Current Events > Universities should probably disband "Greek life"

(+) Yeah! (+)

Frats and sororities breed some of the most toxic behaviors in society, yet get no negative attention unless someone parties too hard. Then its usually a slap on the wrist

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spring break!

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Hard agree. They serve no useful purpose and only perpetuate problematic behavior.

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And Ban Sale & Consumption of Alcohol on Campus along with Smoking Tobacco or Marijuana on Campus.

They can go off-campus if they want to do those things.

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Heartomaton posted...

Hard agree.

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Says a non-greek lol
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KamenRiderBlade posted...

Ban Sale & Consumption of Alcohol on Campus along with Smoking Tobacco or Marijuana on Campus.

As for alcohol, I can't recall ever seeing a campus that isn't "dry"

As for tobacco though, I actually disagree with this. There are plenty of places for smokers to go and they can't be near buildings. Additionally, there is legitimate cause for these people to smoke; even though it's horrible, it can help them de-stress after a bad class, or before a big test or something. Shouldn't be forced to walk half a mile off campus to smoke and risk being late for the test on return.

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PatrickMahomes posted...

Additionally, there is legitimate cause for these people to smoke; even though it's horrible, it can help them de-stress after a bad class, or before a big test or something. Shouldn't be forced to walk half a mile off campus to smoke and risk being late for the test on return.

Those of us who don't want to be subjected to your 2nd hand smoke, shouldn't have to.

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I mean you have to join apply and be accepted to even get in, so what they do is really not your problem unless you join.

I was literally just thinking this last night. The amount of unchecked toxic behavior that goes on in them is kinda unacceptable.

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KamenRiderBlade posted...

And Ban Sale & Consumption of Alcohol on Campus along with Smoking Tobacco or Marijuana on Campus.

Weirdly enough, one of the biggest advocates for lowering the legal age of alcohol consumption is universities, who stand to save a shit ton of money on enforcement if they no longer have to actively combat underage drinking on campus because the legal age would then be in high school.

As for getting rid of frats, I agree but it'll never happen. Anecdotally it seems like business/econ/polisci majors are the hardest frat goers, the ones who benefit the most from a frat network, and the ones most likely to donate large sums of money post graduation, so there's too much of a financial incentive for universities to keep them around.

For example, here's a Uchicago breakdown I found:
https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2016/6/1/snapshot-uchicago-greek-life-demographics-growth-r/

Majors: Another common campus perception did hold up to scrutiny. Fraternity brothers may not all be white, but if you think theyre all econ majors, youre not too far off. Of those polled, a whopping 41 percent reported majoring in economics. Thats nearly double the undergraduate average of 24 percent, according to data published by the College Registry.

EDIT:
https://www.elitedaily.com/news/world/15-revealing-stats-current-state-greek-life

When it comes to donating to their alma maters, fraternity- and sorority-involved alumni give four times as much as their non-Greek counterparts. Not only that, but they also account for 75% of all total college and university donations. Undergraduate members give an annual average of $7 million and 850,000 hours toward charitable causes.

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Heartomaton posted...

Hard agree.

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hard agree from me too

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I saw the movie Animal House for the first time a couple of weeks ago and it makes fraternities seem really enticing. The chaos and partying is obviously part of the appeal but I think its also about finding a group of people that you would consider your brothers. They definitely need to find a way to limit the toxic stuff that they get into though
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Agreed, should be traded for a hyper disciplined and honorable samurai-life system. The suicide rates will increase and we'll probably have to deal with Nobunaga at some point but otherwise this will improve literally everything about college life

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shockthemonkey posted...

Even colleges that dont officially recognize frats still have them, Im not really sure how to eliminate them entirely. Also there are some that do real good work.

Greek life is a fucking weird thing and its absolutely bizarre to me but idk its not like college kids are gonna stop getting drunk and being goofballs if frats dont exist

Honestly this is kind of where I am.

Like what's the difference between Greek life and just regular college interaction? The organization element, and the "historical" element. That can be very positive and very negative if enforced in either direction. One could use Greek to do great things for the community and your own future prospects. One can also find an organization that's incredibly toxic, racist, sexist, mired in the past etc.

If you ban frats, college students will still get together, and there will be clubs of some sort. That will never really go away unless you banned public assembly or some crap. >_>

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KamenRiderBlade posted...

Those of us who don't want to be subjected to your 2nd hand smoke, shouldn't have to.

But you don't have to.

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If you thought hazing, sexual assault, racism, etc. was bad in officially recognized fraternities, think about how bad it is when the university/nationals are not watching...


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PatrickMahomes posted...

But you don't have to.

If you smoke outside the lecture hall, and I have to walk through and breathe in your 2nd Hand smoke, you're technically subjecting me to it.

That's why I want it banned from the campus.

You can smoke off campus.

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lilORANG posted...

Says a non-greek lol

I think being in a frat at 28 would be a bit unbecoming.

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Of course a bunch of GameFAQs guys would be against popular people having fun.

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Pepys Monster posted...

Of course a bunch of GameFAQs guys would be against popular people having fun.

The draft of my original post geared in this direction. Basically I can't imagine CE being the type to even engage in Greek. I know I didn't. All I had was satellite interaction because I was involved in the music dept and there's a band fraternity which was entirely chill and service-oriented.

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JACKBUTTMOMMY posted...

Is that why they pay to join a club?

They still have to make the cut. I doubt the average GameFAQs dude would make it.

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American "frats" still just completely baffle me. We have clubs/whatever in the UK, but they are all just based around a common interest/sport/whatever and anyone can join up as long as they pay whatever membership fees are (if any)

Then you have the occasional night out at a club/house party to potentially go to if you want to, but no need. Obviously plenty of too much drinking goes on, but that's the norm for Uni students.

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KamenRiderBlade posted...

If you smoke outside the lecture hall, and I have to walk through and breathe in your 2nd Hand smoke, you're technically subjecting me to it.

That's why I want it banned from the campus.

You can smoke off campus.

Most states/college towns and even campuses have laws that prohibit smoking within a certain distance from a given building entry/exit. My school had a 30-foot rule. If you don't feel those distances are adequate, you'll want to take it up with your campus or legislators.

But banning it entirely from campus is a silly "solution" that is impractical and unfair to OVER 1 in 3 students.

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PatrickMahomes posted...

As for alcohol, I can't recall ever seeing a campus that isn't "dry"

As for tobacco though, I actually disagree with this. There are plenty of places for smokers to go and they can't be near buildings. Additionally, there is legitimate cause for these people to smoke; even though it's horrible, it can help them de-stress after a bad class, or before a big test or something. Shouldn't be forced to walk half a mile off campus to smoke and risk being late for the test on return.

I might have agreed with this back when there wasn't a reasonably similar alternative that avoids the bad smell and toxic effects to non-users, but these days, I would be 100% okay with a "ban tobacco, but allow vaping" approach. (For context, I don't do either myself, but have done both in the past.)

Although I wouldn't object to having a dedicated smoking area in one place.

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Pepys Monster posted...

They still have to make the cut. I doubt the average GameFAQs dude would make it.

The cut is looking and dressing the same and sharing the same opinions. Most of them wouldnt make the cut in a plethora of other more important organizations.

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Woozul posted...

CE is contrarian for the sake of it they aren't gonna agree with anyone except on the fact that they disagree with whatever it is lmaooo

All fax, no printer.

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life is problematic cancel everything

I couldn't agree more. I got pulled into that and it was one of the biggest regrets of my life, and I say that as someone who had a "mild" fraternity experience. There was no sexual assault or bad hazing (some, and I don't approve, even if it was mild) and you didn't need to be rich. I'm not saying other frats are the same though, because unfortunately they aren't.

But like someone said, there's just toxic behavior that goes unchecked. Even if it's not the most abhorrent you got a lot of little things that add up over time, stuff like people saying little racist things here and there. It's hard to speak up cause you have so many other people there and it can feel like an echo chamber. It also sucks having your living situation tied to it, it's not like some other club where you can just decide not to show up anymore.

All the stuff about community service is a facade too. We had to do only like ten hours a semester, very few people went beyond the minimum. The "tradition" is meaningless and just means nepotism. I will admit some of the houses can be cool just from a design point of view but they could easily be turned into regular open student housing.

From my personal experience, everybody I knew freshman year that pledged came out a worse person. And usually started saying the n word all the time (in Texas).

But many rich and influential people, including donors, did Greek life and will use their influence to preserve it. It's really up to them to make things change imo.

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CoorsLight posted...

I couldn't agree more. I got pulled into that and it was one of the biggest regrets of my life, and I say that as someone who had a "mild" fraternity experience. There was no sexual assault or bad hazing (some, and I don't approve, even if it was mild) and you didn't need to be rich. I'm not saying other frats are the same though, because unfortunately they aren't.

But like someone said, there's just toxic behavior that goes unchecked. Even if it's not the most abhorrent you got a lot of little things that add up over time, stuff like people saying little racist things here and there. It's hard to speak up cause you have so many other people there and it can feel like an echo chamber. It also sucks having your living situation tied to it, it's not like some other club where you can just decide not to show up anymore.

All the stuff about community service is a facade too. We had to do only like ten hours a semester, very few people went beyond the minimum. The "tradition" is meaningless and just means nepotism. I will admit some of the houses can be cool just from a design point of view but they could easily be turned into regular open student housing.

More reason to ban "Fraternities" & "Sororities".

I really displike Nepotism.

Jabodie posted...

From my personal experience, everybody I knew freshman year that pledged came out a worse person. And usually started saying the n word all the time (in Texas).

But many rich and influential people, including donors, did Greek life and will use their influence to preserve it. It's really up to them to make things change imo.

Also another reason to ban "Fraternities" & "Sororities".

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Pepys Monster posted...

Of course a bunch of GameFAQs guys would be against popular people having fun.

Yeah lmao

As if college people are going to stop drinking anyway and having get togethers, as said in the comments above.

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They always seemed kinda culty tbh.
Also I may be pathetic but I'm not pathetic enough to let people treat me like shit for the privilege of being their friend.

This reminds me of a common talking point back in undergrad. Most of the major frats wouldn't pledge minorities, and the general reason I heard was that new members needed to be approved by alumni. And supposedly the alumni were racist, so they basically wouldn't approve minorities.

But that could be changing. A bit after that while SAE racist song went viral (idk why - that shit was happening all the time here lol), my roommate's frat accepted a black pledge. I'll never forget, he said "Huh, I guess I should stop saying 'n words' all the time."

It's pretty interesting how "PC" rules just didn't seem to apply specifically to Greek life. This was in 2013/2014 for those wondering. So a decent while ago.

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People don't hate frats because they party. Well maybe some, but probably the kids who were so sheltered that they didn't even know that non-greeks partied. They hate them because of the toxic culture around drinking (and other things).

I can't imagine being black and wanting to join one, I'd stay extra the hell away. Thing is you need more minorities to help with those kind of issues, but they shouldn't have to bear the burden of putting up with more racism until it gets better. It's a lot like the idea of "good cops" reforming from within. That's why it'd be better just to tear it down

Eh, I was in a fraternity in college and we weren't involved in any kind of hazing, date rape or overall douchebaggery. We partied, but we always made sure the people that came to the party were taken care of.

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CoorsLight posted...

I can't imagine being black and wanting to join one, I'd stay extra the hell away. Thing is you need more minorities to help with those kind of issues, but they shouldn't have to bear the burden of putting up with more racism until it gets better. It's a lot like the idea of "good cops" reforming from within.

Well, that's why black people started our own Greek organizations. They don't have the same stigma as the PWI ones, although there's still stereotyping about the individual organizations.

It's also cultural appropriation

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RchHomieQuanChi posted...

Eh, I was in a fraternity in college and we weren't involved in any kind of hazing, date rape or overall douchebaggery.

It depends on your university culture I think, plus the specific frat. My roommate got hazed like crazy when he pledged.

My favorite tradition was that they had to take a test on some frat rule book once in a while. If you failed, you would have to retake it, but that time the actives would be yelling at you and throwing stuff at you the whole time. There was the not as funny stuff though like chugging liquor then running relays into they threw up.

His pledge trainer (or whatever it's called) got the frat on probation though. I think that was an especially bad semester for them.

One thing I thought was funny is that they would have to randomly buy discontinued snacks and drinks within a day. I remember he and his buddies had to drive a few hours to Dallas I think to get a discontinued flavor of Sprite lmao.

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One guy got killed by hazing in a frat from the college I was at my first year. University at Buffalo a couple years ago

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Even if you take a stand against hazing, sexual assault and unsafe/underage drinking, you're basically only as good as your worst member. I suppose if someone had done something really bad, he would've been kicked out, but we were fortunately not in that situation, so I don't know what would've really played out. But that's the problem, cause there were still toxic mindsets all over. And you can't really root that out in the recruitment process, and some of it may be valued even, since people perpetuate that cycle.

That is certainly a risk in any kind of group but I think the worst part is that Greeks are pretty self organized and governing, and the organization is entirely social. A sports team is centered around athletic ability so you're more likely to get people with different perspectives who can keep each other in check, plus coaches being some amount of oversight. Same with other clubs being mostly about some common interest instead of your personality. They do have toxic behaviors sometimes for sure but it's not as bad as a group that has no real unifying purpose, which breeds conformity.

Jabodie posted...

It depends on your university culture I think, plus the specific frat. My roommate got hazed like crazy when he pledged.

My favorite tradition was that they had to take a test on some frat rule book once in a while. If you failed, you would have to retake it, but that time the actives would be yelling at you and throwing stuff at you the whole time. There was the not as funny stuff though like chugging liquor then running relays into they threw up.

His pledge trainer (or whatever it's called) got the frat on probation though. I think that was an especially bad semester for them.

One thing I thought was funny is that they would have to randomly buy discontinued snacks and drinks within a day. I remember he and his buddies had to drive a few hours to Dallas I think to get a discontinued flavor of Sprite lmao.

Yeah I've heard about some pretty bad fraternities. Our fraternity fortunately had a lot of military guys that were big on discipline and self-control and wouldn't have tolerated any of that shit. We actually had one member assigned for parties that had to stay sober to cut people off if they got too belligerent.

We also required every member to maintain at least a 3.0 GPA and we did a lot of volunteering and charity events. We were also pretty inclusive too. We had white, black, hispanic, asian, gay, straight, etc.,

It was a great experience and I don't regret it one bit.

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We had an academic requirement, doesn't mean shit about being a good person. Also had a gay guy and people still dropped the f slur in front of him all the time