Brutal Sorority Hazing at Dartmouth-Kappa Kappa Gamma:
 

What is going on at Dartmouth?
Last month, Rolling Stone published a controversial exposé all about the greek culture at Dartmouth — long known to be among the nation’s worst in terms of its alcohol problems and hazing practices.
This week, a recent Dartmouth graduate has published her own account of the dangerous hazing she received while pledging Kappa Kappa Gamma:
http://www.nationalreview.com/phi-be...-nathan-harden

Dartmouth alumna Ravital Segal ’09 tells a harrowing story of survival at the hands of the Dartmouth chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma:
http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/10484

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ravita...ml?ref=college

Her story reads more like a term paper than an actual account. Milgram and Zimbardo? Seriously?

I'm looking askance at both of these accounts, sorry.

It's not a clearly written story for sure. Was the pledge from the local that was mentioned in the same car?

Anyone who knows me knows how staunchly anti-hazing I am. If that woman's story is true, then I certainly don't agree with what happened. With that said...

Okay, drama queen. Certainly a BAL of 400 isn't a great idea, but I routinely see patients in the ER with BALs in the 400s (or 500s) who are still able to carry on a conversation. Granted, they're typically the hardcore alcoholics, but still. A BAL of 400 is not a guaranteed pine box.

Yep, all of this.

I guess I can't be sympathetic to the "so drunk I blacked out" because I've never been there. My ejection reflex kicks in well before that. I think that's why I've never been much of a drinker - I HATE throwing up and I do that about half a drink after "buzzed".

I think .4 for a girl who is (I'm assuming) a college freshman (less experience) and probably in general not a huge person (I would even assume petite) is pretty significant. But that is just my humble, probably unshared opinion.

Her size has nothing to do with her BAC being .4, except how many drinks it takes her to reach that point. .4 is .4 whether she's 100 lbs or 250 lbs., it doesn't change the story. And you obviously missed the fact that she was a sophomore.

Ditto. I especially loved the recommendation (from both) of abolishing the greek system as the only way to end hazing.

Yes. As you of course noticed I put "assumed" in regards of her class standing. Thank you for pointing it out again for anyone who may have missed it. And you're right actually, .4 is pretty darn significant regardless. Thanks for pointing out that the factors I mentioned aren't as crucial and that her high BAC was unstable and dangerous regardless.

Do you personally, think the situation could have been avoided if there had not been sorority involvement?

The red flag to me is this line:

"I was content with my decision until, one night during the rush process, I was blindfolded with two of my fellow pledges."

So did this happen while she was rushing or as a new member? Her terminology is inaccurate.

I'm wondering whether there's any legitimate sorority connection at all. The red flag for me was when the alleged KKG alum wrote, "one night during the rush process, I was blindfolded with two of my fellow pledges." (emphasis mine)

Maybe it's just me, but I knew when I was rushing, I knew when rush was over, and I knew when I was considered a pledge. In my experience, the only people who ever confuse these stages are those who were not involved in the process.

ETA: Jinx, MaggieXi! :D

She could have misspoken. And even though I never used the terms "rush" and "pledge" with my sisters and with people who knew the Greek system, I'd frequently use them when talking to non-Greeks. They're more universally known than "recruitment" and "new member".

Also, a BAC that high CAN kill you.

But don't mind me.. Just playing devil's advocate here.. :p

Getting drunk at the roller rink =/= being kidnapped. Not only that, if she had a published account of previous alcohol abuse in the sorority to back up her story, why on earth would she have not mentioned it?

On that note....ALL SKATE, ALL SKATE.

She was in a sorority at Dartmouth.

Actually, she says that she depledged, so no, she really wasn't "in" a sorority.

We have records of every member who is initiated online and she is listed there. Her terminology may be bad but she was a member.

If a person confuses rush with pledging and depledging with termination of membership, that's beyond bad terminology. Especially if you had the brain to get into Dartmouth. The whole thing just doesn't smell right.

What she said.

The online membership database lists those who have gone through initiation and who have not resigned membership with the fraternity. Of course, if the paperwork never makes it to headquarters, they have no record of resignation (there are at least three sisters from my own chapter who resigned membership while I was in school yet are still listed in the database).

So. 1) the author did go through the initiation process, which means she didn't depledge. 2) if she did resign membership, the paperwork never went through to headquarters. This just seems like a writer trying to ride the wave of the Rolling Stone article by putting out her own shock story.

I'm not denying these types of events happen. They do. But they are usually the actions of a few sisters and certainly not a chapter-sanctioned "hazing ritual".

I hate to nitpick, but I have to disagree with you here. As far as I care, if it's an initiated sister making anyone involved in the chapter do something that endangers them physically or emotionally, it's hazing. That means whether it's a new member, newly initiated sister, incoming chapter council, whatever. Zero tolerance.

^^ ISUKappa can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the emphasis was supposed to be on "chapter-sanctioned"

This is how I raed it as well..

Yeah -- we were on a strict NO ALCOHOL rule for Bid Night, but Tear Night (the next night, after the sobriety pledge had expired; the night the boys get fraternity bids) was another story entirely. We never ever ever forced our new members to drink anything (we always had a good number of girls who didn't drink anyway). There were a lot "Okay, DRINK! ...If you want to. But you don't have to..." We had sober rides always. A lot of water around, and sophomore member assigned to the new members. But there were always girls who ended up in the health center anyway because they wanted to DRINK and they found the upperclassmen who wanted to DRINK as well. It wasn't hazing. It was 18-year-old new members being 18-year-old girls. We tried to keep them safe, and I don't think anyone ever actually had anything close to a .4, but on a hard drinking campus, shit happens.

I read another article this morning about this, and it just makes me sad. I was never hazed as a Kappa, never knew anyone who was, and never would have dreamed of doing anything so vile to any of our beautiful pledges. I know many women in Kappa and in other NPC groups whose experience mirrors mine.

I hate that this happened, but it seems to me that the author is motivated solely by a need for notoriety and attention seeking.


PS in looking back at attitudes among my fellow students, it is difficult for me to reconcile this forced drinking stuff with my reality of partying. Yes, we might share with our friends, but we weren't crying if someone said no. That just meant more for another day.

swerve/

If the online database used is InCircle, there's a high probability that it's inaccurate. InCircle doesn't permit changes or updates, from what I've learned. I know for a fact that it contains multiple inaccuracies regarding the Chapter I advise, as well as the one I was initiated into. Perhaps other online databases are more accurate? When I need to check the status of an alumna, I contact our HQ directly, and don't even look at InCircle.

/end swerve

To my knowledge, it's not InCircle.

Yes.

thanks, ISUKappa.

I typically look at these accounts with a HUGE amount of skepticism and doubt. When we hear negative things, I have said (and written) many times: it could be any chapter, anywhere, on any day. And we weren't there, we really don't know what happened. Any chapter contains "rogue" or "problem" members. It's simple probability. Take away the letters and ask: is this person a decent human being? You'll have an answer.

Having recently been on the receiving end of published criticism and gossip/talk that was unfounded, or based on half-truths, I will say again that it is NOT FUN and it makes me really angry.

[QUOTE=ISUKappa;2138208]To my knowledge, it's not InCircle.

I don't believe that it is InCircle, either, FWIW.

AZTheta: I try as well to look at reports like this with some degree of skepticism and doubt. I agree, as far as I know, none of us where there on the campus of Dartmouth for this or for the Sigma Alpha Epsilon matter. That said, the news media picks up events like these much more than the good deeds that GLO's do. Just this Noon, my local CBS station had not one but TWO hazing cases on it! And I know that one of the two anchors is a member of a Fraternity. And sadly if one does a simple search under hazing, even more show up just about every day involving many GLO's. And those are just the ones getting caught at it.

Totally true. The only time we ever cared if someone wasn't drinking is if they had a stick up their ass about people who were, or if they were being a bump on a log. And even then I can't imagine forcing them to drink - we would just go someplace where we could avoid them. The fact that you are paying for the booze and not sneaking it out of your parents' liquor cabinet - or that there is a limited amount of it at a party - makes you far less likely to be insistent that everyone has to imbibe.

Her version of the events is this: "we were guided into the back seat of a car and one of our future sisters commanded us to chug the alcoholic punch that had been pre-prepared for each of us in individual 64-ounce water bottles."

Sounds like an order to me rather than a simple expectation. That's what I was talking about, which is much different than asking someone if they'd like to have a drink and sharing it with them. Even with the expectation you mention, under the more casual social type of drinking, a person can accept a drink and pretend to sip at it if he/she is uncomfortable with saying no, no harm no foul.

My point was that it is beyond my experience to "command" someone to drink. However, there are enough of these stories in the world that I know it does happen.

(Also, "pre-prepared" is a stupid, made up word.)

People can die with a BAL of 400. Or 300, or 200, or even 100. My point is that this:

is crap. There is no magic number for alcohol content above which everyone dies. What that girl wrote could lead other students to think that if they're only at a BAL of 300 or 350, they'll be fine, and that isn't necessarily the case. The use of medical misinformation to create drama irritates me, and that's what she was doing with that quote.