My daughter sent me this article tonight. She was a bit alarmed.
If true, not only is this disgusting but it’s a situation that I’m sure no one, when heading off to college envisions.
No matter how excited your kids are to go to college - there are many environmental pressures and I certainly hope nobody’s kid gets put in this situation and I certainly hope kids are able to escape it. Fortunately, it looks like this student, per the article, was able to quit in one week but I’m sure still forever impacted.
If there is truth to this article, I hope that all those responsible are punished in whatever way is possible.
Totally still an issue. My oldest went through it at his fraternity (although take out the violence), and my youngest son went through it as well and it was rough, even though he was sort of protected since the president was one of his sister’s closest friends. Call outs, forced drinking, cleaning, medial tasks -he withdrew from college 6 weeks in (other issues but he said pledging, especially outside of the official pledge semester, didn’t help). My daughters who pledged sororities has a very different experience (back in my day it wasn’t so civilized). However, my daughter’s boyfriend pledged a frat and there was no hazing (besides the non dangerous tasks like running errands and memorizing stupid things). One aspect of pledging I did approve of in my oldest’s case was pledges were assigned the task of being designated drivers from campus to frat houses (no one could drive to parties). Unfortunately one was killed by a drunk driver while performing this task.
Remind me again why students want to join fraternities??? And yes, I know they aren’t all like this but some kind of hazing seems to be the norm rather than exception.
It seems to me that some fraternities have reputations on the large scale of being more problematic than others. We have first hand knowledge (not from my own child, but a family member) of a kid who pledged Sigma Chi at another southern university, and faced significant hazing. Not only forced consumption and physical abuse, but financial abuse as well. Student spent over $2000 during pledging to keep up with demands from the brothers. He turned to illegal gambling to try to make the money back. He’s now a brother but doesn’t feel good about what he endured to get there.
In looking at Greek system webpages of colleges for S22 and S24, we also noticed that many schools would list fraternities that had been kicked off campus due to hazing or other violations. I remember seeing the name Kappa Sigma on many of those lists. At the university that S22 attended freshman year, Kappa Sigma was known to have particularly rough pledging. His roommate pledged there that year, and saw the daily aftermath of required activities.
Your D’s BF’s experience sounds similar to my S’ at W&L. Similar sounding activities, including the designated driver requirement. And my S wound up with mono that semester and was let out of almost everything. He did say one frat got in trouble at W&L for making their pledges do push-ups. But of course, this is one college kid’s tale to Mom & Dad.
We strongly discouraged younger S from joining one at JMU. I envision them being much more problematic and much like the ones I remember in my days at VT. Fortunately, he didn’t express any interest. OTOH, his freshman roommate did pledge one, and my S had to take him to the hospital one weekend for alcohol poisoning. He spent a couple of days in the hospital. Whether or not that was related to the frat pledging, I could not say. S & his roommate got along OK, but did not hang out together, and went their separate ways afterwards.
I remember all the silly, time consuming things my freshman roommate had to do for her sorority. Then she and one of her “sisters” were accused of cheating in the same class.
My daughter’s friend asked her to accompany her to rush parties, just for the company. Then D got invitations to join and her friend didn’t. Oops. D had no interest in joining. She saw her friends spending way too much time in sorority activities and not studying enough.
My niece joined a sorority but dropped out as a junior. She didn’t see the point of it anymore.
The kid here is pretty amazing being able to withstand what he did, and how he was able to say no and withdraw from the fraternity. Not many kids would have that amount of self-confidence. I am glad he is suing, it is unacceptable.
I think they do it because it’s been done to them. Pledging can be a big head game, like unnecessary boot camp (there is no reason to try to form the bonds necessary for soldiers). But I think it’s the same idea, in a warped way.
These stories really upset me and make me feel ill. Sadly, the stories of really bad hazing (i.e. the abuse, not memorizing songs or similar) are usually fraternity-related. Whether sororities’ national organizations have done a better job of bringing things under control, or whether sororities were always “kinder” places, I don’t know. But I feel particularly bad for boys, because it seems that they are far likelier to be victims of hazing (fraternities in this case, but also recalling articles about sports or band, etc).
Greek culture is inherently dangerous to both boys (hazing, alcohol poisoning, etc) and girls (sexual assault). I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it is eliminated from most campuses in the next decade. I think the only reason they haven’t is that the colleges are not internalizing the true “cost” of having them.
Yes of course there are exceptions, and yes of course there are “good” sororities and fraternities, but it is shocking to me when schools continue to allow them on campus given their track record. It is a risk/benefit analysis though and since the colleges use Greek life to recruit students, and they usually don’t face immediate and painful financial consequences from the crimes that occur inside the organizations, they have kept them alive. I think if colleges were fined heavily every time a girl was drugged and raped at a frat, or every time a boy was abused, they would shut them down.
Maybe I would be considered alarmist, but as soon as I started talking to my kids about college (i.e. when they were little) I told them: 1) college is crucial for your future and 2) never ever go to a frat party.
I have to admit, while my son is applying to schools that have greek culture, I view it as a negative psychologically. I think of it the same way I perceive it when people say the food is really bad at a school. It is unfortunate and a downside but if the college has enough upside it will overcome it. I hope my son does not want to join a fraternity, my husband was in one in college and he gets newsletters or magazines and I could not tell you for the life of me what fraternity it was.
I went to college (was in a sorority) and my 5 did as well (2 in sororities, 1 in a fraternity), frat parties, sports team parties, regular parties - there’s not many differences. Girls know not to drink anything that they didn’t bring in, and keep the top of their bottles on, have a buddy system, no one stays or goes alone. It’s short lived, once they turn 21, if there are bars around, they becomes more popular (leaving those parties to the underclass men).
So my husband and I went to W&L back in the 90s and neither my sorority or his fraternity hazed (except the stupid running errands, having to listen to bad pop music on repeat - dumb stuff) . None of the sororities did anything that I’m aware of. We were all shocked when a national magazine published pictures of hazing at one of the frats. Horrific hazing. It’s amazing that in a school of 1600 kids we weren’t aware that there was serious hazing going on in some of the fraternities.
Apparently many boys haven’t been taught this
My friend’s son was mugged and robbed last year after his drink was spiked at a bar and “friends” offered to help him out of the bar (and into an alley )
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