<p>As an attorney, I am aware that when there is a death the national organization often will retain its own counsel, refuse to assist the particular local members with legal representation and will cut a deal without including the individual members in the settlement. I think the nationals believe this is a pretty strong message about individual conduct without closing a local chapter, angering the alums of the local fraternity chapter.</p>
<p>I am not sure about the ownership of chapter houses. If the national organization owns the house, then it has assets to satisfy a judgment. I could see that the greater the reaction by the national after the fact, the stronger the inference that the national could and should do more in advance and has more responsibility for the conduct of the local chapter members. Remedial actions often are not admissible at trial to prove liability, but the potential jurors in a community often will know if a national pulled the plug.</p>
<p>From a liability point of view, the national may want to point to its stated rules and policies as “reasonable efforts” and claim “bad apples.”</p>
<p>It may not seem like much, but a parent who thinks his student lacks maturity may want to consider delaying the student’s entry into college to allow him or her to “grow up.” Or, at a minimum, not fund Greek participation. I have no imperial basis but imagine that most Greeks are not self-funded in paying for it.</p>
<p>Question: for those who think the national or the college or university has responsibility to pull the plug, do you think a parent has the responsibility to discourage Greek participation of their student if the student is too immature to resist peer pressure?</p>
<p>“It’s hard to track because so many studies rely on self-reporting.”</p>
<p>It’s actually not very hard to track because the same survey is used every year, with comparable populations. The Monitoring the Future study dates back to 1975. And researchers both know and have tested experimentally the impact of self-reporting. It’s really not that difficult. (That’s how we know that binge drinking, for example, is underreported, likely by around 20%, and that those drink hard liquor substantially underreport how many drinks they had.)</p>
<p>None of this really matters much with fraternity members. 4 out of 5.</p>
<p>Fraternity membership is the biggest factor for college binge drinking, for who – male college students? But non college people of the same age binge drink. For the small percentage of the age group of males who go to college, the binge drinkers tend to have frat membership. </p>
<p>Wechsler’s research also indicates that the most effective steps are NOT environmental but enforcement of legal penalties, increase in the cost of booze, zone the bars from near campus, stop discount drinks or 2 or 3 for 1 happy hours.</p>
<p>mini are you really of the opinion that banning frats and any booze on campus materially stops college kids from getting drunk and/or binging? BTW–I’m not particularly against these steps but they will not stop this conduct.</p>
<p>I’d agree it’s not hard to compare, but even the Michigan report alludes to other factors that can cause rises and dips- alluding to the “constant 21” states. My point is not to argue this- just to note that there will be different studies.</p>
<p>Question: about UOklahoma- I had trouble finding anything that states how drinking is down, suggestions that it continues on and off-campus and plenty about mandatory, school sponsored programs for offenders- can someone point me?</p>
<p>We have evidence that dry campuses have less drinking. No it doesn’t stop kids from drinking, but every study I have ever seen shows “availability” as an important factor in drinking rates. Put an alcoholic on an island without alcohol and he doesn’t drink (until he figures out what to do with coconuts. ;)) Oklahoma has proven the effectiveness of banning alcohol on what had been a very wet campus. </p>
<p>Wechsler would tell you that all of these factors work together. Almost all of the Wechsler effective steps involve changing availability (that’s what the 21-year drinking age does as well.)</p>
<p>Monitoring the Future also has data on non-college 18-24 year olds.</p>
<p>What would happen to frat members without the frats? They’d still be in “high-risk” categories: predominantly white (northern European genetic propensity), wealthier than average, attending residential colleges, coed colleges, non-religious colleges, often with high rates of spectator sport attendance, etc., etc. (My own alma mater Williams, with no frats, is a case in point) But one factor would disappear - daily and relentless fraternization with, and a subculture created by, other campus sots. A majority would still likely binge drink - but that would be a significant improvement over 4 of 5.</p>
<p>(I wish I could post the Oklahoma material, but I can’t. I used to do this for a living, and had access to it, but I am bound by confidentiality agreements. However, any of you could ask their campus alcohol and drug coordinator for the data.)</p>
<p>@ 07DAD “Question: for those who think the national or the college or university has responsibility to pull the plug, do you think a parent has the responsibility to discourage Greek participation of their student if the student is too immature to resist peer pressure?”</p>
<p>I will take it a step further and say that neither parents nor university officials should have to face those questions. The primary purpose of college is an education, and hopefully some personal growth which leads to independence. Certainly, some fun along the way should be part of the college experience. But my view is that the greek system does nothing to further any of those purposes. In fact, it sets a teenager up for distraction, keeping them rooted in the immaturity they are trying to shed. The tragedy cited in the article that started this thread, is just the latest of the many casualties of the greek system.</p>
<p>Drinking and hazing won’t stop no matter what. Even if Greek life is stopped, it will go on within cliques just as it already does starting with elementary school-aged kids (older, but not yet 18, when it comes to drinking).
I think what universities should do is ban any connection between Greeks and the schools. This would mean no Greek houses on campus property and no authorization for any Greek organization to use a school name in any form.
Greeks can’t go away anytime soon, but colleges can easily disassociate themselves.</p>
<p>Being self supporting is not the only thing that defines a person as an adult. I am 47 years old and my husband supports me financially. Does that make me a child?</p>
<p>College students are adults. They are young adults, but adults nonetheless. If they commit grownup crimes they should serve grownup sentences. Those who did not teach their children that at age 18 means adulthood are doing them a giant disservice.</p>
<p>Regarding the conversation going on around drinking and fraternities, having a dry campus or dry house definitely changes the risk profile of a fraternity. My son is a member of a fraternity that has a policy of no alcohol at any fraternity sponsored event. Alcohol is not permitted in the house. Chapters do get disciplined for noncompliance. </p>
<p>It has a white paper on its webisite that states:</p>
<p>“Prior to the implementation of alcohol-free housing, Phi Delta Theta averaged 12.3 claims per year due to alcohol issues; this number has decreased to 4.4 claims per year over the last ten years, which equates to a 64% drop. Looking at average dollars spent per year on insurance claims, Phi Delta has experienced a 94% decrease, averaging $812,789 pre-alcohol-free housing and $46,789 post-alcohol-free housing. Alcohol-free housing has made the difference.”</p>
<p>Fraternities can get rampant drinking under control. Its not that these guys don’t drink. They just don’t focus their entire existence on it. If it was important to those fraternities they would fix it.</p>
<p>My old group. The alcohol free housing was introduced in 1997 with a 2000 deadline for compliance. 2000 UC Davis death; then 2009 was a disaster --Drake-alcohol poisoning and hazing; Kansas State and University of Arkansas. All alcohol related more than 10 years after the introduction. I seem to recall that the Arkansas member lived and sued everyone.</p>
<p>I note that the position paper itself says that the program has met resistance from some alums and at least lack of cooperation from some colleges. At least they appear to be trying.</p>
<p>The alcohol free housing/no hazing policy has definitely curbed the number of incidents that have happened despite its well publicized failures. I don’t think that it makes any sense to say that nothing can be done just because there is no guarantee of 100% compliance. Even 75% compliance is way better than what went on at the school I attended (Alfred University) back in the stone age.</p>
<p>@GolfFather–Guess what? I am pro-Greek because I am an alumni of a chapter. I attended a former #1 party school and guess what, not all of us are ‘drunken idiotic louts.’ I graduated in 5 years with a B.S. and a M.S, both with honors, raised money and volunteered with my chapter’s national philanthropy (an organization which I still volunteer at). We have plenty of sisters who now are in med school, business school, and law school, and several pursuing a PhD. All of my sisters are mature, successful women, not ‘drunken idiotic louts.’ Name-calling doesn’t prove a point. </p>
<p>I know fraternity members in over half of the 30 fraternities at my university and a large number do not haze, as it doesn’t promote the bonding many once thought it did. I also was never hazed in my 4 years with my sorority, nor were any of the women I knew in other chapters. That doesn’t say that hazing doesn’t exist, but it is far, far more rare than any of you believe it to be.</p>
<p>In regards to the binge drinking, college students are heavy drinkers by nature simply because they lack the maturity and think it’s ‘cool.’ Greek organization or not, the vast majority of college students will binge drink. If it’s not a fraternity/sorority, it’s a sports team, dorm/hall/house/floor, sporting event, or just a group of friends to drink with. Unless you’re looking to ban alcohol completely (and I don’t mean a dry campus, I’m talking no bars, no alcohol at restaurants, no alcohol sold in stores, etc.), the age group will still find a reason and a method to drink.</p>
<p>“college students are heavy drinkers by nature”</p>
<p>I have to take issue with that. The amount and degree of wastedness varies a lot from campus to campus, as well as from one subculture to another on a given campus. The kids at Indiana may be the same age and maturity level as the kids at NYU, but they do NOT drink the same way.</p>
<p>“Fraternities can get rampant drinking under control. Its not that these guys don’t drink. They just don’t focus their entire existence on it. If it was important to those fraternities they would fix it.”</p>
<p>They just have to want to. And if they don’t, the university has to want to. It really just isn’t that hard. But when four out of five are binge drinkers, roughly 60% of those will be “heavy drinkers” (drinking nearly every day), and of those, about half will become alcoholics or have serious alcohol problems later in life. What that means is that, no, most fraternity members, don’t become alcoholics, and, yes, they do become alcoholics at roughly double the national rate. </p>
<p>So reducing binge drinking from 4 out 5 to a simple majority would be a BIG change, with very positive results.</p>
<p>Well, the number of alcoholics coming out of the greek system may be more a matter of self-selection. Binge drinking probably doesn’t cause alcoholism, given that the percentage of alcoholics in the population has remained constant since such stats were being taken.</p>
<p>All that said, we’ve never seen this level of binge drinking as we are seeing right now and may find out in 15 years or so that binge drinking does raise the rate of the disease per capita.</p>
<p>But, and I cannot emphasize this enough, the danger from Binge drinking is BINGE DRINKING. Binge drinking kills. Alcohol overdose is no different than an overdose in any kind of barbituate. It is flat out deadly. Whether someone needs to be an alcoholic to have an alcohol overdose under these hazing conditions is up for debate, but there is no debating that alcohol is a very deadly drug, more deadly than any other mind altering substance humans abuse.</p>
<p>For some reason, we want to pretend it is innocuous, but if the fraternity was having deaths from any other kind of overdose? what would be the reaction? The reaction should be the exact same. Close them down, immediately.</p>
<p>" Binge drinking probably doesn’t cause alcoholism"</p>
<p>That’s true, but heavy drinking in fact does. There are many, many people with a genetic propensity toward alcoholism in whom the disease does not develop because they never drink heavily. </p>
<p>(No, you don’t need to be an alcoholic to have an alcohol overdose; in fact, just the opposite is the case, as alcoholics develop a tolerance for higher and higher doses.)</p>
<p>I think you exactly right about substances, though. Suppose all those hazing deaths were from heroin.</p>