Fraternities and sororities have lost sight of their initial purpose to provide community, practice philanthropy, and give their members wholesome social and leadership opportunities. Fraternities and sororities currently manifest an environment that promotes bad behavior including but not limited to; sexual assault, unhealthy binge drinking, and hazing. It’s my strong opinion that these environments which are notorious for glorifying vile behavior should not be condoned or glorified to impressionable youth. Recently, the media has called attention to these bad behaviors and efforts to reform Greek life are being taken by school authorities. These bad behaviors that take up the media spotlight are easy to recognise and identify but they are not the only detrimental aspect of Greek life. Important and often overlooked aspects of Greek life include the hypocritical tier system, intergroup dynamic between members and non-members and how it shapes the individual’s sense of self. These factors are just as detrimental to the community as binge drinking or hazing but are harder to quantify.

Greek organizations use the tier system to gain social control and maintain a hierarchy within the student body.  “The tier system is a non-official placement of importance that every sorority and fraternity has on campus.” It is based off of group reputation and often times carries weight solely on superficial characteristics. One’s “coolness” factor can directly correlate to their organization and what tier it resides in. The “tier system” essentially takes complex and multidimensional organizations and ranks them according to simple criteria. This criteria includes trivial characteristics such as attractiveness, socio-economic status and partying. The tier system in turn causes Greek organizations to encourage the objectively bad behavior which will increase their rank. They are rewarded by the tier system when they throw the biggest and craziest parties, parties that often include harmful behavior such as binge drinking, hazing, and sexual assault. Not only does the tier system essentially stage a competition to see which organization can behave the most dangerously but it is also creates a competitive dynamic that inhibits students from fully uniting as a community. Since non-Greek students are not pushed by the tier system to act in a stereotypically Greek way, they drift further and further from their Greek peers. It isn’t uncommon for college campuses to have a clear social division between Greek and non-Greek students as a result of the tier system. The tier system does not stand for the same values of brotherhood and sisterhood that fraternities and sororities supposedly promote.

Personally, I’ve witnessed members of Greek life contradict their “values” by openly talking negatively about each other. They say negative things about other Greek members and stereotype their respective organizations. It isn’t uncommon for me to overhear things such as “She is such a slut no wonder she is in [insert sorority name here.]” Or “That guy gets zero girls just like all of his [fraternity name] brothers.” People love to generalize and pigeon hole others into categories, making it nearly impossible to escape the inevitability of being judged for your greek letters. Furthermore, this branding results in people simplifying their self identity into a categorical framework designed to crush individuality and promote conformity. Post rush, whenever I am introduced to new people I am asked, “what is your name?” followed by “and what sorority are you in?” Greek life has become such an intrinsic part of our lives that these types of questions have almost become second nature. This can be attributed to the social identity theory that argues “ important characteristics of a person’s identity are derived from their group membership.” Greek organizations are an important source of pride, giving the individual a larger group to to identify with on campus. These organizations increase their self-image by discriminating against their peers, creating an “us” vs. “them” mentality. This mentality applies to both their fellow Greek members and non-Greek members, inciting separation to all members of campus.

The divisive and hierarchical nature of Greek life has lead me to believe that Greek organizations are not beneficial to college campuses. The tier system has created a competitive nature between Greek organizations that not only drives them away from each other but non-Greek members as well. The social divide between campus is only widened by Greek member’s need to uphold the stereotypical reputation of what they think will advance them socially. Therefore, I believe that college campuses are worse off because of the presence of Greek organizations.