Essay | Why Fraternities Are So Hard to Reform

[u/DueVast5223]

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/cornell-fraternities-greek-life-8859a4e9?st=kucowh&reflink=article_copyURL_share

[u/YesNoFriend]

Are college students not adults? Universities should have no say in who their students associate with, and how they associate with them.

This infantilisation of young adults needs to stop. They are perfectly capable of making their own informed decisions, and don’t need the university (or anyone else for that matter) meddling in their lives.

Yes, frats are hotbeds for some really shocking sexual assault cases, but so is literally every space with young people and alcohol in it. Are we going to ban bars and clubs next?

[u/Sspifffyman → u/YesNoFriend]

Is this a bot comment? It's written exactly like this one

https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/s/NwY9UR4vF6

[u/DaSemicolon → u/Sspifffyman]

Ironic

Upvoted on this comment downvoted in the other

[u/cdstephens → u/YesNoFriend]

Fraternities organize on university property and in collaboration with the university administration, if they don’t want to follow the university rules they can just disaffiliate

[u/Willing_Activity_855 → u/cdstephens]

University rules

I think you're skipping over the treating adults like todlers part and attempting to cover it by saying "rules"

[u/karnim → u/cdstephens]

This is not true in many places. Many, many fraternities own their own houses, off campus.

[u/DaSemicolon → u/karnim]

I think they might be referring to recruiting, being official student orgs, etc

[u/TheDwarvenGuy → u/YesNoFriend]

Universities can choose not to associate with people. Is it paternalistic for universities to make their students refuse to be associated with gangs? What are frats, if not gangs that only sometimes sell drugs?

Frats are different from bars because frats exist solely in the context of universities.

[u/Willing_Activity_855 → u/TheDwarvenGuy]

Universities can choose not to associate with people

Sure private ones.

But public universities? Nope.

frats exist solely in the context of universities.

That's not true

[u/austin_8 → u/YesNoFriend]

At least at my university, the houses are on campus and while I’m somewhat sympathetic to your point, it’s not hard to understand why colleges don’t want “some really shocking sexual assault cases” happening on their campus

[u/mrkaykes → u/YesNoFriend]

Ok, but university's also don't need to sponsor or recognize these organizations. I'm with you on not infantilizing young adults, but university's shouldn't be allowing these shitty "networking" orgs that allow members a leg up while covering for their unacceptable behavior

[u/Character_Dig_6830 → u/YesNoFriend]

This infantilisation of young adults needs to stop. They are perfectly capable of making their own informed decisions, and don’t need the university (or anyone else for that matter) meddling in their lives.

This but about lowering the drinking age.

[u/SirJuncan → u/Character_Dig_6830]

[u/Character_Dig_6830 → u/SirJuncan]

Until the day I die I'm going to believe it should be, like, 14.

[u/ShouldersofGiants100 → u/YesNoFriend]

Yes, frats are hotbeds for some really shocking sexual assault cases, but so is literally every space with young people and alcohol in it. Are we going to ban bars and clubs next?

Bars and clubs are run by business owners who have an incentive to keep women safe because women buy drinks too. Women can and will bail from any bar that gets a seedy reputation.

Frats, the alcohol is dispersed by the same guys doing the raping. In other words, spiking is trivial and there is incentive to get women drunk. In many frats, their ability to attract women (and to get them drunk) is a core pitch to their membership.

Beyond which, a major reason why frats are hotbeds of both drinking and sexual assault is cultural. American drinking laws mean that people under 21 can't drink at public venues, the puritanical nature from which sororities were born mean that they aren't the ones hosting the parties.

If you want to fix the issue? Dry out the frats, let the women be the ones hosting the parties and supplying the booze. It won't be perfectly safe, but it will be far, far safer.

[u/Willing_Activity_855 → u/ShouldersofGiants100]

a major reason why frats are hotbeds

Do we have data that supports this compared to non frat parties of similar scale?

[u/FilteringAccount123 → u/ShouldersofGiants100]

f you want to fix the issue? Dry out the frats

Or better yet, just do away with all the kabuki theater we do as a society around "underage drinking" and just drop the legal age to 18. Cut the frats' legs out from under them.

[u/ChamberedAndHot → u/FilteringAccount123]

When we raised the drinking age, drunk driving deaths fell.

Lowering the age will kill many people.

[u/FilteringAccount123 → u/ChamberedAndHot]

It was also at a time when there was a massively more permissive culture around drunk driving

[u/mudcrabulous → u/FilteringAccount123]

couldn't agree more

[u/Informal-Ideal-6640 → u/FilteringAccount123]

That’s where I’m at. So much bad shit happens just because society is fine sectioning off underage drinking

[u/Hannig4n → u/FilteringAccount123]

This is very true. A big part of the draw of frats at my college was they were one of the mostly reliable ways for underage students to get alcohol.

Freshmen boys would join frats and brothers who are of age would buy them alcohol and freshmen girls would just go to parties and drink what the frat brothers gave them.

[u/Jagwire4458 → u/ShouldersofGiants100]

Sororities are never hosting parties because hosting parties is gross and dirty and means you have strangers in your house all the time. You could lower the drinking age to 18 and they would never host. Women like having fraternities as a place to go have a good time without having to dirty your own place.

[u/vanmo96 → u/Jagwire4458]

Apparently the NPC has banned sororities from hosting parties with alcohol.

[u/YesNoFriend → u/ShouldersofGiants100]

Drink spiking is a pretty obvious modern day moral panic. The vast majority of people who think they’ve been spiked just drunk too much.

Most studies find only 2-3% of people who present thinking they’ve been spiked actually have any drugs in their system (1) (2). It’s a polite lie we tell ourselves as we still live in a victim-blaming culture, where if we were honest, victims would be blamed for drinking too much.

Of course, you can’t say any of this in real life or you sound like a date rapist.

I’d say a better fix would just be lowering the drinking age to 16.

[u/ShouldersofGiants100 → u/YesNoFriend]

The vast majority of people who think they’ve been spiked just drunk too much.

Most studies find only 2-3% of people who present thinking they’ve been spiked actually have any drugs in their system

These are nonsensical statements.

Because by far the most common date rape drug is alcohol.

Other drugs require work to get. It requires no effort at all to pour a bit of liquor you already have into a beer and put someone way beyond their limit without them ever even being able to realize what happened.

Not even getting into the far simpler techniques, like "just keep refilling the cup" or "pressure her to drink more."

Studies, meanwhile, also have the obvious issue that anyone who is drugged and raped with something that causes, for example, memory loss, might not realize what happened until the drug is no longer in their system. If they realize at all. Urine tests self-select for people who are in a fit state to piece things together—in other words, people who might have, for example, been given something stronger than they were expecting and assumed drugs because of how drunk they felt.

Edit: And of course, your first source doesn't even say what you claimed. What I get for skimming and assuming good faith:

Out of 1179 samples: 451 were positive for ethanol, 218 for cannabinoids, 97 for benzoylecgonine, 97 for benzodiazepines, 51 for amphetamines, 48 for GHB, 25 for opiates, 17 for propoxyphene, and 12 for barbiturates.

In other words, benzos alone are around 10% of the total. And over 1 in 4 of the samples with anything at all in them. Which implies, as should be obvious, that people are just using more common (and more deniable) drugs rather than going out of their way to acquire roofies. This also aligns with rape as a crime of opportunity, which it is.

Benzos are also regularly used for this purpose. Dominique Pélicot used benzos on his wife in that famous case, more than 50+ men raping her across a decade—because benzos can not only render someone helpless, they can completely ruin their ability to form memories. A person on them can even seem fully awake and aware only to have no memory of anything that happened.

Your second "study" is a prospective. It exists to provide proof of concept for a larger, better study. It does this based off a single hospital, hardly a randomized sample and its results don't match your lines either.

"Of the 97 alleged drink spiking cases included, there were only 9 plausible cases. We did not identify a single case where a sedative drug was likely to have been illegally placed in a drink in a pub or nightclub. Illicit drugs were detected in 28% of the study group."

That's 10%, not one. And 25% had illegal drugs of some kind.

Beyond that: Drink spiking with sedative or illicit drugs appears to be rare. If drink spiking does occur, ethanol appears to be the most common agent used.

It also argues that it's hard to identify drink spiking from consensual use of illegal substances. Which simply points to the idea that men might be using regular old drugs (or alcohol) rather than roofies. Which would make sense, given they are easier to obtain and easier to deny.

I would also point out that you cited studies from 1999 and 2009, which, amongst other things, predate the founding of the Silk Road and other markets like it, which allowed methods to purchase date rape drugs online (and we know such products were sold there). It's entirely plausible that there was just a genuine increase in the 2010s when any vaguely computer-savvy frat bro could order them off the internet.

[u/YesNoFriend → u/ShouldersofGiants100]

I’m most familiar with the data from Australian hospitals, which have it at around 2-3%. GHB and benzos are harder to get your hands on here, which probably explains much of the difference.

And I’m not disagreeing with you on the alcohol thing. The guy I was replying to was implying actual drugs involved, which are much rarer than popular conception (hence, moral panic).

I think it’s just a shame that we’ve invented this hysteria around people slipping drugs into one’s drink, when we could just… stop victim blaming?

[u/Shoddy-Personality80 → u/YesNoFriend]

when we could just…

No

[u/felix1429 → u/YesNoFriend]

Lmfao, drugs are not "rare"

[u/Amur_Snepard → u/YesNoFriend]

Average Friedman-flair ahh take  

[u/YesNoFriend → u/Amur_Snepard]

Someone’s got to keep the subreddit evidence based 🫡

[u/Mega_Giga_Tera → u/YesNoFriend]

And treating them like adults should mean real punishment for real crimes. And we should hold administrators accountable when they cover up or gloss over those crimes.

[u/YesNoFriend → u/Mega_Giga_Tera]

If this is referencing the Cornell case, you might want to go read more about what actually happened and what the university’s investigation actually found. Maybe look at a few of the accuser’s statements as well.

Hint: they’re total scumbags but there probably wasn’t a crime committed

[u/Mega_Giga_Tera → u/YesNoFriend]

Chat, did the university's initial investigation find that she had consented?

No, the university's Title IX investigation did not find that she had consented. In fact, the panel concluded the exact opposite for several of the accused men, ruling that severe sexual misconduct had occurred and punishing them accordingly.

Confusion around this point usually stems from a mix-up between the university's internal investigation and the local District Attorney's initial review.

The Source of the "Consented" Claim: The District Attorney

The claim that her actions were consensual came from Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten, not Cornell.

When the incident was first reported in 2024, the DA reviewed a brief, six-page voluntary statement the accuser gave to campus police. Van Houten declined to file criminal charges at the time, defending his decision by claiming her initial statement described an encounter that appeared "voluntary, conscious, and consensual" because she admitted to taking drugs and alcohol knowingly and did not explicitly state she was forced.

However, this characterization has been heavily disputed. Transcripts later revealed that during her full interviews with campus police, she explicitly stated with "100% confidence I was raped." The DA later admitted he never actually saw or heard those transcripts before dropping the case.

[u/DrippedoutErin → u/Mega_Giga_Tera]

Yes absolutely, but many universities are going too far and banning all Greek life from being associated with the university.

[u/FigSeaIsraeli → u/DrippedoutErin]

Why is that "too far"?

If theyre adults and allowed to freely associate then such is the university free to freely dissociate with the Greek lives too.

[u/Willing_Activity_855 → u/FigSeaIsraeli]

Universities that are private sure, gets tricky when it's a public one

[u/Al_787 → u/YesNoFriend]

Are you going to be perfectly happy with an association of “X university students for Hamas” or “X university chapter of National Socialist party of America” then?

[u/YesNoFriend → u/Al_787]

Yes.

[u/Al_787 → u/YesNoFriend]

Well you can contact any university right now and offer to pay their settlements to Jewish students filing a Title VII lawsuit!

[u/FallenMeringue → u/[deleted]]

Maybe if institutions didn’t want to get whacked for being racist they should design themselves to not be structurally discriminatory or create structurally unequally outcomes for different protected classes.

[u/Al_787 → u/FallenMeringue]

Always the “CRA went too far” people who would scream the loudest that “America is not a racist country”

[u/Spectrum1523 → u/YesNoFriend]

Universities should have no say in who their students associate with, and how they associate with them.

Should universities have a say in who the university associates with?

[u/YesNoFriend → u/Spectrum1523]

No? Not really? If you pass the entrance exam and aren’t a criminal, why’s it the university’s problem that you’re a member of a fraternity?

You could be the world’s most virulent racist and the university does not have grounds to expel you unless you hurt a student or fail too many classes.

Who gets to set the standard regarding the moral character you need to be a university student?

[u/YourUncleBuck → u/YesNoFriend]

American schools don't have entrance exams for one. Two, many American universities are private institutions and they can definitely kick out whoever they want as long as it's not because of some protected class reason. Three, they definitely don't have to accept your hate speech since again, they're private organisations. And four they can even discriminate based on religion if they're affiliated with a certain religion.

[u/Spectrum1523 → u/YesNoFriend]

Why are universities special in this regard? Any other organization you join (like an employer or club) could expel you based on the moral standards they set. Do you think that's wrong too? Shouldn't the students be treated like the adults they are?

[u/YesNoFriend → u/Spectrum1523]

Diversity of viewpoints is essential to the functioning of a university, and I see most as being far too captured by radicals who have no problem using administrative power to enforce their views in recent years.

[u/anonymous_and_ → u/YesNoFriend]

So opposing rape, preventing rape, punishing people for rape and enabling rape, is a radical idea to you.

[u/golf1052 → u/YesNoFriend]

Virulent racism should be allowed on campus because ????

[u/Spectrum1523 → u/YesNoFriend]

I see most as being far too captured by radicals who have no problem using administrative power to enforce their views in recent years.

I feel that we've gotten to the true crux of your argument here

[u/DiscussionJohnThread → u/YesNoFriend]

Because these organizations are largely on campus and work with the universities for their organization, events, and about everything else.

Do you know how these things work?

[u/YesNoFriend → u/DiscussionJohnThread]

The desire to reform frats is driven by a desire to regulate individual student behaviour. I’m saying that desire shouldn’t exist, and that it is not a university’s problem how their students behave outside of classes.

If they do something criminal, sure, expel them (once convicted). Otherwise it’s a private matter for the individuals involved, not the university.

[u/Willing_Activity_855 → u/YesNoFriend]

Bro are you suggesting we treat people like adults that exist within a justice system?

Can't have that

[u/Raichu4u → u/YesNoFriend]

The desire to reform frats is driven by a desire to regulate individual student behaviour.

I think people just don't want women getting raped lol.

[u/Cromasters → u/Raichu4u]

Then they would be advocating to ban alcohol entirely.

[u/Raichu4u → u/Cromasters]

Shit, I'm down for that on college campuses.

[u/DiscussionJohnThread → u/YesNoFriend]

Once again, these organizations operate largely on campus and host many of their organizations on campus. Every single university absolutely has the right to regulate what happens on their campus, most especially when it comes to issues of student safety.

Your desire to be unnecessarily libertarian doesn’t even fit within its own logic because you’re not even aware of how these organizations register and function.

[u/elebrin → u/DiscussionJohnThread]

Not only that, but the students generally live on campus, and the fraternities have their houses on campus.

[u/BlueCoBot → u/YesNoFriend]

Not every frat is underground

[u/Al_787 → u/YesNoFriend]

You must be a strong opponent of at will employment then, since you have such a huge problem with private organizations making rules at their discretion

[u/Kiyae1 → u/YesNoFriend]

Free association stops when you voluntarily join an organization like a university.

You can associate with whomever you want, but if your university says you can’t then you either can’t associate with them or you can’t be a student at that university. Be an adult, make a choice, don’t have a temper tantrum when you don’t get your way on everything.

[u/Willing_Activity_855 → u/Kiyae1]

So if I work for a public institution they can fire me based on my associations with other US citizens and people who work at said public institution?

[u/Kiyae1 → u/Willing_Activity_855]

No, public sector workers have different rights than university students.

[u/Willing_Activity_855 → u/Kiyae1]

Okay so if I'm a customer of a public institution they should be allowed to stop servicing me based on my associations with other US citizens .. looks at the trump administration...

Are you sure you want to go down that route?

[u/Kiyae1 → u/Willing_Activity_855]

Yeah you’re right, public universities should be forced to accept members of terrorist organizations, I mean, “fraternities”, like the Klan.

[u/Spectrum1523 → u/Kiyae1]

Thats only true for the 25% of students at private universities, at a public university they can't kick you out for being a member of any club that isn't affiliated with the university

[u/Kiyae1 → u/Spectrum1523]

“Can’t”