[DeltAlum]

James,

I agree with your characterization of legal vs. social problems.

Both need to be addressed.

I find myself conflicted in many ways.

Look, I would like very much to see the law changed back to allow 18 year olds to drink beer -- as it was when I was that age. I'm not alone in that wish, I know. One of our chapter advisors is the City Attorney in his college town, and he agrees with me. I know others do as well.

I also don't think it will happen, unfortunately. And, unless there are some cultural changes to moderate our behavior, I'm not sure it should -- no matter how much I want it to.

So I have a number of problems here.

The first is the legal problem. I've said about all I can about that. The law is the law. We don't have to like it, we have to obey it or get it changed.

The second is a social problem. How to drink responsibly so that we don't have alcohol poisoning and deaths. Some fraternities are trying to address this one with programs such as our, "Delts Talk About Alcohol." The jury is out in my mind on whether it is successful, but it is certainly worth the effort. I suspect that if underage folks drank in moderation, the cops and schools would not bother with it. They have more important things to worry about, believe it or not.

The third is a public relations problem. It is absolutely true that binge drinking is a college problem -- not just a Greek one. But all of the numerous surveys I've seen say the same thing -- it's worse in the Greek System than it is in the rest of the college population. And the percentages are fairly dramatic. Our chapters keep on hazing. How do we expect those actions to create any kind of image except bad?

The fourth is a problem of attempted transference. We look at the "bad press" we get from number three and blame the media. That's a cop out. When underage members drink and get hurt or killed, it's news. When chapters close because of that, it's also news. When the accidents or deaths are part of a hazing ritual which includes "forced" drinking, that's a legitimate story. Not that the media (which I was part of for years) is always correct and fair -- but they are more often than not.

The fifth is stupidity. If we understand the law and the rules and break them and lose our charters, that's nobodys fault but our own. Not Nationals. Not the University. Not the cops. Not the media. Ours.

The sixth is living in the past. Just because I was hazed in the sixties doesn't make it OK for me or anyone else to continue that tradition today. The times have changed and so have the rules.

We have backed the universities and others in authority into a corner. Look at the lawsuits. The university, the chapter and the national organization are generally all named. It's pretty clever how we have backed them into one corner and painted ourselves into an opposite one. That takes real talent.

I could probably go on for a while.

I'm not entirely comfortable with automatic expulsion. But I don't have a better idea to offer, unfortunately.

What pains me the most is that even as the evidence stacks up and more of our chapters close, our undergraduates continue to break the rules and the laws. And they continue to act like the agrieved party.

So, we do all of these dumb things, and expect the insurance industry (which is a for profit business, after all) to turn their heads and adapt a "kids will be kids" attitude? Not in this lifetime.

Despite how it sounds, I'm not a crusader. I'm just an old guy who is scared to death that my Fraternity and the rest of the Greek System won't survive unless we change. I have the advantage of some degree of hindsight and life's experience that our undergraduates don't. I've had the opportunity to see the changes over the years, and also raised three children of my own. Many (maybe most) of today's students are a hell of a lot smarter than I am, and I just can't understand why they don't see the handwriting on the wall.

There are a lot of reasons that the Greek System is in danger -- this liability thing is a result of all of those reasons.

Please, let's do something about them, or future generations won't have the opportunities to enjoy the brother and sisterhood that we have and do.