When I was in high school, a Google Doc with answers to an exam was created and shared widely among my sophomore English class. In our class of 30 or so students, approximately 5 people used the document to cheat during the exam. 5 of 30. 17%. The majority of us did nothing. We took the exam fairly, but once my teacher found out about that it was being shared between us, each of us was given a grade of zero on the exam. As an honor roll student I was devastated. I didn’t use the Doc to so much as study, but I still saw it. I still knew it existed. I said nothing to the teacher. I was awarded the same grade as the people who made it; the people who memorized each line; the people who jotted notes on their arm. Zero out of 100. I took the exam home with tears in my eyes having never failed anything in my life. I cried about how unfair it was, how the Google Doc wasn’t at all my doing, and how my exam was fairly taken and deserved an admirable grade. It’s been nearly four years since the class was taken, the doc created, and I finally understand why our teacher awarded each of us a cheating grade.
In the current state of Greek life at PSU, I find the situation glaringly similar to the sophomore year English Google Doc scandal. But this time, the predicament is far more serious and devastating than a Google Doc shared among high schoolers. The Google Doc is a dead student; a loved one lost due to alcohol, carelessness and hazing. The Google Doc is the rape culture so horrifically present among fraternities. The Google Doc is underage frat pledges so dangerously drunk at parties that they have to get their stomach pumped. The Google Doc is the frat brother who notices a freshman girl in his basement so incoherently drunk he takes her upstairs even as she struggles. Everyone involved knows it happens, yet no one does anything. For this reason, the system of Greek life at Penn State should be penalized.
That being said, sororities are far less destructive to the culture of Penn State. Sisterhoods tend to be far more focused on the basis of love and friendship. However, they are still part of the Greek system that has for so long brushed hazing and sexual assault off as a minor issue not pertinent to many fraternities. As the campus investigation leading to the regulations has shown, this is false.
No, you may not be the frat brother who namelessly appears in the campus alerts the next day proclaiming that yet another sexual assault has happened on campus, but you are part of the system that brushes it off as “just another sexual assault”. And for this reason, Greek life is to blame. You are my English class. You say you did nothing and don’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve a failing grade, or so I thought. But I could have told my teacher that the Doc existed. I didn’t. I could have told my teacher who the main contributors to the Doc were — I knew after all. I was silent. I didn’t cheat, but I was part of the system that did and deserved the failing grade the same as you actually do deserve the regulations placed on Greek life.
Greek life does do good, I’ve been a part of positive philanthropic events that it has held and these shouldn’t be discredited. Millions are raised by Greek involvement in THON each year which is admirable, but what happens in fraternity houses every weekend is less than so. I’ve seen many Greek advocates compare frat parties to apartment parties, to bars, to house parties, but this simply is a false comparison. I’ve been to house parties, I’ve been to apartment parties, I’ve been to frat parties. The alcohol is similar, but the predatory state of frat houses is incomparable to anything else on campus on any given Friday night. You don’t need a “good ratio” of men to women to enter a bar or apartment but you do to get into a fraternity and the reason for this should not be overlooked or laughed off as it has been for so long. Many frat brothers are well intended, but many also party every weekend for the sole purpose of hookups. When this hookup is consensual there’s nothing wrong, but far too often it isn’t. Rape does happen in apartment parties, house parties and bars but the sole purpose of these gatherings typically isn’t sexual. Maybe you are one of the well-intended frat brothers, but to argue that sexual assault doesn’t happen in your fraternity and therefore you don’t deserve regulation is ignorant and wrong. Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
When sexual assault happens weekly in frat houses or a student dies from a hazing incident, the Greek system that allows this to happen is at fault. When five students share a Google Doc with answers to an exam to a class of 30 high schoolers, those involved, no matter how minimally, are in fact at fault.
To fix a broken system that has for so long allowed tragedy into the infrastructure, there will be changes as there should be. To protest these changes meant to help heighten the safety of students is an absolute disgrace. To discredit the death of a student by complaining about the university trying to fix the system that led to him falling down fraternity basement stairs is devastating considering that his family is still in a period of grief. To discredit life altering sexual assault that happens in fraternity houses every weekend by protesting the fact that you can’t hold daylongs anymore or have to wait to rush for a mere four months into freshman year is horrifying.
So, before you complain about the fact that Penn State has regulated Greek life, think about why it happened. Think about how these regulations may assure that another student doesn’t have the same horrible fate as Timothy Piazza. Think about how these regulations may stop a young woman from being dragged against her will up a set of fraternity stairs. To solve the deeply-woven issues in Greek life, some threads must be unraveled — and Penn State is doing what they can to start this process.
Image credit: 1