Fall of the frat house: Students target Greek life amid America’s racial reckoning

[ASTalumna06]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...66a_story.html

Graham Payne-Reichert logged onto Zoom from a lawn chair in the backyard of his unofficial fraternity house, surrounded by three other members of Delta Tau Delta and a futon that had mysteriously snapped in half a few months before.

He watched faces appear one by one on his screen — first his former roommate, then his Spikeball teammate, then the older fraternity brother who had put him at ease during a hard transition to American University just two years ago.

It was one month after the killing of George Floyd and Payne-Reichert, vice president of his fraternity, kicked off a virtual meeting that would break up the chapter he once adored.

For two hours, the virtual group of 26 men discussed the lack of diversity in their fraternity chapter and the Instagram pages that shared anonymous accounts of racism and sexual assault at their school. The meeting ended with a unanimous vote to disband the chapter of Delta Tau Delta.

“The pressure was on those of us in Greek life to justify our existence and we couldn’t do it,” said Payne-Reichert, 20. “I realized that remaining complicit in the system was a moral issue, and it was one I could not live with.”