Recently, much controversy has surrounded the University’s termination of pledging activities for Greek organizations. In response to several alleged incidents of improper conduct, fraternities were asked to initiate their pledges within a few days while several houses were put under investigation. I don’t want to get into too many specifics, as I am uninvolved with Greek life and know relatively little about the organizations in question. I am, however, appreciative of the benefits both fraternities and sororities at the University bring to the student body. It is because of this appreciation that I am concerned about how the recent incidents were handled.
Hazing is obviously the central issue at stake between the Inter-Fraternity Council and the University. There are times when initiation rituals clearly cross the line — if a pledging activity leads to someone getting hospitalized, harsh consequences for the guilty fraternity are in order. But the differences between a fun initiation ritual and hazing can be more subtle than that, especially when the damage is more psychological than physical. Pressuring pledges to drink, humiliate themselves or sacrifice their grades and other interests can have few tangible short-term consequences but can be just as damaging to a student’s experience. These forms of hazing need to be minimized and discouraged just as much as the more drastic examples that provoke University involvement. And it is this goal which the University has compromised through its recent actions.
I have a lot of friends who pledged and maintained active social, athletic, extracurricular and academic lives while still meeting their obligations as pledges. The fraternities they pledged were willing to work with them to accommodate their activities outside of Greek life: a decision which in my opinion resulted in these fraternities getting much more interesting and diverse pledge classes. But I also knew people whose lives were totally consumed by pledging and watched their grades, friendships, and other passions suffer as a result. I don’t think it’s controversial to say the first type of fraternity is the kind that the University should support and reward.
Yet in the aftermath of the latest incidents, it was not only the fraternities who were clearly abusing their pledges that had to suffer the consequences. The University’s actions forced every other fraternity, including those who were treating their pledges with respect, to lose the ability to continue their traditions with their soon-to-be brothers. For those fraternities, it was the pledges who were being punished, unable to enjoy the same experiences as the students who came before them. By punishing houses who were meeting the standards expected by the University for Greek life along with houses that were not, the administration made the example set by the well-behaved houses a less appealing one.
So how could appropriate actions have been taken without blindly inflicting punishment? The first step has already begun — investigate any incidents of hazing aggressively and punish them severely. Trips to the hospital due to pledging should be considered unacceptable and punished with a loss of University recognition, with no warning or watered-down punishment on the first offense. This policy could be dangerous if pledges are pressured not to go to the hospital, but the necessity of preventing future problems outweighs the dangers of a single delayed hospital visit.
The next step would be to incentivize healthy pledging activities. This could be achieved through greater rewards for pledge classes with high GPAs and whose grades do not slip throughout the spring. Fraternities that could keep their pledges engaged with the University as well as their initiations could be rewarded with increased cooperation from the University for philanthropic activities and other major events, through access to University facilities and resources. Dean of Students Allen Groves or another high-ranking University official could publicly support a specific event for a high-achieving fraternity, or help secure a great location or attraction for a formal or other function. The University has contacts and resources that fraternities could use, and the school could selectively offer these resources to reward good behavior.
The same criteria — achieving and maintaining a high class GPA — that the University can use to reward successful houses could also be used to identify problems. If a fraternity shows a repeated tendency to have pledges who suffer academically or otherwise, the fraternity should be investigated, moderately chastised or otherwise encouraged to modify its activities. Having a pledge class underachieve could result in a shortened pledge season the following year. That way, pledges would also be motivated to do well academically so that they could fully initiate their next class.
While none of these ideas are perfect, they are certainly better than the University’s current strategy, which lacks specificity. By punishing every member of the IFC with blanket regulations, the University is only encouraging more responsible organizations to cover up for their counterparts. By enacting any initiative that rewarded and punished each house individually, this negative incentive could be eliminated, and a new, positive incentive to treat pledges well would be created. And motivating fraternities to help support the lives of their members outside of the house would help reduce the less obvious, non-physical forms of hazing that are much harder to notice. Greek life at the University is valuable, even to non-members, and it needs to be encouraged to meet higher, fairer standards than currently exist.
Forrest Brown is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. His column runs Thursdays.
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