Editorial: Banning fraternities won’t eliminate binge drinking

Greek life, as any fraternity brother will tell you, is central to campus culture. But if… Greek life, as any fraternity brother will tell you, is central to campus culture. But if developments at other colleges are any indication, no tradition is free from censure.

Princeton, a school where Greek organizations aren’t officially recognized, recently banned its incoming class from joining a fraternity or sorority, partially on the grounds that they place “excessive emphasis on alcohol.” One week prior to this, the University of Southern California reminded its students that pre-rush parties were forbidden as a result of several unseemly incidents — which included multiple cases of alcohol poisoning.

Academia’s increasing stringency toward the Greeks is reflected in the pages of several estimable publications. Just last week, Cornell president David Skorton explained in an impassioned New York Times op-ed why he prohibited fraternity pledging, a practice he defined as including “the performance of demeaning or dangerous acts as a condition of membership.” The decision, he said, was inspired by the death of a sophomore, who passed away during one particularly excessive hazing ritual.

The next day, The Chronicle of Higher Education responded with a blog post advocating even more drastic action — the elimination of fraternities altogether. The author, Laurie Essig, claimed abolishing the entire institution would send a resounding, unmistakable message that Universities are intolerant of “binge drinking, stupid sex acts and outright violence.” In other words, it would be a symbolic gesture as much as a pragmatic one.

Essig teaches at Middlebury College, where such measures have already been enacted. She acknowledged that illicit behavior wouldn’t vanish with Greek life, because even at Middlebury such excess remains prevalent. Despite this, she was still confident that the ban would change the environment — and the attitudes — on campus.

As much as we condemn binge drinking and hazing, we think closing fraternities — or even dismantling their recruitment policies — is only the latest in a series of myopic attempts to cure college campuses of this seemingly untreatable illness. In reality, drinking culture is so entrenched — and so ubiquitous — that attacking only one facet of it would ultimately engender little more than sour feelings.

Fraternities, after all, are a venue for excessive drinking, not the catalyst. Whether a college is known for its raucous parties depends not on the official status of Greek life, but rather on the mentality of its students. This mentality is in turn dependent on any number of factors — including the surrounding environment and campus size.

As for the argument that eliminating fraternities would affirm a university’s intolerance of illicit behavior, we believe this is unnecessary. Colleges make themselves perfectly clear on these matters, through zero-tolerance policies like Brigham Young’s and police forces that punish underage drinking, like the Pitt police.

In any case, driving fraternities off campus would ultimately only drive them underground. Informal organizations would develop in the absence of formal ones, the same alcohol-centric atmosphere would exist and the drinking epicenters on campus would multiply in secret, outside of University jurisdiction.

As disheartening as it is to admit, drinking is not a fraternity problem, it’s a college problem — maybe even a national problem. Universities might pursue quick-fix solutions like banning Greek life, but culture, as any anthropology professor will tell you, is slow to change. Ultimately, the best solution might be the least-militant one: simply educate students early on about the dangers of alcohol abuse and instill in them an attitude that promotes moderation for when they’re handed their first drink — whether that moment comes in a friend’s basement or a fraternity house.