Sororities and fraternities are prevalent at most colleges around the country but recently they have been popping up all over the national news for hazing, hate, or too much partying. Many schools participate in Greek recruitment in the fall, and with the recruitment process comes rush week. During rush week, those pledging the fraternity or sorority are required to do different tasks to prove themselves to the brothers or sisters.
Don’t get me wrong, not all schools haze. At many schools, there are simple rush week events such as memorizing names of all the brothers or sisters. Then there are the sororities and fraternities that are a bit more intense than just memorizing names, and these are the chapters that have been ending up in the news recently. Within the past few weeks, two college students have passed away from Greek related events.
At Clemson University in South Carolina the police found the body of 19 year old Tucker Hipps underneath a highway bridge. Tucker was participating in a rush event for the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity where they had to run and Tucker ended up falling off the bridge to his death. Clemson has had many other reports of hazing during the 2014 recruitment process so they released a report that the school is indefinitely suspending Greek life at the University. There has been another Greek life related death at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where sophomore Caitlyn Kovacs died after being at a Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity party. Caitlyn was taken to the hospital at 3 am after drinking too much at the fraternity house and died there shortly afterwards.
Overall Greek life is a great way to make friends, have fun, get involved, and make connections, but in recent events some chapters have been taking this too far and are paying the consequences.
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1173254
http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelzarrell/university-of-alabama-sorority-girl-snapchat#1sqi4pp
http://collegelifestyles.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/GreekLifeGroupPi…
http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l543/hercampusphoto/People/Greek%20l…