Sept. 16, 2004. Colorado University student Gordon Bailey and 26 other Chi Psi pledges were blindfolded, left in the woods near the university and were forced to drink large amounts of hard liquor as part of the pledge process. Bailey and his pledge brothers were then escorted to a fraternity party, where Bailey passed out with his shoes on, a big no-no at college fraternity parties. In keeping with "tradition," Gordie's brothers scrawled expletives and racial slurs all over his body with a felt tip marker. The next morning, when one of the brothers realized that Gordie was not breathing nor waking up, they attempted to wipe the slurs and expletives from his lifeless body before the authorities arrived. Gordie's blood-alcohol level was 0.328 that night.
As Gordie's father said, as reported by the Denver Post, his son's tragic death was "not about binge drinking. It is about hazing at fraternities." Adventures in greek life do not always end this way - in fact, they (thankfully) rarely end this way, but they do almost always grow from some of the fundamental problems that plague virtually all greek organizations across our nation.
The reason that we, as university students, must be concerned about such a culture is that it is the culture of our campus leaders, those who broadcast and supposedly practice higher ideals as a collective group in hopes of expanding personal and professional achievement for others. At least, that's the idea.
Since my first letter, I have been struck and saddened by the unwillingness expressed by many in the greek community to engage in an honest debate regarding such obvious problems as hazing and the proliferation of underage drinking by university-recognized chapters.
Even more alarming is the downright indignation that I have encountered by those who believe there is no problems whatsoever and that the accusation about such fantasy problems is positively preposterous. This shows a serious lack of ethical backbone and a stubborn defense of a simply indefensible position on the part of greeks and their university administrators. It's a serious problem that disallows other more serious problems, such as those that resulted in the death of Gordie Bailey, from ever being approached.
National greek organizations are at the heart of many of these problems. First, many national organizations are far too soft on their chapters in terms of mandating the practice of their organizational principles and ideals, and they often cast a blind eye toward their chapters' actions until they have no recourse but to swoop down and get involved. Second, national organizations grant their chapters a certain dangerous level of autonomy that essentially allows their members, college students with a desire for rebellion and freedom, to determine how they will represent their organization's principles.
National organizations give the chapters a public face that reflects those well-advertised principles that each chapter plasters all over its posters and apparel. Meanwhile, at the chapter level, brothers and sisters are free to deviate from the path prescribed by the national organization and run the chapter as they please.
One could compare the influence of the national greek organizations to that of the United Nations. The United Nations (the national greek organizations) makes rules, gives statements and passes resolutions all the time, but at the end of the day, it is up to the individual nations (chapters) to police themselves based on what they have been provided by the United Nations (national organizations again) and what they come up with themselves. Third, the national organizations find every way they can to rid themselves of any legal liability when their chapters run into trouble of the sort that is going on at Colorado University. And they, of course, make token gestures to revoke charters and force their members into soft classes about alcohol awareness to appease the public until interest fades.
Rather than engaging in serious prevention initiatives and personal and ethical development for their members to pre-empt wholly avoidable occurrences, national organizations opt to "manage risk," rather than working to eliminate the thoughtless risks that are continuously taken by their members and result in dozens of deaths and thousands of serious accidents every year in our nation.
National organizations do not outwardly support the idea of hazing, nor do they support the tendency of underage drinking among their members because, as a national organization, they must be socially responsible to the public. Then why do we not expect and demand the very same social responsibility from those national organizations' chapters on our respective college campuses?
Greek life offices organized by universities often act in much the same way as national organizations in the sense that they are mild at best when it comes to holding their chapters accountable and even in the enforcment of university policies prohibiting many of the practices of said chapters. If these offices set such a horrendous example in the enforcement of their own rules, how can the greek chapters be expected to police themselves? They simply cannot.
The problem is hardly that the system is not working; the problem is that the system works too well! The greek community firstly does not properly recognize itself for what it truly represents, a collection of strictly social organizations, and secondly handicaps itself beyond the point where it can recognize and fix its own internal problems in hopes of one day returning to its former glory.
If given a choice between a vibrant and active greek community that lives up to its own creed and what we see from greek life presently, I would choose the former. I see the potential for so much more from the greeks, and I attempted to tap into that potential through my own experiences in the greek community. But as things stand today, despite my optimism about their potential, I still see the serious need for greeks to represent themselves for what they have become - wholly social organizations for the facilitation of parties and social interaction. Nothing more, and sadly, often something much less.
Without this movement toward improvement or more proper recognition of the true nature of greek life, this culture runs the risk of standing as a distraction for students and a diversion of resources, as many top-tier universities have come to recognize in their refusal to officially recognize or sanction these organizations.
Some have suggested that writing such editorials is a ploy for attention, an extension of a hidden agenda against greek life, or perhaps a futile attempt to effect change. I strongly disagree with all of these suggestions; I write to gain the answer to a simple but poignant question that touches everyone within our campus community and is at the heart of my reason for writing. If this is how our alleged campus leaders are behaving, what is to be expected from the rest of us? Given what we are currently seeing, I guess not much.
Paul Perry is a sophomore in the School of Public Affairs and School of International Service.
