Tradition of fraternities hosting parties can leave sororities in the clear
 

Tradition of fraternities hosting parties can leave sororities in the clear
By JENNA JOHNSON / Daily Nebraskan
April 18, 2005

And this is why male female relations on college campuses are getting worse, not better.

I think that it makes sense to look at the bigger picture and not just place blame on Fraternities b/c "girls don't traditionally pay for alcohol".

Both Fraternities and Sororities have some members who participate in risky underage drinking. And contrary to what sorority officers are told to say, there ARE pressures on Fraternities to provide these functions and even pressures from older sorority girls on younger sorority members to attend the parties. "XYZ Fraternity has the best afterhours/primers make sure you go that party, or ABC Fraternity never throws primers or afterhours, we're not going with them...ect."
You can look at the houses who are "popular" with sororities and see that they take the most risks when it comes to this issue. (at least at Nebraska you can)

Sorority girls leave one fraternity party when the alcohol runs out to go to another who still has free booze for them to drink...you can't tell me that doesn't constitute a pressure for fraternties to maintain a good social reputation through providing an outlet for sorority girls to drink.

Fraternities and Sororities should be held to the same rules, standards, and regulations. We are the same legal entities (non-for profit corporations) under the same laws, we are at the same host institutions with the same codes of conduct, we have the same insurance...we are the same basic organizations...so why is the treatment different when we are guilty of the same violations?

Fraternities are expected to take the fall for the INDIVIDUAL DECISION of its members to throw a party at their OWN HOUSE (these parties happen off campus) and for any members who make THEIR OWN DECISION to go and possibly drink whether under age or legally. (Fraternities, at least houses @ UNL, do not fund, sanction, or officialy sponsor any of these questionable activities. They have nothing to do with the social programming of the house. They are the actions of individuals makeing their own decisions)

And sororites should be held to the same standard and should be responsible for their member's INDIVIDUAL DECISION to go to the party, and THEIR OWN DECISION to drink under age or legally. If something goes wrong their charters should be on the chopping block as well.

Play Fair...that's all I ask.
Both break the rules, both pay the price. If you want to curb this kind of activity then apply the solutions across the board, not just to fraternities. Once sororities start feeling the pain of the risks their members are taking I guarantee that the girls' drive to go to these type of activities and the ability for sorority officers to "look the other way" will die off. And when the girls aren't showing up...the drive to host these illegal parties will die off as well.

Total solutions, not partial patches.

Keep records of all guests at a party and their affiliation.

If your fraternity takes all the blame for a party that goes bust (and isn't an all campus party) make sure to spread the blame among the sororities by making sure every time your name is mentioned, written, or spoken of that their name is right up there.

-Rudey
--Misery loves company

Rudey,

I would reccomend that to every house for its legitimate social activities. Keeping a list is a great way to manage liability.

But in this case what gets houses (at least Nebraska houses) in trouble is not the registered, third party vendor, social function...but rather small parties before and after the legitimate function known as "primers" and afterhours. This is where the minors end up drinking. These parties are off campus, at someone's individual house, or apartment, are not set up by the greek houses but set up by individuals who live there and invite other's over. This is what the article is talking about (I don't think it makes that clear distinction between legitmate function, and this illigitimate function.) and Fraternties are consistantly held responsible for these functions, as if we can control every decision our members make. If a minor (both fraternity or sorority member) is drunk, it's 99% likely that they were at one of these illigitimate functions drinking.

So if a fraternity tried to monitor or control these functions that are not supposed to happen anyway they would be assuming even MORE liability and risk by getting involved in the coordination of illegal activity. Thus crossing the line from "individual decsions" (which the University holds us responsible for anyway) to "chapter function and particpation in illegal activity".
Touchy subject when there is no clear limit to what Fraternties can be liable for.

You're right. This is a gray area.

Many fraternities have some rule about how if a certain number of your fraternity throwing a party constitutes an official fraternity party.

Of course that is somewhat ridiculous if 10 guys live together off campus and if someone's birthday party was thrown there, it would be considered a fraternity party.

Bottom line is that when it's a fraternity event, you know. You can try and get around it by saying it occured off campus and wasn't advertised, but it's still a smaller version of a party.

If your guys are going to get into trouble for these smaller parties and primers anyway, share the blame. You threw a primer and did not check IDs so you get blame and the underaged sorority members that decided to put themselves at risk get blame.

-Rudey
--How is it any worse than what it is now?

***swoon*** UNLDelt, will you marry me?

Not to mention (though we've discussed it on here before) that this creates a very unequal and anachronistic balance of power when sorority women are dependent on fraternity men for alcohol/social events.

33 girl

You are absolutly right. It is an unfair balance of power. I think that the social life (again, talking about legitimate social functions) of any greek system would benefit from more sorority initiative, input, and participation. More varitiey, better turnout, better opportunities...would all come from more sorority involvement in social aspects of greek life. This better quality of our social aspects would hopefully act as a deterant to other, riskier, activities that some members gravitate towards when what's being offered isn't enticing enough.

It's about giving members options and choices and making the right chioces more appealing then the wrong ones. I think more sorority social participation can solve more than just this one problem of under age drinking, it can help with a lot of things. Unfortunatly the National Organizations do not seem to be willing to admit any part their members may have in the problems and therefore not recognize any part they may have in the solutions. And with the lawsuit happy world we live in, I can't really blame them. They do have an amazing control when it comes to liability issues. But, with any great reward there is risk...we all may be missing out on the obvious solution to the bigger, Greek wide problem b/c we are only looking for it in the Fraternities...I think both sides have the answer and need to come together to make it work.

And 33 girl,
dinner and drinks and I'm yours! ;)
(kidding, my girlfriend just scoweled haha!!!)

I hardly agree with it being the fraternity's responsibility to "entertain" sorority women... most parties I know of (Greeks don't have off campus housing, so the parties I am referring to would be on campus in the house), the men choose to throw on their own. You can't argue that there would be no drinking happening on fraternity property even if you take sorority women out of the picture... it's something that would still be happening regardless.

The thing that I've noticed at Mizzou is that the reason fraternities are held responsible is because THEY are the ones breaking the rules. We have a dry campus, and some fraternities continue to throw parties in their houses, which is breaking a rule. Yes, sorority women attend those parties. But the fraternity is the host of the party. You will NEVER see drinking in a sorority house. (And I mean that... it's not uncommon for girls to lose their membership over it.) If the rule is that the campus is dry, and a fraternity chooses to serve alcohol at a party, how is a sorority breaking any rule? Why should they be held responsible?

As for any parties that happen at an off campus location and later become associated with a GLO... in my opinion, that is entirely the fault of the person who chose to throw the party for not fully considering how it could reflect back onto their house.

With all that said... because we have a dry campus, all parties, mixers, etc. that are thrown by a fraternity and sorority are supposed to go through Greek Life. And these events are ALWAYS held at an off campus location... usually a club or bar. If there is a problem, both houses would likely be responsible because both houses involved would have had to rent out venue together. And for events like semi-formal and formal, lists of all members attending and their date's name must be submitted to Greek Life before the party is thrown... so there is some idea of who all was present if something happens.

STL Kappa,

I agree that if a Fraternity breaks a dry campus policy by throwing a party in their house then it's obvious that the Fraternity was to blame for the major infraction (still anyone, including sorority girls, who choose to individually break the rule by drinking on campus themseves should be sanctioned as students for that individual infraction, Fraternities should not be used as liability shields for individual actions). But we're not talking about drinking in a Fraternity owned house.

What the article is really addressing (but fails to clairify) is that Fraternities are being held responsible for OFF CAMPUS parties thrown by their individual members at their own homes and their own discretion with no support of the operations of the chapter. We as chapters cannot control every aspect of every members life. The link between individual party and Fraternity responsibility is made by authorities by saying:

"__# members of your Fraternity were participating in the off-campus function where minors were drinking (another individual decision). Therefore it was a 'chapter function'."

Even if there was NO chapter MONEY, PLANNING, SANCTIONING (mention in a meeting or notify through official chapter lines of communication), or RESOURCES going to this private, individual, party.

So to answer your question, by using the same logic used to link fraternities, sororities are indeed breaking the rules by "being there and participating" You are right, legally it matters whose house it is, and who paid. But again, those are individual decisions and those individuals should recieve punishments for disorderly household, or procureing or whatever by law.

But if the University, or the police want to link these inccidents to Greek houses based on under age drinking, what supposidly nabs Fraternities time and time again, they must remember that it is about consumption and proximaty, the girls are there...and guess what...they're drinking. So while sorority members may not own the house or apartment, and maybe they didn't pay for the booze, they are guilty by association.

But that logic is not currently extended to sororities, whose attendance at that function often makes up 50% or more of the people (especially under age drinkers) there. I am willing to bet my life's savings that every off campus private party that has been busted and linked to a Fraternity causing it to be closed or sanctioned has had an over whelming # of girls from any given particular sorority there. Probably the sorority who the legitimate function to take place later is sponsored with!

Sorority members participate equally in the violations, it's about time they participate equally in the sanctions, and hopefully that will cause them to participate equally in solutions to curb these risks.

Either that, or hold Fraternities to the same standard as Sororities and stop punishing the whole for individual actions beyond the scope of chapter control.

I apologize for the length of my responses. But truely appreciate the discussion that is developing. I'll try to keep it short and sweet from here on out :)

P.S. Homey the Bag: rude man. Not welcome here.

If someone could guarantee me that sorority women would show up to an alcohol free party then I would be more then willing to have some. But on my campus there’s an atmosphere of not only keeping up with the Jones’ but one upping them in the process.

And Kevlar281 helps to prove the point that there are pressures on Fraternities by Sororities to host these risky functions assuming the liability. Thank you Kevlar281.

I get what the thread was about... the off campus housing thing... I was just throwing my two cents in as well...

The reason my two cents doesn't have to do with off-campus parties is because, here, the police do not question or arrest anyone at a party unless they have alcohol (or something else illegal) in their possession. (So this means the cops have to SEE you with it... you put it down, you're in the clear. Crazy, huh?) Therefore, there never is any association to Greeks with off campus parties because people other than the homeowner are rarely ever arrested or even talked to by the police... regardless of whether or not they are in a fraternity or sorority. Obviously they cannot make a list of chapter members when they don't know anyone's names or if they're even Greek. (Assuming no one attends with XYZ printed on their ass, in which case, they're an idiot.) Also, I believe every fraternity governed by IFC (the majority of fraternities on our campus) has on campus housing... which most members live in. That alone nearly makes the off-campus discussion obsolete (to Mizzou) as most members, and therefore most parties, are on campus.

This reply is STILL probably missing the mark... just thought I'd explain why my post was different!

UNLDelt, Your point is well taken.

Yes, in the days of Yore when there were run outs where Fraternityies would say hey, lets go some where where we can dance and drink it was the norm.:) Usually done on meeting nights.

But now because of Federal Laws, it is a totallly differeent mind set because of the Risk Management Insurance.

Dont tell me ladies that it is strictly the Fraternitys fault.

You have Dry Houses but want to go party hearty. So where do you go? Ta Da Fraternity Partys.:)

So, I guess when we all become pastuerized, there will be no Greeks soon?:(

While I agree that it isn't right for sororities to rely on the fraternities for parties, I feel compelled to add a few points here...

Many fraternities have women at their recruitment functions to entice guys to join, which makes the implication that if you join that fraternity, you'll have hot women around all the time.

If fraternities just stop hosting parties, then sororities wouldn't rely on them. Everybody would go to bars where things are regulated with bouncers and bar tenders and the liability is greatly reduced because there are third party vendors taking care of everything. The sororities have had the rule for DECADES that no chapter funds could be used for alcohol. They have had dry houses for decades. Nobody is stopping the fraternities from doing the same thing.

People who host private parties at their own homes choose to do so. I don't see how their greek affiliation would come up unless they have letters plastered all over.

Every time we have mandated a sorority chapter that I work with to have only dry events, they find that none of the fraternities will do anything with them.

We do host events that have alcohol, as a cash bar, such as our formals and semi-formals. In the 21 years since I've been initiated, the only time there have been problems were when women's dates drank too much and engaged in property destruction. I'm sure there are some exceptions to that somewhere, but in my direct experience, this is how it has been. We also are required to provide bus transportation to such events. Why aren't the greeks doing more of this?

Back in my day, the fraternities threw the parties so that they could 1) drink underage 2) be the coolest fraternity on campus and 3) get lots of women to their house (not necessarily in that order!). The parties were all campus parties although we had mixers that involved one fraternity and one sorority also. There is something more going on with this generation though. Because, for all the alcohol that flowed pretty freely, people did not binge drink to the extent that they do now. The goal would be to get a slight buzz and maintain it all evening, not drink til you puke or pass out. I think that if sorority women stopped attending fraternity/fraternity member sponsored parties, the parties would still happen, with non-affiliated women there.

Dee