Thomas Flournoy: Greek Life Through the Eyes of an Active Member

Greek organizations on college campuses often get a bad reputation, but for good reason. These organizations often cultivate bad and sometimes dangerous behavior. In a community where hazing is commonplace and sexual assault is often ignored, it is difficult to remember that not all Greek organizations are the same. While the majority of organizations are not beneficial to campuses, a select few are. It is important to recognize the differences between helpful and hurtful organizations and not put them all under the same umbrella. Despite having a negative view on fraternities I ended up joining one that I recognized was different from the norm and beneficial to Elon.

Greek students, especially fraternity members, have the potential to harm other members, themselves, and the community. This tends to be the case all too often in the majority of Greek organizations. In my opinion, the biggest problem with Greek life is binge drinking. J. Patrick Biddix, through his thorough research of hundreds of empirical studies on Greek life, found that “fraternity/sorority members engaged in binge drinking at a much greater extent than nonmembers.”. The act of binge drinking alone isn’t the only issue, many more problems are a result of binge drinking. Biddix also found that due to binge drinking, members of Greek life were more likely to develop problems with future heavy drinking. At parties, where binge drinking is most prevalent, sexual assault also becomes an issue. Biddix’s research revealed that compared to non-members, fraternity members were more likely to exhibit sexually aggressive behavior toward women. However, drinking isn’t the only worry for Greek life. Although hazing and alcohol are not mutually exclusive and often go hand in hand, hazing is still a major issue in both sororities and fraternities. Over half of Greek students experiencing hazing and sometimes it can even be fatal. Recently at Cornell, George Desdunes died after being hazed at SAE. He was found in the morning by the janitorial staff after being forced to drink the night before. Instead of taking care of him, his brothers left him slumped over, unresponsive on a couch after vomiting profusely. If his brothers had taken him to the hospital the night before he probably would have lived.

Damning news articles such as this one and bad personal experiences meant that for my first semester at college I had a really negative view of fraternities. Had I not found one fraternity that was different enough from the norm I wouldn’t have rushed at all. The fraternity I ended up pledging has altered my view on Greek life. We try to differentiate ourselves from the stereotypical fraternity by not doing things such as hazing that I consider to plague most of Greek life. I’m not saying by any means that we’re the best and every other fraternity is inferior. Every chapter of every Greek organization around the country has their own problems and that definitely includes us. However, I have noticed that since joining the Greek system I am finding that it is much more complex than it appears. Every chapter is very unique so simply stating that Greek organizations are bad for colleges would be incorrect. I would argue that my fraternity, along with a couple of others at Elon are in fact very good for the campus. We actively try to prevent sexual assault, don’t haze, and raise thousands of dollars for charity. I would also argue that many other Greek organizations at Elon are bad for the campus because they don’t do these things.

The problem is that nobody cares to hear about a fraternity or sorority that acts honestly and follows the rules. People pay attention to the horror stories, and because Greek organizations continue to get away with terrible actions, the horror stories will continue. Since becoming part of Greek life I have realized that one crucial change to the Greek system would make a big impact. If every school’s administration were to truly hold their Greek organizations accountable it would change things for the better. Many school administrations do not take action against Greek organizations because Greek alumni are often the school’s largest donors. As a result, those organizations that act dangerously are allowed to stay in the system and negatively impact their respective schools. Because my fraternity is relatively new on campus we don’t have that many alumni that donate to Elon because they only just recently graduated. I get to witness first hand the effect this has on my organization. The punishments we receive from the Elon administration are appropriate. We have been punished for things that the administration knows goes on at other fraternities but because of their alumni network, the school is unable to act. If the school ignored the consequences of taking action, I would bet that hazing and sexual assault instances would go down drastically.

Greek life’s bad reputation is often warranted but it is not correct to assume that all Greek life is harmful to campus. There are many Greek organizations that are beneficial to campus but receive little attention. However, there are also just as many or more that tend to be harmful. If they were held accountable for their actions they too would become beneficial. Until they are, remember that we aren’t all the same.