Brutal Sorority Hazing at Dartmouth-Kappa Kappa Gamma:

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Mevara

We have records of every member who is initiated online and she is listed there. Her terminology may be bad but she was a member.

If a person confuses rush with pledging and depledging with termination of membership, that's beyond bad terminology. Especially if you had the brain to get into Dartmouth. The whole thing just doesn't smell right.

[ISUKappa]

Originally Posted by Mevara

We have records of every member who is initiated online and she is listed there. Her terminology may be bad but she was a member.

The online membership database lists those who have gone through initiation and who have not resigned membership with the fraternity. Of course, if the paperwork never makes it to headquarters, they have no record of resignation (there are at least three sisters from my own chapter who resigned membership while I was in school yet are still listed in the database).

So. 1) the author did go through the initiation process, which means she didn't depledge. 2) if she did resign membership, the paperwork never went through to headquarters. This just seems like a writer trying to ride the wave of the Rolling Stone article by putting out her own shock story.

I'm not denying these types of events happen. They do. But they are usually the actions of a few sisters and certainly not a chapter-sanctioned "hazing ritual".

[GoGoGreek]

http://thedartmouth.com/2006/10/11/news/police

[33girl]

Getting drunk at the roller rink =/= being kidnapped. Not only that, if she had a published account of previous alcohol abuse in the sorority to back up her story, why on earth would she have not mentioned it?

On that note....ALL SKATE, ALL SKATE.

[knight_shadow]

^^ ISUKappa can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the emphasis was supposed to be on "chapter-sanctioned"

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by knight_shadow

^^ ISUKappa can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the emphasis was supposed to be on "chapter-sanctioned"

This is how I raed it as well..

[angels&angles]

Yeah -- we were on a strict NO ALCOHOL rule for Bid Night, but Tear Night (the next night, after the sobriety pledge had expired; the night the boys get fraternity bids) was another story entirely. We never ever ever forced our new members to drink anything (we always had a good number of girls who didn't drink anyway). There were a lot "Okay, DRINK! ...If you want to. But you don't have to..." We had sober rides always. A lot of water around, and sophomore member assigned to the new members. But there were always girls who ended up in the health center anyway because they wanted to DRINK and they found the upperclassmen who wanted to DRINK as well. It wasn't hazing. It was 18-year-old new members being 18-year-old girls. We tried to keep them safe, and I don't think anyone ever actually had anything close to a .4, but on a hard drinking campus, shit happens.

[ISUKappa]

Originally Posted by AzTheta

swerve/

If the online database used is InCircle, there's a high probability that it's inaccurate. InCircle doesn't permit changes or updates, from what I've learned. I know for a fact that it contains multiple inaccuracies regarding the Chapter I advise, as well as the one I was initiated into. Perhaps other online databases are more accurate? When I need to check the status of an alumna, I contact our HQ directly, and don't even look at InCircle.

/end swerve

To my knowledge, it's not InCircle.

Originally Posted by knight_shadow

^^ ISUKappa can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the emphasis was supposed to be on "chapter-sanctioned"

Yes.

[amIblue?]

I read another article this morning about this, and it just makes me sad. I was never hazed as a Kappa, never knew anyone who was, and never would have dreamed of doing anything so vile to any of our beautiful pledges. I know many women in Kappa and in other NPC groups whose experience mirrors mine.

I hate that this happened, but it seems to me that the author is motivated solely by a need for notoriety and attention seeking.


PS in looking back at attitudes among my fellow students, it is difficult for me to reconcile this forced drinking stuff with my reality of partying. Yes, we might share with our friends, but we weren't crying if someone said no. That just meant more for another day.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by amIblue?

PS in looking back at attitudes among my fellow students, it is difficult for me to reconcile this forced drinking stuff with my reality of partying. Yes, we might share with our friends, but we weren't crying if someone said no. That just meant more for another day.

Totally true. The only time we ever cared if someone wasn't drinking is if they had a stick up their ass about people who were, or if they were being a bump on a log. And even then I can't imagine forcing them to drink - we would just go someplace where we could avoid them. The fact that you are paying for the booze and not sneaking it out of your parents' liquor cabinet - or that there is a limited amount of it at a party - makes you far less likely to be insistent that everyone has to imbibe.

[AZTheta]

swerve/

If the online database used is InCircle, there's a high probability that it's inaccurate. InCircle doesn't permit changes or updates, from what I've learned. I know for a fact that it contains multiple inaccuracies regarding the Chapter I advise, as well as the one I was initiated into. Perhaps other online databases are more accurate? When I need to check the status of an alumna, I contact our HQ directly, and don't even look at InCircle.

/end swerve

[AZTheta]

thanks, ISUKappa.

I typically look at these accounts with a HUGE amount of skepticism and doubt. When we hear negative things, I have said (and written) many times: it could be any chapter, anywhere, on any day. And we weren't there, we really don't know what happened. Any chapter contains "rogue" or "problem" members. It's simple probability. Take away the letters and ask: is this person a decent human being? You'll have an answer.

Having recently been on the receiving end of published criticism and gossip/talk that was unfounded, or based on half-truths, I will say again that it is NOT FUN and it makes me really angry.

[amIblue?]

Originally Posted by AzTheta

swerve/

If the online database used is InCircle, there's a high probability that it's inaccurate. InCircle doesn't permit changes or updates, from what I've learned. I know for a fact that it contains multiple inaccuracies regarding the Chapter I advise, as well as the one I was initiated into. Perhaps other online databases are more accurate? When I need to check the status of an alumna, I contact our HQ directly, and don't even look at InCircle.

/end swerve

[QUOTE=ISUKappa;2138208]To my knowledge, it's not InCircle.

I don't believe that it is InCircle, either, FWIW.

[SOM]

Originally Posted by AzTheta

thanks, ISUKappa.

I typically look at these accounts with a HUGE amount of skepticism and doubt. When we hear negative things, I have said (and written) many times: it could be any chapter, anywhere, on any day. And we weren't there, we really don't know what happened. Any chapter contains "rogue" or "problem" members. It's simple probability. Take away the letters and ask: is this person a decent human being? You'll have an answer.

Having recently been on the receiving end of published criticism and gossip/talk that was unfounded, or based on half-truths, I will say again that it is NOT FUN and it makes me really angry.

AZTheta: I try as well to look at reports like this with some degree of skepticism and doubt. I agree, as far as I know, none of us where there on the campus of Dartmouth for this or for the Sigma Alpha Epsilon matter. That said, the news media picks up events like these much more than the good deeds that GLO's do. Just this Noon, my local CBS station had not one but TWO hazing cases on it! And I know that one of the two anchors is a member of a Fraternity. And sadly if one does a simple search under hazing, even more show up just about every day involving many GLO's. And those are just the ones getting caught at it.

[amIblue?]

Originally Posted by Low C Sharp

The author didn't claim that she said no and was forced. She just said that the members handed her drinks and that she drank them. That seems consistent with your experience (and with mine when I was a college student). Again, we don't know if her story is true, but in her version of events, the expectation that she drink is enough to create a dangerous hazing situation. The members have a duty not to create the pressure to drink in the first place.

It would be a much better and safer world if every young person had the self-assurance to say no in that situation, but most people do not.

Tying in the George Desdunes death at Cornell that the NYTimes wrote about today, that student died from a .4 BAC.

Her version of the events is this: "we were guided into the back seat of a car and one of our future sisters commanded us to chug the alcoholic punch that had been pre-prepared for each of us in individual 64-ounce water bottles."

Sounds like an order to me rather than a simple expectation. That's what I was talking about, which is much different than asking someone if they'd like to have a drink and sharing it with them. Even with the expectation you mention, under the more casual social type of drinking, a person can accept a drink and pretend to sip at it if he/she is uncomfortable with saying no, no harm no foul.

My point was that it is beyond my experience to "command" someone to drink. However, there are enough of these stories in the world that I know it does happen.

(Also, "pre-prepared" is a stupid, made up word.)