Administrations going too far?
 

There is truth in the following article. The problem, I think, is where to draw the line between freedom and offensive behavior...

The Washington Times
November 22, 2002

Campus correctness;
Insensitivity claims restrain expression on fraternity row

By Ellen Sorokin, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Greek fraternities and sororities didn't invent fun; they perfected
it, as they like to say, but their antics have been under fire on
college campuses across the country.

Hazing and drinking aside, the main issue now is freedom of speech.
College administrators judge some activities as racist or insensitive.

One example occurred at the University of Georgia, where
administrators warned fraternities in July against displaying the
state flag with its Confederate emblem. Black students objected to
the flag, saying it reminded them of slavery. In an e-mail message
sent to fraternities, administrators threatened to penalize any group
caught displaying the flag. After student protests, administrators
apologized to the fraternities, saying the university had no written
policy against displaying the flag.

Civil libertarians say university officials around the country have
instituted policies that in practice apply only to the Greeks.

In some administrative actions against fraternities:

*Administrators at the University of Tennessee last month suspended
Kappa Sigma after some members wore black paint on their faces and
dressed up as the Jackson Five for an air-guitar competition at a
campus party.

*A chancellor at Syracuse University in New York suspended Sigma
Alpha Epsilon and took action against one of its members after the
student dressed up as golf celebrity Tiger Woods at an off-campus
graduation costume party in May. The chancellor said his
administration would be "amenable to developing a reporting system
that includes ... bias-related incidents as defined by university
policy."

*Officials at the University of Louisville in Kentucky suspended Tau
Kappa Epsilon this year for at least five months and ordered its
members to undergo sensitivity training after the fraternity was
found guilty of conduct that "seriously alarms, intimidates or
harasses others and serves no legitimate purpose."

The charge stemmed from an off-campus Halloween party last year where
several fraternity members wore black face paint and dressed as
rapper Snoop Dogg and the movie character Shaft. A black fraternity
member wore a Ku Klux Klan costume, which he burned at the party.

*Administrators at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire put Psi Upsilon
on probation and ordered all members to undergo sensitivity training
after the school's Greek Judiciary Council found the fraternity
guilty of racial harassment.

The charges stemmed from an incident in which several fraternity
members stood outside their house and chanted "wah-hoo-wah," a
traditional cheer at Dartmouth. The council found that the cheer was
offensive to American Indians.

*Officials at the University of Mississippi decreed that all students
belonging to the school's Greek system must undergo sensitivity
training after a member of Alpha Tau Omega attended a 2001 Halloween
party dressed in a police uniform and pointed a toy gun at another
member, who was dressed in overalls, had painted his face black and
was wearing a straw hat. The university suspended the fraternity for
a year, but did not punish any students.

*Administrators at Auburn University in Alabama settled a lawsuit
brought by a Beta Theta Pi, which the school suspended after members
attended Halloween parties last year in blackface, do-rags and Afro
wigs. The Halloween party was organized by another fraternity, Omega
Psi Phi, the oldest black fraternity on campus.

The university suspended both fraternities and suspended 15 students.
Ten students sued the university for $300 million for violating their
First and 14th Amendment rights.

A county judge last November ruled that Auburn violated its rules of
fairness and required the school to readmit the students. The
university settled the lawsuit out of court on May 15, and agreed to
allow the fraternity and its members back on campus.

A report released by the Heritage Foundation in 2000 concluded that
the Greek system had become a victim of political correctness.

The report said colleges target fraternities because many
administrators see the Greek system as an anachronism, segregated by
sex and steeped in overly conservative tradition.

Fraternity membership fell by 30 percent over the last 10 years.
Schools like Williams College in Massachusetts and Bowdoin College
and Colby College in Maine have banned fraternities altogether, the
report said.

"Universities should be centers of free expression and equal rights,"
said Thor Halvorssen, chief executive officer of the Foundation for
Individual Rights in Education [FIRE] in Philadelphia.

"In fact, fraternity students, unpopular in the eyes of
administrators, very frequently find their rights deliberately
disregarded. In a free society, individuals who find fraternities or
their protected expressions and behaviors offensive ... should not
have the power to call upon the selective and heavy hand of coercive
authority and censorship."

Greek groups should have the same rights and responsibilities as
other official student organizations, Richard Mullendore, associate
provost at the University of Georgia, said in a letter to FIRE.

"A bureaucrat's power and budget are directly proportional to the
amount of turf he controls," said Winfield Myers, an education
analyst with the Democracy Project, an educational assessment and
outreach organization in Wilmington, Del.

"Deans and radical professors have successfully projected their
ideology into classrooms, textbooks, residential life, and student
groups through kangaroo courts, intimidation, financial threats,
tenure and hiring policies that favor their allies, and peer
pressure. Yet fraternities remain enemy territory in their midst -
something no turf-hungry bureaucrat can resist."

Joan Bertin, executive director of the National Coalition Against
Censorship in New York, said administrators should teach students how
to have discourse over civil disagreements instead of censoring
anyone - including fraternities.

Educators should allow an exchange of ideas even if the ideas are
offensive, Ms. Bertin said.

"Administrators are trying to walk a very fine line to ensure that
all students feel that campuses are welcoming places for them where
they can get an education. But administrators would do better if they
allowed more free speech and help find students more constructive
ways to deal with issues."

Copyright 2002 News World Communications, Inc.

Private universities would certainly be able to engage in these practices... But public?

Examples such as UGA not allowing a fraternity to display the Confederate flag are flagrant violations of free speech... Political speech at that, one of our most sacred rights.

We need to protect free speech even if it is our own opinion that it is in poor taste, stupid, racist, whatever, it is still these people's right.

We go to college... who are we to say that our views are somehow more correct than someone else's? They may be just as offended by what we have to say as you are when listening to them.

Some of these examples are just examples of ignorant college kids doing things that they really didn't understand the implications of... Others are all-out violations of first amendment rights. I'd like to see a group like the ACLU take this one up.

I still can't understand how private universities can get away with things like this? Doesnt the consititution apply to them?

I don't see how the schools can punish an entire organization for the actions of one member at an off-campus party.

Were these people wearing letters when this occured? Probably not. I mean, they're stupid enough to do some of that crap, but I'd hope that they're smart enough to take their letters off when they're doing something dumb.

I know at my school they tried to punish the entire Greek system because one fraternity brought a keg to Greek Week picnic games. Another well-respected organization that I used to be a part of brought jello shots to a major on campus event where children were present and they are getting off scot free.

Broken Record Alert
 

This is exactly what happened at Boston U in 1970.
New president, believes in kicking @$$ and taking names. Throws every Greek off campus. It was 15 years before they were allowed to return, and even today they can only claim "club" status.

Now here's one from the "What the....?" file:

It's not that Geeks weren't allowed on campus, just BU Greeks. Greek row was turned over to Greeks from MIT who are still there.

Today, Greeks are considered clubs, like any other. There are pros and cons to this.
Con: no houses, and the Greeks have to make do w/ what they can get from the Student Activities Office. Anything unique or additional that a Greek organization would normally require is not happening. (Housing, etc)
Pro: Since they have the same status as clubs, everyone is held to the same standard of behaviour as everyone else. Greeks are not singled out if one member crosses the line, while other clubs and their members skate. Also, according to some of the current members, not having a house forces them to stay involved with the rest of the campus and not be isolated unto themselves.

The long and the short of it is: universities, public and private, have banned Greeks before. It sucks. It's wrong. It's shortsighted, prejudiced, and discriminatory. BUT--in spite of that........the system came back and survived. In the short run, it bites when a school tries to shut down Greek traditions. But in the long run--the Greeks have always survived.

Just some thoughts....
Adrienne
:)

They can do whatever they want because they're private. The only way the government has control over an institution is if it accepts state/federal funding.

SigEps here got in trouble for their annual "Pimps & Hos" party. Our campus feminist organization claimed that it was an offensive degradation of women. Next year they called it "The Players' Ball." Same problem. For the past two years they've just called it "The Big Party-- You know what we're talking about." Sigh.

Sadly, this is all too common - administrations shooting off a cannon to kill a gnat - and the cannon always seems to be pointed right at the greek system.

A few years ago, a fraternity pledge died of alcohol poisoning that he got from drinking heavily at a pledge activity. The administration immediately turned around and said: "No alcohol at any event where even one person under 21 might be present." Departments didn't get busted for having wine at holiday parties... several dorm parties, including one run by people in my dorm, went off as planned even though alcohol was a prominent feature and many underage people were present... but a couple of days after the ruling was announced, a fraternity got busted for having a keg. It was an EMPTY keg that they'd gotten for an event that took place BEFORE the alcohol ban... the liquor store's delivery truck came by to pick it up, and right behind them were the campus cops.

Can you say selective enforcement??

:(

aephi alum--

I remember all too well my first experience w/ a party at my then-boyfriend's MIT dorm. There was a *wall* of Bacardi bottles for the party that night. Plus, flyers all over the halls advertising the "Aquarium/Tank" tournament sponsored by the dorm. He told me that the reasoning was that if people were going to get plowed they could stay at home, puke, and sleep it off w/out going out and driving somewhere.

The kind of hypocrisy you described makes Long John Silber eligible for the Most Logical College Prez award. ;)

Adrienne
:)

For crying out loud, just about anything anyone does is guaranteed to upset someone, somewhere!

If you try to please everyone, you will end up pleasing no one.

No, it doesn't. The Constitution confers power on the government and defines the limits of that power, such as the limit that the government cannot (with a few exceptions such as obscenity or yelling "fire" in a crowded theater) abridge the right of free speech.

Maybe the "new & improved" NIC will help
 

Maybe the new and improved NIC (see posts about KS and Phi Delt dropping out of the old NIC) will become an advocate, and will hire and use lawyers to preserve our rights.

The sororities (see UGa Alpha Xi Delta, I think, in a "racism" charge) have demonstrated many times that they will stand up for our rights.

Coca-Cola only retains its name and copyrights by fighting for them. We need to do the same to preserve our rights.

Um, I'm not aware of any AXiD U Georgia racism charge. In fact, we don't even HAVE a chapter at University of Georgia.

This is how rumors get started!

On a different note ... are dorm-sponsored parties something common? We didn't have them at my school. Private parties in one room, with maybe half a dozen friends, but certainly nothing dorm-sponsored and "big."

Banning Greeks
 

Oh Geez!!! All of y'all have missed the point!!!!

I have no problem with frats wanting to party how they want or where they want, but I do have a problem when they use a certain culture or race as a joke, and that was the problem. That is why the frats had to go through sensitivity training. One constant trait of all GLO's is that we set ourselves appart because we try to attain the higher moral character set by our Founders. We (GLO's) are a group of people who were selected for membership because of positive traits and good grades. The behaivor of these frats clearly go against what their Founders had in mind.

I think this is why Greeks get in trouble so easliy. If we are above the fray, then our actions should show that. If the only thing non-greeks see is XYZ frat parties and poke fun of others, then why join. You don't need to pay dues to some group to act like a fool with your friends, you can do that for free.


SigmaDiva


Sigma Gamma RhoSorority, Inc.

I am My Sister's Keeper

Re: Banning Greeks
 

Well said.

The problem is that when you get a highly cohesive group together with a lot of common backgrounds you end up doing things that you would have never done as individuals. Bad things, good things, whatever. The reason? We get so wrapped up in maintaining unanimity that we overlook our good judgement just to preserve the group's spirit.

We just need to be aware of the danger of this and we'll get in lots less trouble.

I shake my head everytime I hear of these things going on.

Harvard did a study lately who's results were along the lines of "Fraternities can do for campus life what college administrators could never hope to accomplish". yet they will use any excuse to oust them because of all this communist propoganda on the overly-liberal media lately. (and I'm a democrat)
Does this sound like BS to you guys too? *Administrators at the University of Tennessee last month suspended
Kappa Sigma after some members wore black paint on their faces and
dressed up as the Jackson Five for an air-guitar competition at a
campus party

They wore costumes!!! to a party where it would be expected one would wear a costume!!! and some dirty communist chose to interpret this as racism, and then some sleezbag of a college administrator bent over and kissed some @$$ and tossed a fraternity.

God, this makes me so mad