have an educational basis with
regard to Greek groups. In short, Steinbach makes a strong case for disengagement from a legal perspective, but holds
out little encouragement to those who think that disengagement will improve the Greek system.

Some institutions will be able to accommodate a Greek system within a context of stated institutional values. Others
will find little in common with their values and those as practiced by Greek organizations, even when they are behaving
optimally.

SOME THINGS TO CONSIDER

A consideration of a range of topics and questionssome particular to Greek systems, some notshould help inform
any policy determination. Some of these topics are:

1. What makes the Greek system popular and who is attracted to it? What does its appeal have to say about
campus life?

Several commentators have pointed out that the changes in the nature of the university and certain college
institutions are weakening institutional community.9 In the absence of institutional community the need for friends,
affiliation, locale, a pleasant place where one feels supported and known (a locus amoenus), has increased. In large
institutions, in particular, there is a need for friendly places, unquestioned support by a circle of friends, shared
experiences with fellow team members in a particular sport, and so forth. Small-scale student organizations can be
seen as a response to impersonalism.

With regard to the traditional small liberal arts colleges, the need to feel a part of a group is probably still present but
the opportunity to use the group so as to enhance social status or connections for the future becomes an even more
important asset to students who are career-focused and oriented toward personal and individual success. Such
connections become a way of compensating for the small scale of the institution itself.
Institutions should study who joins and why and should be aware of the fact that those who want to join probably
feel that they are like or want to be like the members of the group they wish to join. In this regard, peers do not
influence each other so much after the peer relationship is formed. Rather, people select peers on the basis of
something that resonates in them about the nature of the group they wish to join. To the extent that this last point is
accurate, institutions should be cautioned about being very optimistic about peer-generated and sustained reform.
Another way of putting this general point is: is the unanticipated increase in interest in the Greek way of life some
kind of implicit statement about dissatisfaction with campus life? If it represents dissatisfaction with something that
can be changed (like increasing dorm privacy, for example), then perhaps the institution should reform itself before
it attempts to reform the Greek system. If it represents something generally outside the institutions discretion or
values (like loosening restrictions imposed by new laws on alcohol consumption), then the institution would be
unwise to expect that the appeal of the system would remain if it became more like the institution from which it now
offers attractive alternative.

2. Are membership and selection practices fair and do they reflect other institutional values?

As noted, one of the qualities that appeals to many about the Greek system is that it affords opportunities for
friendships, feelings of belonging, and the development of connections at other institutions, as well as to alumni
and other institutions in later life. This is a powerfully important value in a situation where students feel like
numbers.
One of the arguments that is made in support of free association rights for fraternities and sororities is their

9
Ernest Boyer has this as a central theme of his book, College. He is the most eloquent of the numerous other
commentators who have adopted this theme.
 selectivity.10 The argument is that their very selectivity should entitle them to a constitutionally guaranteed right to
free association protection (although such a right would not entitle them to the use of state funds). The argument is
that if everyone could join any one Greek association, then the association would not be entitled to keep anyone in
particular out. But keeping most people out (viz., being selective) is what entitles them to be free of government
(institutional) interference under some public accommodation theory of equal access.

This selectivity may be or may not be based on merit or the kinds of values that higher education espouses. (At first
blush, of course, whole groups of students are excluded from membership on the basis of gender. While this
exclusion is permissible under federal regulation, it rarely conforms to stated institutional policies regarding equal
opportunity.) Frequently the selection is made on the basis of appearance. Margaret Ann Rose, whose 1985 book,
RUSH, A Girls Guide to Sorority Success, carries a report that she was a former rush captain at the University of
Texas and is, in the words of People magazine, the "Svengali of the sorority set," has this advice for potential
rushees:
Clothes are the first thing sororities will notice about you. You must dress appropriatelyTo underscore the
importance of wearing the right clothes, some schools with large Greek systems, such as the University of
Missouri and the University of Oklahoma, send rushees booklets with photographs (some are even in color!)
depicting appropriate rush attireAfter sorority members size up a rushees clothes, they will notice her face.
Here, too, you should look your very best. Practically every girl looks better with some makeup...11

Spike Lee, the filmmaker, tells us that for Black sororities, a woman's likely affiliation could be inferred on the basis of
her skin tone.12

It must be more than a little ironic for institutions that are practicing affirmative action and equal treatment to be
sending out official interview and selection guides to college hiring departments warning against the very practices that
their sororities are engaged in, sometimes with well-intentioned institutional support.

Institutions that endorse Greek systems should try to come to terms with the fact that Greek selection procedures may
not be in any way related to their own stated values of merit in selection and promotion. Further, at institutions where
there is institutional involvement in the selection processeseven where that involvement succeeds in mitigating some
of the worst excesses in membership selectionthere remains the likelihood that the institution will be participating in
selection practices that it, by institutional policy, is prohibited from endorsing. Moreover, if students become entitled to
a university benefitsuch as preferred housing, for exampleas the result of selection procedures that the institution
has sub-contracted to a Greek organization, then some students will be deprived of these benefits unfairly and the
institution will have been complicit in this unfair deprivation.

Especially in the case of highly selective Greek systems, the institutions would bear some responsibility if it had been a
participant in a selection scheme, which is non-meritocratic and secret, and results in a feeling of rejection and
alienation on the part of those who were not chosen.

Those who see the resurgence of Greek institutions as positive and as a sign that maybe things will go back to
the way they were will have to contend more directly with this problem of selectivity, unless the Greek
organizations change their selection practices radically.

3. Alcohol: does it play a special role in Greek life?

Some observers have been concerned about the fact that the Greek system seems to be a kind of special locus of
alcohol consumption. Of course it is possible to organize a Greek chapter around abstinence (some chapters are "dry"),
but the common perception is that the Greek system is, if nothing else, a social system that gives parties. Parties mean
alcohol to many in college.

10
Yale Law and Policy Review article.
11
Margaret Ann Rose, RUSH. A Girl's Guide to Sorority Success. New York: Villard Books, 1985, pgs. 18, 20.
12
His film is School Daze.
Over 90% of college students drink some alcohol each year, nearly 40% of white college men drink heavily and often.
Thus, there is drinking within and outside the Greek systems. The question becomes one of assessing the character of
drinking, to determine if any special connection with Greek membership exists. This should be done for each campus,
as part of the campus' general program to assess the extent and character of alcohol and other drug use.

Many national sororities have policies prohibiting the use of chapter funds and sorority houses for the consumption of
alcohol. Sorority members are not prohibited from drinking, they are simply asked not to do it at home or with their
chapter's money. This policy stance contributes directly to the circumstance where college fraternities become the main
focus of social activities particularly those involving alcohol. Ronald Roskens, president of the University of Nebraska,
notes.

... our Panhellenic sisters should not take comfort in the simple promulgation of enlightened policy, it is
clearly admirable that the sororities have banned alcohol in policy and in fact from their houses. But I find
no redeeming virtue in this fact since sororities continue to participate actively in fraternity or even
university sponsored events where excessive drinking is the rule, rather than the exception.13

With regard to alcohol consumption and sexual assault, the fact that fraternities become the buyers/sources/servers of
alcohol, and that women enter the fraternities in order to drink it, means that two main conditions that tend to
predispose women to sexual assault are institutionalized in the Greek system. Alcohol impairs judgment and weakens
defenses and as such can become an agent in assisting a predator to acquire a victim.

Fraternities differ from residence halls in that they are usually better organized, they have budgets which are not
generally available to outside review, they pool their resources and have the advantage of being able to buy in large
quantities at discounted prices, they control their space, and they have members who are in a position to purchase
alcohol for distribution to those under age. Fraternities are surely not unique in this regard; it is just that their
organization makes such the drinking programme so much easier to carry out. Moreover, part of the whole ethos of the
fraternityits connection to alumni adults and the future, and its associations with becoming leaders and emulating its
graduate membersmay predispose the fraternity to do adult things, like drinking. Thus, many fraternities have had
bars in them long before the drinking age was lowered to 18 and many fraternities routinely illegally served beer in the
bygone days.

The presence of these barsindeed the whole, organization of social life around themalong with other icons
involving alcohol give powerful psychological cues to those who come into contact with them. These cues set up and
reinforce expectations, one typically feels considerably less conspicuous drinking in a bar than one does in places
where there is no bar, so the bar cues the drinking to the extent that it makes it "normal."

One thing that we know about alcohol use is that the use of alcohol by ones peers is the best predictor of one's own
alcohol use. That is to say, one tends to drink like the people one associates with. So, for fraternities, if there is heavy
drinking, a heavy drinking norm becomes part of the cue to others that both invites people who tend to drink heavily
and helps reinforce and make normal the drinking that occurs there.

Some groups are already assembled around drinking norms. Some have drinking rituals, ranging from common
drinking games to special events. Ms. Rose reports that, in addition to other drinking:

Each fraternity holds one to four special parties a year. For example, Fijis [Phi Gamma Deltas] all across the
nation hold Fiji Island parties where the dress is tropical and grain alcohol punch is served. The KAs [Kappa
Alphas] across the nation have Old South parties each year. Frat members dress up like Confederate

13
Margaret Ann Rose, RUSH. A Girl's Guide to Sorority Success. New York: Villard Books, 1985, pgs. 18, 20.
 Soldiers 14

The presence of bars and other drinking cues and long held traditions which are cherished by alumniparticularly
those from times when the system was not under the scrutiny it is todaypose powerful obstacles to those who would
seek to change a part of an organization's culture, especially where the impetus for change is coming from outside the
organization.

Of course there have been several attempts to control and regulate drinking on the part of Greeks. So called Greek
drinking is now, perhaps more than ever in recent times, campus drinking because residence hall officials are enforcing
prohibitions on alcohol consumption by residents, leaving the fraternities as the last havens of drinking. Even the best
intentioned groups are under particular pressure as one part of a campus tightens up its rules leaving the other part less
insulated.

4. Does the past predict the future, and do the problems of today suggest that things have always been this wav?
People have been concerned about the relationship of the Greek system to campus history and to alumni. Criticism of
today's Greek systems is felt as a criticism of past Greeks and past Greek institutions. Institutions should take some
care to distinguish the realities of today from alumni memories of what used to be.

Some observers credit the cultural leveling of the 1960's with the decline of fraternities and sororities on college
campuses. (Some credit the 1960s with the decline of everything on college campuses!) Now observers point to an
increase and interest in Greek activitiesbut this should not be taken as a sign that weve returned to the past. One of
the things that is most important to keep in mind as a college analyzes its relationship to the Greek system is that it is
not necessarily the case that the past predicts the future (or that the present describes the past, for that matter).
Those who would argue for a return to a past that was relatively trouble-free compared to today are also, in a sense,
bound to return to a past that had many other dimensions that do not exist today and which, indeed, should not be
duplicated.
One major change is the shift away from single-sex education that is only one element in a series of changes in the
status of women, in general. Single-sex organizations in the context of single-sex institutions do not seem at all unusual
(just as it might not seem at all unusual for all organizations to have only white members in an institution that is all
white). Nor should it seem unusual that most positions of leadership used to be occupied by men, nor that most
business leaders were men and so on. But these examples are from our past, they are not our aspirations for the future.
What has changed, however, is the status of women, and with it a new obligation of institutions to accommodate and to
promote their interests equally with those of men. Women are entitled to equal opportunity. Separate is almost never
equal. While one might justify a single sex organization for women (to compensate for past discrimination), that would
surely not justify the perpetuation of the male institution (at least in the context of institutional values) which, in the
first place, helped to create and would continue to perpetuate the condition of inequality.

Similarly, more Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians are enrolled in college than ever before and college is now accessible to
almost all who are qualified, regardless of ability to pay. Creating an atmosphere of equal opportunity in a climate for
learning is the obligation of public colleges and the aim of all colleges who are trying to increase retention. It also
should give institutions reason to look carefully at Greek system costs (what it charges its members) to assess whether
the social life of an institution is being re-aligned according to ability to pay.

5. Can you have a Greek system without hazing?

One anthropologist who has studied student culture claims that "fraternity without hazing is an oxymoron.15 Anti-
hazing statutes have been passed in many states due in large measure to the work of Eileen Stevens, founder of
CHUCK, an organization named after her son who died a victim of hazing in an incident at Alfred University. Since

14
Rose, ibid., pg 69.
15
Michael Moffatt in a letter to the author.
 Chuck's death ten years ago, Ms. Stevens estimates that 44 college students have died in hazing incidents.16 To those
who would be inclined to see this as a low number, it should be pointed out that keeping college students alive is a
very low standard by which to measure success. As a corollary, there is much that can be very damaging that does not
result in death.

To reduce the incidence of hazing, most all fraternity nationals have anti-hazing programs and many collegiate offices
of Greek affairs offer anti-hazing training programs. Given this much attention to the subject, it is hard to believe a
claim that hazing is a rare occurrence, even though prosecutions under existing statutes have been miniscule.
On the subject of hazing, Ms. Rose writes:
Nationals of each sorority oppose hazing; however it still takes place on several campuses . Most of the
time it is supposed to be fun and is not meant to be painful or difficult. However, hazing is often embarrassing
and unpleasant.
Pledges are compelled to comply with hazing by members' threats that they will not become actives until they
do .... Hazing activities are always mandatory unless a girl is physically unable to take part, gets sick during
the activity or is terribly upset about the hazing. Girls who are unable or who have the courage to refuse to
participate in hazing are less a part of the pledge class (emphasis added). Hazing poses a difficult situation for
pledges who do not want to participate. By and large, however, the sorority does not want to alienate a pledge
. Nationals of all sororities take punitive measures against chapters they learn have participated in hazing.
However, nationals have problems finding out about hazing because chapters do not report that they have
broken sorority rules and pledges do not report on their own sororities.

Few, if any, pledges have dropped out of a sorority because of a bad hazing experience. Most hazing occurs
just before initiation, when pledges perform distasteful acts because they have waited so long to become
initiated members.17

Ms. Rose actually provides two lists, one of four items entitled "Examples of Hazing Thats Fun," which includes
"setting up relay races with an egg on a spoon" as the first suggestion, she also provides a list of ten "Examples of
Hazing That Isn't Fun" which warns against "Having pledges eat hot dogs while reading pornographic poetry" and
"Making pledges stuff ten marshmallows in their mouths without swallowing them, while doing strenuous exercises.18

Hazing is a particularly complicated topic because it seems to take full advantage of certain adolescent tendencies.
Adolescents do not seem to want to feel controlled by anybody so they tend to deny the existence of controlling forces,
particularly among peers. At the same time they feel a powerful urge to belong and have a great capacity for self-
delusion. Hazing brings this all together.

Hazing is another matter in which there is some real societal ambivalence. We do not seem at all upset when we look at
boot camp type regimentation and hazing, some even argue that it is necessary to build an esprit de corps (witness the
claim of Mr. Hansen of DU: "Sure, boot camp is a good idea, when you're building a fighting military unit.... But most
institutions can maintain a strict anti-hazing posture because most of the hazing that occurs happens in private, at least
in white Greek organizations. On the other hand, most colleges seem to turn the other way in the presence of Black
fraternity rituals that surely look like hazing, though some argue that to call "walking the line or being branded hazing
is to misunderstand a cultural difference.

One of the best statements about hazing appeared in an Ann Landers column. A young man claimed that his fraternity
"didn't want any members who would allow themselves to be hazed."19 In this man's wonderful phrase can be seen the

16
William Ecenbarger, "The Rise and Fall of the Greek Empire", The Philadelphia Inquirer. September 18, 1988, pg. 40.
17
Rose, OP Cit, pgs. 58, 59, 60.
18
Ibid., pg. 58-59.
19
Landers.
essence of this problem. In effect, the current practice is to expect the pledge to enforce the rule against hazing. The
pledge is told that he is not to do anything against his will. But how does he know when his will is being tested? How
does he know when resistance is the measure of his worthiness, or when his compliance is? Moreover, he very much
wants to be a member and he wants to trust his intended brothers. He wants them as his friends and he wants them to
like him. He is told that he is joining a secret organization. He may even be subjected to physical threats if he breaks a
silence and reports a hazing incident. Can such a person really be expected to help enforce the institutions injunction
against hazing?

Of course the chapter is asked to resist participation in anything that causes harm. But what seems to be the case is that
the student who really wants to join will be more and more inclined to go along with what is being asked, will delude,
or at least confuse, him/herself about whether or not s/he is consenting and in so doing become a partner in the hazing.
And since hell week is usually at the end of the pledging period when initiation is the light at the end of the tunnel, the
pledge has more invested in enduring than in resisting. As Ms. Rose noted, pledges will usually perform distasteful
acts because they have waited so long to become initiated members."

Ms. Rose refers to "distasteful acts", DU Executive Director Hansen's hypothetical depiction of hazing is more graphic:

You will do exactly as told...At times you'll be required to work for days without sleep. We'll create
meaningless busy work for you, so you'll learn to obey every whim. Youll respond immediately to every
request for a personal favor or errand.

You must endure horrendous peer pressure to drink, tests of physical stamina, psychological abuse and
relentless questioning over meaningless trivia. When we like it, we'll line you up against the wall, shine
bright lights in your eyes, and scream questions for which there is no right answer.20

We usually learn of hazing when it goes very badly wrong, resulting in someones death, or injury and the like. Such
an event is never the intention of the Greek organization, to be sure, but, it is also not their intention to keep the pledge
entirely out of harms way either. If Greek organizations become more popular, it is safe to say that being in them will
become worth more. Such a condition could lead to a restraint of dangerous practices, but is just as probable to make it
more likely that pledges will consent to being hazed because membership in the organization is worth it. Since the
Greek organizations operate largely in secret and since they have the elements which make a kind of conspiracy
possible (that is to say they frequently have private space, a tight organization, an obligation of secrecy, and a form of
loyalty to one another that takes precedence over any other loyaltiessome organizations ask their members to pledge
to never speak against another brother, for example), it seems safe to say that hazing is going to continue.

One possible way to reduce it is to take the "intention clause out of most hazing rulesthat is to specify acts that even
if consented to will be considered hazing, whether the act was cause harm or not. Then, there is at least some chance
that the conspiracy between the organization and the victim will be broken.

6. The Sex Discrimination Question: Is depriving women of membership in fraternities limiting their access to
connections and benefits that they might desire?

One of the powerful motivating forces for joining fraternities is to have an opportunity to make connections that will
help throughout a lifetime, enhance a career, open doors to friendships and other opportunities. The Guidelines
state:

Mens fraternities, developed nearly a hundred years before womens groups, were fashioned by men founding
a nation in 1776 in a free enterprise system. This model was adapted for mens fraternity organizational
structure. Womens groups reflect the role of women in society at the time with an organizational structure
based on volunteer professionals and close monitoring and nurturing of a chapter. These roots are reflected

20
Hansen, pg. 56.
 today in organizational differences in mens and women's fraternities and need to be respected.21

Leaders of fraternities are quick to point out that the ranks of highest levels of corporate America are overwhelmingly
populated by fraternity members, that the government is dominated by people who became Greek in college, and so
on. One of the real benefits of the system is the connection to brothers and sisters who share membership.

Some would say that these connections are, in fact, quite week. Unlike private clubs where business is transacted,
college fraternities are merely social organizations. They may teach the form of leadership but they do not actually
have access to any useful connections, decisions, opportunities, or power.

However, analysis regarding other private clubs is showing the extent to which it is possible that these connections
are valuableeven if, for instance, alumni members only give advice on how to find employment or how to prepare a
resume. To the extent that fraternities offer real advantages for members and yet continue to deny access to these
benefits on the basis of gender, then colleges whose missions include sex equity will be hard pressed to justify any
financial or other support for organizations which practice sex discrimination.

President Roskens implores his audience, as follows:

I consider it simply intolerable that fraternities continue to encourage, in any manner, outmoded
conceptions of women. We demand of others that they respect the Greek system. Yet we continue to
display a propensity to rationalize or excuse young men who treat women as objects, tallying sexual
conquests and viewing women simply as bodies to be exploited or leered at, rather than as fellow human
beings. Clearly, such impulses are at odds with every principle of human decency and antithetical to those
tenets for which the Greek system should stand.22

This is an eloquent statement, but it fails to engage the fundamental fact of objectification: namely, if it is permissible
to objectify someone on the basis of race or gender as one makes a decision about membershipthe most elemental
token of inclusionthen what would lead anyone to believe that a fraternity would resist objectification for any other
purpose?

It is not that those who are in sororities would necessarily want to join fraternities if they were not sex-segregated.
Rather, the question becomes, how can an institution justify the exclusion from membership of any woman who
might want to enjoy the benefit she ascribes to membership? While there may be no reason for an institution to help
such a woman join a truly private club, there is equally no justification for an institution to use any of its resources,
including its name, in support of an organization that is denying a woman a chance to achieve what the institution is
helping men to achieve.

RECOMMENDATIONS
It seems fairly safe to predict that all institutions that now have Greek systems will be soon or are engaged now in a
review of their relationships with the system. Institutions will have to determine which approach, or combination of
approaches, they will take to align their missions, plans and aspirations for the future with those of students who
desire a Greek option.

In the best of cases, this review will take place as part of some normal planning process that might allow for the
development of a theory or general approach to campus relationships that will inform a more specific deliberation
about Greeks, in particular. More often than is beneficial, however, these reviews will be "incident-driven or at least
inspired by incidents, and thus they will be less likely to follow a broader path.

No doubt some institutions will choose the course of abolishing fraternities and sororities. Others, indeed most, will
try programs of reform. The following recommendations are offered to help in the process, particularly for those

21
Guideline, Op. Cit., pg. 3.
22
Roskens, Op. Cit.
institutions that adopt a reformist approach. Naturally, they should be considered in the individual context of an
institution's customary planning and deliberative process.

1. Focus on institutional mission and values, not only on the Greek system.

This means looking carefully at what academic and student life goals an institution has, examining its program
to achieve these goals, reviewing the resources to be devoted to achieving institutional missions, and
examining student life options in view of other institutional policies (such as non-discrimination policies,
human relations policies, and the like).

2. If the host institution recognizes Greek social organizations, make the recognition performance-based.

"Recognition" in whatever form it takes should be performance based and time specific. Institutions should
specify certain conditions to be met by each chapter (these may include financial, life safety, membership,
academic, disciplinary and standards the institution thinks can be reasonably expected of the Greek
organization). Recognition should be granted for specified time periods with a requirement for application for
re-recognition at the end of a specified time.

Recognition should also be made contingent on the Greek organization's submission of evidence of insurance
protection (including an indemnification of the host institution) sufficient to cover potential losses.

3. Assess the Greek system for any special costs incurred by the institution for supervision and support.

Public institutions should be mindful of their obligations to refrain from offering "substantial" support to
organizations that practice discrimination. All institutions have a special interest in conserving resources in
order to support institutional purposes including student organizations that offer opportunities for all students.
Special costs incurred in the management, supervision, and recognition of private organizations should be
passed through to those organizations (as they are for many PIRGs, for example). This assessment should be
made on the Greek organization.

4. Defer rush until the sophomore year.

If the host institution participates in rush, then it should consider deferring such participation until the
sophomore year, or until a specified number of credits at a specified level of academic achievement is met.
One of the arguments favoring Greek membership is based on their role in the development of friendships,
affiliation, and peer groups. The practice of freshman year rushing, however, tends to interrupt the friendships
that are beginning to form in the residence halls and causes a whole new alignment of friends. Deferring rush
has the added benefit of reducing the distraction that rushing and pledging may cause during a time of critical
academic adjustment of the student to the institution. Studies should be undertaken to examine the connection
between pledging and rushing and retention and academic success.

5. Require a plan and timetable for ending gender discrimination, consistent with general institutional policy.

While Title IX exempts single-sex social fraternities and sororities from institutional requirements for non-
discrimination, most institutions do not officially sanction even just a little" sex discrimination. Further, to the
extent that Greek organizations confer benefits on their members, they should be required to confer them
without regard to race, sex, handicapped status or any other of the institution's list of protected classes.

A requirement to plan for sex de-segregation should be made a part of recognition and institutions should
advise nationals of their intentions in this regard.
6. Change the definition of hazing to remove any concept of intention to harm and consent.

Many anti-hazing agreements and statements list acts and classes of acts that are prohibited if they are
"intended" to cause injury, embarrassment, or harm. Changing the definition so that certain classes of acts or
specific acts are described as hazing, whether they were intended to harm or "consented to" by the pledge or
not, would give a better form of notice to the Greek organizations and might reduce the incidence of hazing.

Institutions should establish and announce intended penalties and sanctions, both for the individuals
responsible, the chapter officers and the organization itself for infractions of anti-hazing rules.

7. Establish critical indicatorsagreed-upon standards by which performance will be evaluated and then
monitor performance accordingly.

Working with the Greek organizations, institutions should identify critical indicators of performance (these
may include such things as incidents of noise complaints, police interventions, shifts in academic performance,
charges of sexual assault, for example) that would be cause for formal review, each time the incident
happened. Such indicators would be used to measure performance as a part of the recognition process and
could form the basis of general reporting to the national and alumni groups.

These critical indicators might be in addition to trend indicators, such as overall GPAs, and other aggregated
indications of performance.

8. Require any recognized Greek organizations to establish procedures for adjudicating disputes regarding
membership and selection.

Particularly in setting where the host institution is permitting the Greek organizations to decide on membership
where that decision also affords access to an institutional benefit (like housing), some method for promoting
fairness in the decision-making process should be in place along with a procedure for formally hearing
complaints. Records of these complaints could also be considered critical indicators, requiring more extensive
follow up.

9. Require recognized Greek organizations to make available ritual books, manuals, and other secret materials
as a condition for recognition.

Secrecy, unlike privacy, is not generally part of an institutions values (witness the general policies against
secret research). While Greek organizations may only pay partial attention to formally prescribed rituals, any
institution giving its recognition to these organizations ought, at minimum, to know what is in the official
creed of the organization it is recognizing. A promise of confidentiality could be given in exchange for the
materials. The materials could form a basis for the review of each organization and an assessment of risk. As
it is now, institutions are recognizing chapters without knowing what they are implicitly endorsing.

10. Maintain an educational presence in the Greek system.

Many institutions provide educational programs on a variety of topics to student groups. Many Greek
organizations offer special educational programs for Greek members. Institutions are advised to continue to
offer educational programs and not to assume that the program offered by the Greek organization bears the
same message as the institutions program.

11. Report on Greek performance to alumni.

Alumni may not be aware that things are different now than they remember them as being when they were in
school. Acquainting alumni with current performance of the Greek system will help alumni assess differences.
Shielding alumni from some of the more disturbing aspects of contemporary Greek life only enables them to
 hold skeptical views of an institutions efforts towards reform. Communication with alumni, not just those
currently involved in chapter governance, is essential.

12. Look at alcohol and drug issues as community issues.

It is preferable to take a community approach to the problem of regulating drinking and drug using behavior.
Institutions should examine how their discretionary decisions regarding alcohol may be placing some parts of
the institutional community under greater pressures. What is done in one part of the community has effects on
other parts of a community. While alcohol use may have a long standing tradition in fraternities, efforts to
crack down on-campus use are only pressuring current Greeks to be more involved with alcohol as those
students who wish to drink see the Greek option as the only easy route to that goal.

William David Burns

Assistant Vice President
Rutgers University
September 22, 1988
 --------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/17/nyregion/campus-life-rutgers-two-fraternities-are-suspended-for-violations.html?pagewanted=print

The New York Times

March 17, 1991

Campus Life: Rutgers; Two

Fraternities Are Suspended For
Violations
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. Two Rutgers University fraternities have been suspended following
unrelated rules violations in their chapter houses.

The Rutgers chapter of Delta Upsilon lost its campus status for three years on Friday for hazing
violations, including reportedly branding pledges and new members last fall. Sigma Phi Epsilon
was suspended by its national fraternity earlier this month after a party in which alcohol policies
were violated, national fraternity officials said. They took the action the day after the incident,
which occurred in March.

In a letter to the Delta Upsilon international headquarters in Indianapolis, Paul Leath, provost of
the Rutgers campus here, said, "I have concluded that the branding of pledges and/or newly
initiated members . . . that occurred during and after the final week of pledging is in violation of the
policy against hazing." Sex Assault Charge

The decision to suspend the chapter for at least three years was reached in cooperation with the
international office of Delta Upsilon, said Steve Gerber, its executive director.

"These kinds of actions are everything Delta Upsilon doesn't stand for," he said. "No fraternity
would tolerate members performing those kinds of acts," he said, referring to the alleged branding
with the Greek symbols for D.U.

Sigma Phi Epsilon was suspended by its national office after the arrest of a member who was
charged with aggravated sexual contact and sexual assault after a party at the chapter's fraternity
house.

The victim told the police that a Rutgers sophomore, Paul Sinibaldi, of Elizabeth, N.J., assaulted
her when she and Mr. Sinibaldi went back to his room in a campus residence hall after the party.
Both students had been drinking at the fraternity house before the reported assault, said Eric
Lauterbach, Sigma Phi's director of alumni and chapter development.

"We'll not renew the charter until we're sure the chapter is focused on the real goals of the
university," Mr. Lauterbach said in an interview last week.

About 60 students protested outside the two fraternities on March 8, claiming the fraternities were
sexist institutions that should be banned. "Fraternities are a women's issue," said Monica Tauriello,
a Rutgers sophomore from Dumont, N.J., who majors in women's studies and history. "They are
sexist institutions and foster sexism on campus. While hazing at D.U. doesn't seem to be a women's
issue the suspension, does further women's causes."