*The following article is an opinion piece written by a U of SC student in response to our article, USC Sigma Chi Fraternity Suspended. The views in this article are not directly associated with the views of Her Campus South Carolina.
To put it simply, the hazing allegations against Sigma Chi here at USC are ridiculous. Such allegations and suspension of a chapter that has done so much for our campus and community through their philanthropy week “derby days,” only tarnishes the reputation of Greek life as a whole. So for those other fraternities on campus and at other schools who are chuckling and “shot gunning a beer” in celebration of this scrutiny not being on them…just know that you are next. And you better hope your alumni are rich enough to get rid of that problem for you.
Fraternities everywhere are changing, and not in a good way. Like a child with helicopter parents, rebellion is undeniable. The more the parents crack down, the more the child rebels. And this helicopter parent is called nationals. I hate to break it to you nationals, but fraternities haze; and they won’t stop regardless of any regulation or legislation you present. The only way to actually end such actions would be to revoke the chapter charter, making the chapter an underground organization. Free from any supervision by “chapter nationals,” this underground organization can take those little hazing traditions used to bond brothers to a whole new level of intensity. I am not all knowing, and of course I cannot predict the future; but if I were to take a guess, Greek life as we know it now will cease to exist to the public eye, and underground fraternities will have more power. These underground fraternities may hold amazing social events, but will lack the philanthropic part that helps to define Greek life today. So is that really any better?
And why does this “hazing” have such a negative connotation? If you were to ask any brother of any fraternity on campus if they could do it all over again with a non-hazing process, would they? I can assure you every single one would state they wouldn’t have changed a thing. These boys know the definition of brotherhood and loyalty; qualities that only better an individual. If you were to pull a random sorority girl out of the crowd, I would bet you my college tuition that she couldn’t name every girl in her pledge class, let alone her sorority. She couldn’t tell you the founders, creed, or even the crest of her organization.
I have been told by members of sororities that they are required to phrase everything as a question, and not a statement, to a “new member.” Statements may seem “too forward”, make them feel uncomfortable, and could be classified as hazing. Lets touch on the fact that sororities don’t allow you to call a “new member” a pledge in general because of the names “hazing suggestibility.” But isn’t a new member doing just that? Pledging themselves, as a person, to an organization bigger then them. When did the word pledge mean anything worse than just that? Walking on egg shells 24/7 to please nationals is ludicrous and not what being part of the chapter should be about.
So sure nationals, remain ignorant to the fact that all fraternity chapters haze a little bit, and continue to only cause more issues by blowing up at the chapters that you catch doing so. You can take away their charter, but the meaning, brotherhood, and purpose of Sigma Chi won’t be erased in these boys. And when Greek life drastically alters here, and the student interest rate declines, at least you will know that no “new member” is being told to do anything because we wouldn’t want anyone to feel “uncomfortable.” Because of course that’s how it is in the real world…