Pass the rum, me hearty: College frat power fosters daredevil behavior, inhibits social change

Penn State Obelisk

Tom was tired after partying with his buddies in the frat house the night before. The drinks were poured freely, in that social way of cementing relationships with one's peers; and he can't remember much about the girl he was with after he passed out on the sofa. Those pass the rum, me hearty ways fuel addictions and establish bad behavioral patterns that offer trouble ahead that can inhibit social and political change.



For many young people the way to belong and find friends who can help facilitate business and personal success after college means joining a fraternity or sorority. Making these right connections can often help someone get hired for a job that can lead to success, so college folk seek to join the organization that offers the best opportunity to make those right connections. Along with this, however, come patterns that are difficult to break and can lead to bad behaviors that are reinforced by the social interactions that take place in the world of the Greeks.



Recently Jimmy Carter appeared on television to promote his new book about the treatment of women on college campuses entitled “A Call to Action."" Date rape, he tells us, is widespread and kept gracefully tucked behind those ivy walls by college administrators, many of whom were members of special social organizations where they could be seen, heard and eventually be put in charge. With the date rape, alcohol is often the drug of choice that allows members of a group to be less inhibited than they would be otherwise and more willing to follow the lead of others. 



“One of the worst places in our country for sexual abuse is on college campuses,” Carter told David Letterman recently. “College presidents don't want their university to get a reputation as a center for sexual abuse.” The article on the Washington post that offers Carter's insights tells us that as many as one in five women will be assaulted in college. Freshmen are among those with the highest risk for sexual assault, as they constitute 63 percent of the victims.



Bob Beckel, a Fox News commentator, responded, “When was the last time you heard about a rape on campus?” as other individuals such as Greg Gutfield, in the ways a lusty pirate might respond after a night of booze with buddies agreed, using it as a way to reinforce the value of guns for protection with : “It’s the rapist who should be crapping — not victim. And that means being armed.” 



While some research observes that college fraternities and sororities now offer strict guidelines about drinking behavior, a multidimensional examination reveals that added to additional factors involving early adult developmental patterns and the socialization that takes places among the Greeks, high-risk drinking is associated with belonging to a fraternity or sorority. Living in a Greek house increases the likelihood of binge drinking, for example. Furthermore, those campuses without a Greek system have fewer alcohol-related issues. 



Much of what happens to the young people on campus has to do with societal factors they arrive with that include how they interacted in high school, the emphasis placed on having the right social group and belonging to the “in” group, parents' drinking patterns, the feelings of isolation and boredom that can come with being in a new situation where the parent is not in control and the social group offers a substitute family. The Greek language embraces that family role with the term “brother” and “sister” used to describe members.



Add to the presence of the Greeks the relative importance of athletics on a college campus and the risks of heavy drinking increase. College fraternities are a source of support for athletics and add to the relative invincibility of coaches and sports directors.  Penn State became an example of college administrators who looked the other way at the behavior of its coach, Jerry Sandusky, and his sexual molestation of young boys. The cult of football that dominated the campus allowed for an atmosphere where sexual deviation was acceptable so long as it did not interfere with the athletic challenges.  



The Atlantic Monthly looked at the dark patterns and power of fraternities and sororities in February 2014, finding that power has created high-level executives, among them many of the Chief Executive Officers of America's major corporations. The author points out that many fraternities have more power than the college host itself. Greek sororities and fraternities are rooted in American soil, offering the influence that can last a lifetime. They are well-known for contributing large sums of money to their alma maters, thus creating a continuous power-broker pattern that extends to the boardroom and the halls of Congress.



The problems on campus that lead to bad behaviors continue to be part of a national conversation, but the actual implementation of change may be difficult because the patterns are difficult to break, especially when they have been part of long-held traditions. Drinking and Greek membership have been associated since their initial founding. Along with drinking, and the addition of a few chemicals into a girl's glass, can lead to date rape and to other incidents when inhibition is lost. The fact that many colleges choose funding of athletics over maintenance of some academic programs gives the consistent message of where the values are for everyone. And while college is that place young people long to experience freedom, some of that freedom can come with a high price that includes the growing epidemic of sexual assault, binge drinking and violent initiations that can hurt a young person in many ways in the future. It can also hurt the social and political structure when those same patterns continue.



So if laws are to be changed to reduce those bad behaviors, perhaps it is the nature of the college atmosphere that needs to change how the wrong patterns are reinforced that fuels a pirate-type, daredevil atmosphere that can occur when young people gather in groups where “pass the rum, me hearty” is the challenge. Most experts tell us that, as with other social problems, the education begins in the home as the young person prepares for being in an atmosphere where parental overview is remote. That might mean the right Greek group might be none at all or one where academics are valued more than sports and non drinking behavior is a value rather than an aberration.

Portland State University: Where the 'Greeks' lost their way

[caption id="attachment_6002" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Portland State University"][/caption]










GHN Editor - Portland State University has changed dramatically over the past 50 years, but the changes appear less in the expansion of the campus than the expansion of attitudes over the years and one of those changes has to do with the "Greeks."

In 1959 – 60, the only social protest taking place around the campus was one about the trees.  This was the tip of the proverbial iceberg on the upcoming stance that Portland would take on the environCment.  “Treehugger” may not have been coined in Portland, but 50 years ago Oregonians were beginning to talk about the value of trees and the environment.  Some of that value was underlined with the protests that took place along the boulevards that wind through the upper part of the old campus.

It was that turn at the beginning of the 1960’s that put Portland in front in many ways.  One of those came shortly after the tree protest, when sororities and fraternities  on the campus took a major blow following revelations written in the Vanguard about the practices that discriminated against the inclusion of minorities.

A young journalist, attached to one of the more well-known sororities, took a young French Creole woman to “rush.”  “Rush” is the ceremonial period when sororities and fraternities begin to make their choices about who to include and who not to include in their ranks.

At the major meeting, after the potential inductee had left the room, following an interview by the sorority sisters, the “blackball” took place.  This is a different ceremony that allows members to make their declarations about who will or will not fit in the organization.

The  French Creole woman, whose complexion pulled primarily from her African past, was one of those blackballed at the time.  The operative word of blackballing uniquely described the events, as the statement was made that “we can’t have ‘them’ in our sorority.

“Why is that?” came the question from a journalist who had been proud to find an inductee with such good grades and wonderful personality, surely a source of inspiration for a sorority dangling too deeply on the grade point average scale and threatened with reprisal of new members didn’t have new grades to support that grade point average.

“Our charters don’t support that” was the answer.  The charters, it was explained came from the South.

“We can’t go up against our national organization,” came another answer from the floor, but by then the message was made clear.  Portland State University was suddenly exposed as not quite ready for the integration taking place across the land when it came to the Greek chorus that dominated the school.

A story outlined later in the Vanguard brought media attention in many Oregon places,  and not long after the sororities and fraternities were put on notice that they would integrate their ranks or be closed down.  The young journalist who wrote the story at the time was openly ridiculed by many of those “Greeks,” but many others felt that change should surely come.

50 years later while strolling through the Portland State University campus, these memories returned.  A young couple standing in front of student housing told the story, “Sororities and fraternities don’t have much power at Portland State anymore.  You hardly hear about them.”  That difference that spoke of change that had become permanently underlined y by practice and by choice is another peg on the Oregon count in its progressive history, reflected in the protests that continue to be part of Portland life.

It was a long time since those protests about the trees and segregation too, but the history of the Portland State campus continues to reflect the earnest zeal of students and how they manifest in their ranks around the place how Portland continues to evolve as the nation’s vanguard of the best of change.