[Firehouse]

Is Weschler part of that ghastly PAR crowd? I noted the snide comment about "educational and re-motivational programs". The PAR program is draconian punishment delivered with sadistic prison guard glee and enthusiasm.
If you want to stop all automobile accidents, then raise the drinking age to 70 and lower the speed limit to 21. That's PAR's answer. Out of millions of college kids, three drink themselves to death in a fraternity house. Tragic for those children and their families and their friends, but not indicative of the "epidemic" that activists would have you fear. If a fraternity forces a kid to drink and he dies, I'm all for hanging them. But these sound like normal freshmen first-time-away-from-home hijinks that go terribly wrong.
Look at Colorado. If the charges against the football program are accurate, then they used prostitutes in recruiting. The school president wouldn't even begin to think about shutting down the athletic program. But if a fraternity brought in hookers for rush, there would be mass fainting in the administration building, and vacant fraternity houses stretching to the horizon.
There is and always has been a built-in conflict between the Greeks and the faculty/administration types. The academics suspect that the Greeks do not worship them the way they feel they should be adored. The adacemics feel that they are able to exert a stronger influence over the non-Greek student population. This is all true. By and large the Greeks are ambitious and aggressive and view college as a brief passage on their way to success in life. They use their fraternity contacts to make useful connections among their own kind. The faculty and administrators are viewed largely as people hired to teach them what they need to know to get the jobs they want. The faculty/administrators are much more impressed with their own standing than are the Greeks, who view them as somewhat isolated in their own ivory tower academic universe and not relevant to the Greeks' everyday life, or indeed relevant to much else.
No one thinks this out loud, but the subtext is there.
The faculty/administrators resent what they see as the dismissive attitude toward them on the part of the Greeks, and the Greeks resent interference by the fac/admins in what they consider to be none of their damn business.
Here's a small example. I attended a meeting of fraternity alumni and the IFC president. Probably 5-6 fraternities were represented and the alumni were all over 40. The issue at hand had to do with a minor rush problem involving all fraternities on our campus. In the course of conversation, someone mentioned that he was glad to see IFC allowing two previously-booted fraternities back on; one last spring and one this fall. The IFC president said thanks, and in fact the IFC wanted to continue to expand but it was upsetting the Greek Life staff. "Why - what do they care?" The IFC Pres replied that the Greek Life staff was upset because rapid expansion "was a lot more work for them". The table convulsed in laughter. The 40+ year old fraternity alumni view "Greek Life" as something a grad student might do to earn a few extra dollars, but not anything to be taken seriously and certainly not a legitimate career path in the real world. The Greek Life professionals are suspicious of alumni interference, and the alumni are contemptuous of people they view as lightweight irritations. University development officers know first hand the financial abilities and loyalties of Greek alumni, and their importance to the continued prosperity of the University. Greek Life people - deans and student affairs types and such - do not concern themselves at all with the consequences of their anti-fraternity decisions.
We as Greek organizations are obliged to promote good behavior - to insist on it in fact - and to adhere to the legitmate rules of the institution. But we are not obliged to endure group punishments, bullying and unreasonable interference in our affairs, including who and how we recruit members. In fact, the arrogance of university administrators grew to such egregious proportions in the 1980s and 1990s that Congress passed the Freedom of Association Act in 1997 specifically to address these complaints.
Drinking among students should not be a greater problem now than it has ever been. If it is, then we should find out why. My guess is that the PAR solution - extreme punishments - has forced drinking underground where it's more dangerous. I like the solution offered by one poster where the University focuses on taking care of the kids without sending campus police to interrogate everyone involved.