Waging War on the Greeks

By Susan Tifft

Greek fraternities, those longtime social standbys of college life, are under siege. At the moment, their battlements are being assaulted by critics who want them to admit women to their all-male precincts. But that is just part of their problem. Fed up with hazing deaths, boozy parties, vandalism, rape, sexual harassment and acts of racial and ethnic intolerance, many schools are cracking down on fraternities and sororities -- or simply abolishing them. "They haven't kept pace with the times," says Stan Levy, vice chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "The attitudes of the Greeks are of an era that has long passed."

That reluctance to change has been traumatic for the fraternities at Vermont's Middlebury College. In January the school's trustees declared single-sex social organizations to be "antithetical to the mission of the college," and ordered Greek-letter groups to go coed or face elimination. Two fraternities now admit females. Last week, facing a final deadline, three pleaded for more time to persuade their national organizations to revoke century-old prohibitions against women. "The college is taking away a valuable option," laments Richard Cochran, 21, president of Chi Psi and a proponent of single-sex clubs. "Fraternities can be good in an all-male setting."

Many faculty members and college administrators disagree, and are making the going rough for fraternities and sororities. Last fall the faculty at Bucknell University voted to abolish all such clubs, blaming them for promoting "racism, sexism, elitism and anti-intellectualism." Bowdoin and Wesleyan are pressuring their fraternities to go coed or face possible sanctions.

Tufts requires its fraternities to sign an annual statement promising that they will conduct a "dry" rush and purchase a certain amount of insurance. Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., is reinstituting live-in house directors -- adults who will supervise meals, serve as counselors and ensure that students do not abuse the property. Dozens of other schools are imposing restrictions on alcohol use and enforcing rigorous antihazing policies.

Some administrators see a cyclical pattern in the movement to rein in fraternities and sororities. "There is a need for college presidents to get hold of their institutions again," says Dale Nitzschke, president of Marshall University. "The pendulum in the '60s and '70s was swinging away from in loco parentis. Now we're moving more to the middle." Many of today's students actually seem to yearn for a firmer hand. Says Samantha Gladish, 21, president of the Panhellenic Council at Bucknell: "We need someone to guide and help us."

Paradoxically, these restrictive measures come at a time when Greek life is enjoying a nationwide renaissance. Fraternity membership has mushroomed to 400,000 from a low point of 149,000 in the long-haired '70s; sororities have shown a similar resurgence. Even at Yale, fraternities, once moribund, resurfaced soon after Connecticut raised the drinking age to 21. Sororities have come back to Stanford after a 40-year hiatus. Harvard continues to outlaw fraternities, as it has since the turn of the century, but students have banded together unofficially in at least three such groups.

However, at many institutions -- particularly small, residential, liberal arts colleges -- such organizations are increasingly seen as being out of step with the larger goals of the school. "Our colleges and universities are holding to one philosophy, and Greek life is holding to another," explains Marshall's Nitzschke. In particular, the current push by many colleges and universities to recruit students of diverse ethnic backgrounds rubs up against the Greek tradition of exclusion. Although national bylaws no longer prohibit blacks, Jews and other minorities from becoming members, local chapters often perpetuate the biases of an earlier era. "Black students have told me there are some fraternities they just can't get into," says Lad Sessions, a philosophy professor at Washington and Lee.

Colleges are also worried about legal liability if students are hurt while participating in activities of fraternities or sororities they officially recognize. When Rutgers freshman James Callahan died two years ago after chugging Kamikazes -- a nerve-numbing mixture of vodka, triple sec and lime juice -- during a fraternity party, his family sued the school. Two months ago, Pennsylvania's York College suspended its Sigma Pi chapter after an intoxicated 20-year-old student fell off the roof of an apartment building during an off-campus fraternity party and died.

Many students adamantly defend Greek life, rejecting the notion that it is all beery parties and Animal House antics. "I don't believe we're sexist and racist, or at least not any worse than society at large," says David Skena, 19, student body president at Bucknell and a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Like-minded undergraduates stress the positive side of Greek affiliation -- the strong friendships, the charity work, the leadership opportunities.

Yet even some vigorous defenders of that tradition see that the changes imposed upon them may ultimately ensure their survival. When Sigma Epsilon pledged 16 women this spring to comply with Middlebury's coed policy, many male members were skeptical. Not now. "It's almost a rebirth, a new identity," says Sig Ep vice president John DeMatte, 22, excitedly. "We're getting a gender-awareness lesson every day." Michael Gordon, vice chancellor at Indiana University Bloomington, predicts that similar metamorphoses will occur elsewhere."We are heading toward a whole new understanding of what a fraternity is," he says. "First they were seen as literary gatherings, then drinking clubs. What they will be in the future is living-learning centers."

With reporting by Katherine L. Mihok/New York