Interesting times at Dartmouth

Xanatos
Sun, 27 May 2007 16:21:04 +0000

The main rallying cry of the fire.org folk concerning Dartmouth has to do with protecting the “freedom of speech” of the frat boys. In a 2001 incident, the campus newspaper found a vomit stained copy of a Zeta Phi in-house newletter detailing the sexual conquests for the week of the brothers (names, explicit details, etc.). The campus newspaper reprinted the frat newsletter. The frat, already on probation a few years earlier for a similar offense, went through an administration hearing and had its campus charter revoked. It wasn’t really a “free speech” finding, but a “standards of conduct for a campus sanctioned social group” issue. But, Dartmouth Review and fire.org was all up in arms and this is one of the rallying cries the new conservative [sic] board members cite as an example of the college’s attack on fraternities.



OK…as a current brother of “Zeta Phi” (which if you bothered to spend some time doing research you’d find is actually Zeta Psi) I feel compelled to weigh in here. First of all - the newsletter was not “vomit-stained.” Don’t know where you came up with that. Secondly, let me just say this. I am about as liberal as you can get - atheist, in favor of a welfare state, the works. I can’t stand Stephen Smith. There’s a very good chance he’s a creationist, and he’s been quoted railing against “Marxist, atheist professors” etc etc. A real piece of work. I opposed his candidacy and wish he hadn’t been elected, even though he is outspokenly in Zeta Psi’s favor. The house is currently full of liberal. Many of my brothers describe themselves as people that weren’t planning on pledging any fraternity. Neither I nor any of these other people had any qualms about pledging “Zeta Phi.” One of our current members is openly gay (something which was known before he was given a bid) - how many recognized fraternities at Dartmouth can say that? A few, certainly, but not 13 of them. Our disciplinary record (we answered to the Hanover Police, not some half-baked dean’s office for the last 5 years) since derecognition has been stellar. Despite all of this, the administration insisted on a dark period which will keep the house closed through 2009 as a condition of re-recognition. The actual newsletter itself was a joke - a terrible, offensive joke, no doubt about it, but a joke which was not intended to go outside the house (you omitted the little detail about how the newsletter was taken out of the house dumpster in pieces and taped back together). Now, at the same time as “Zeta Phi” was being derecognized permanently and in the subsequent years, Phi Delt was setting Chi Gam on fire, a fraternity and sorority, both of which will remain unnamed, were forcing sorority pledges to perform lap dances for brothers, and another unnamed sorority was, while on probation, holding an alcoholic pledge event (against Dartmouth rules, of course) which resulted in 3 women being sent to DHMC to have their stomachs pumped. But of course, you aren’t aware of any of these, only about “Zeta Phi,” because the “liberal,” “tough-on-frats” administration let these fraternities off the hook. Granted, Phi Delt was derecognized for 4 years, but still…Zete was derecognized for 5 years, and now another 2.5 years of dark period. Meanwhile, the first fraternity and sorority in my story were both let off with nothing, and the sorority which was already on probation was let off with more probation. The lesson is obvious - printing lame jokes in an internal newsletter is MUCH worse than arson, real sexual assault, or alcohol violations and pledge hazing. Now you might ask, why was Zete punished more severely than these others? Simple - it was a huge story. CNN and other national news organization were covering it, it was on a lot of people’s (read: potential applicants’) minds, and so Jimmy and Marty knew they had to go into P.R. damage control mode. That’s all it is. Some people talk about how the admin has it out for Zeta Psi. That’s ********, of course. But my point is that the administration put P.R. over REAL change. This isn’t even mentioning that, when it came time to bring Zete back, they weren’t even big enough to admit they had made a mistake and had to resort to demanding a dark period to show everyone how hard they fight against the evil fraternities. I once asked someone in the know, “Why was the sorority that served alcohol at a pledge event (we’ll call it Kappa Kappa G, no wait, that’s too obvious…K K Gamma) let off the hook?” The response - the administration is afraid of criticism for being too tough on a sorority. It doesn’t matter that 3 people almost died - the college can’t afford to look bad.

Well, thanks to all of this they now look like complete idiots. As I said last night on the Dartmouth forum, I really do think that these crazy conservative people that are trying to invade Dartmouth are nothing more than a vocal minority. But they’ve been able to attract the votes of more moderate alumni who would otherwise not want to have anything to do with these crazies but who have been alienated by the administration’s brainless, spinless, unilateral, and uncompromising. They don’t care about Smith’s conservative ideology. He promises to fix a Dartmouth that currently seems broken (it’s not just the frat issue that I mentioned above, if you want to know more PM me) and this is what appeals to a lot of people. So I agree with citygirlsmom’s assertion about that issues which won Smith the election (except that I’m pretty sure Smith is talking about the Gestapo-esque tactics the COS uses on people accused of plagiarism, not underage drinking but we’ll let that slide).

Anyway, my point in writing this long-winded rant when I have better things to do is to point out that there is a lot you have to know before you understand where these people are coming from. This goes way beyond “liberal-conservative” and into competence. A fraternity is a group of guys (or gals) getting together and hanging out. The argument that fraternities are “conservative” or “reactionary” is about as logical as saying that cars are “evil.” Bottom line, you can either spend the effort to do some research and use your head before making uninformed statements, or you can talk about how evil “Zeta Phi” is. It’s up to you.