A recent string of high-profile scandals has reopened the debate over whether college fraternities are positive forces for building community on campus or breeding grounds for dangerous attitudes and behavior towards minorities and women.
It’s common knowledge that members of fraternities, and sororities as well, often stumble into trouble when their pledging rituals cross the line into hazing territory or when someone underage gets injured at a booze-fueled house party. Those incidents seldom make a big splash in national news outlets, and as a lengthy piece on fraternities published last year in The Atlantic explained, the fraternities are very adept at ducking liability for what happens under their roofs in those cases.
However, several fraternities have gotten their 15 minutes of infamy this month after being suspended by their respective universities for more disturbing offenses. From chants about lynching to marking new pledges with a hot brand, here are some examples of the most egregious behavior that landed fraternity members in hot water.
OKLAHOMA: Frat members caught on video chanting “There will never be a nigger in SAE”
This month’s boomlet of fraternity news began on March 8, when a video that allegedly showed members of a University of Oklahoma fraternity singing a racist chant on a bus ride went viral.
“There will never be a nigger in SAE,” the frat members sang. “There will never be a nigger in SAE. You can hang them from a tree, but they’ll never sign with me. There will never be a nigger in SAE.”
The video provoked widespread outrage and plastered Sigma Alpha Epsilon across national headlines. Within hours, the fraternity’s national organization shuttered its OU chapter while the university president severed the school’s ties to SAE entirely. Two frat members identified as having led the chant were later expelled from the university.
The banned OU chapter hired a high-profile lawyer who once defended Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh as it mulls taking legal action against the university.
PENNSYLVANIA: Frat tries to pass off photos of nude, unconscious women on private Facebook group as “satire”
Students at Pennsylvania State University were up in arms against a fraternity accused of sharing photos of nude, unconscious women on Facebook.
Penn State’s Kappa Delta Rho fraternity was suspended last week after police discovered two private Facebook groups, dubbed “Covert Business Transactions” and “2.0,” to which around 150 members and alumni of the fraternity had access. Members of the group allegedly posted images of women who were asleep or passed out to the groups.
Police have since determined that at least two of the photos could lead to criminal charges, and some of the women pictured in the photos have come forward.
A particularly self-righteous member of Kappa Delta Rho only made things appear worse in an interview with Philadelphia Magazine.
The anonymous student and self-proclaimed “good guy” insisted that the fraternity members didn’t share the photos maliciously. He also argued that the only person who should be punished for the group’s behavior is whoever “snitched.”
“It’s just satire. … Nobody’s sitting there like, ‘Oh … how are we going to victimize these people?’” he said in defense of his fraternity.
NORTH CAROLINA: Frat’s notebook filled with disturbing statements on rape and lynching surfaces
“It will be short and painful, just like when I rape you.”
“That tree is so perfect for lynching.”
Those were just a couple of the jarring comments members of North Carolina State University’s Pi Kappa Phi fraternity wrote in a so-called “pledge book” discovered last week.
Local TV station WRAL, which first obtained the notebook, posted photos of some of its pages that blurred out offensive language. The following statements were legible, however:
“Dude if she’s hot enough, she doesn’t need a pulse.”
“Be kind to the whales for they’ll lead you to the dolphins.”
“The only reason I don’t hook up with fat chicks is I’m afraid I’ll love it.”
“I like little girls.”
Following an investigation, NC State disbanded the fraternity Wednesday and ordered its members to vacate their frat house. The organization is suspended from the school’s campus until 2018.
The comments in the notebook, as well as an accusation of sexual assault that led to the suspension of another NC State fraternity earlier this month, prompted Chancellor Randy Woodson to also order a review of the school’s entire Greek system.
MARYLAND: Frat member leaves university over racist “f*** consent” email
A frat member at the University of Maryland disparaged minority women with racial slurs and appeared to promote sexual assault in an email that surfaced earlier this month.
University President Wallace D. Loh said in a statement that the email, sent in January 2014 by a member of UMD’s chapter of the Kappa Sigma fraternity, was brought to the administration’s attention just two days after video of the OU fraternity’s racist chant went viral.
Here’s the full text of the email, as quoted by the Huffington Post:
Regardless of the rush shirt let’s get rachet as f*** during rush week. My d**k will be sucked and f***ed in compound basement whether you guys like it or not. Don’t invite any n****r gals or curry monsters or slanted eye chinks, unless they’re hot. Ziggy you’re [sic] girl can come she’s cool. Remember my n***as, erect, assert, and insert, and above all else, f*** consent … d**ks untouched.
Kappa Sigma’s national organization moved quickly to suspend the student, who then resigned from the fraternity. This week, the UMD announced that it had reached a mutual agreement with the former frat member about him leaving the school.
NEW HAMPSHIRE: The frat that inspired “Animal House” allegedly branded its pledges
The antics of Dartmouth College’s Alpha Delta Phi are already legend, as the fraternity partly inspired the 1978 film “Animal House.” The latest allegations against the frat go to show that not much has changed since then.
Dartmouth confirmed this week that it extended the suspension handed down to the fraternity last fall for holding unregistered parties over fresh allegations that the organization branded its new members like livestock. The school didn’t go into further detail about those allegations.
Gawker got a hold of posts from a Dartmouth gossip site that may shed a bit more light on the situation. Students speculated that the school discovered the branding after an Alpha Delta pledge who opted for the brand saw a doctor who found it to be infected.
They serve as a place to defer socialization by the larger, mainstream business, community and workplace world, a place to hang on to boyhood and to defer adulthood as long as possible.
Some of these jerks never grow up, never learn how to act around women. I wonder how some find mates.
Yep, party 'til you puke. Now there’s a formula for responsible adulthood and for a place of leadership in society.
they should have been gone long ago. They are as anachronistic as a lawn jockey statue. Just think about the shit that went down at frats over the years that did not make the news.
Dartmouth has always attracted right wing jerks. Even in the early 80s, their school newspaper was an inflammatory rag.
I have long said that colleges need to boot ALL fraternities AND sororities, because they are little more than bastions of bigotry and elitism. They long ago outlived whatever usefulness they may have once had.
But they seem so forward thinking. These days, companies are all about branding.