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I get what you're saying, but what I'm saying is this: I think the system is going to die regardless. Sororities and fraternities can't survive with no rules governing alcohol, for example, because of the threat of lawsuits -- but the majority of college students won't join an organization that restricts their drinking and access to the opposite sex. Either way, we're looking at a serious decline in membership.
As it is, most college students don't realize that many sorority houses don't allow boys in the bedrooms or alcohol in the house, but more and more students are figuring this out every year. Many fraternities don't yet have "dry house" policies, though most will have to consider it soon enough with insurance rates going through the roof. Others are allowing old chapters to be grandfathered in to new dry policies, but eventually they too will be converted. Once all of this changes, the system is almost guaranteed to die off. College students are not going to pay hundreds to thousands of dollars a year for the privilege of doing volunteer work and study tables. Hey, if I was only here to do volunteer work, I'd send my $650 check each semester straight to St. Jude's instead of to the Tri Delt HQ.
I don't really blame the national and international HQs for this (most of the time they're doing what they have to do), but neither do I blame the students. What needs to change is the lawsuit-happy culture that we live in, where legal loopholes matter more than common sense -- but the culture won't change. So where do we go from there?
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