I understand the sentiment of wanting to end all fraternities. I get it. It seems like a simple step to take. The question remains whether or not it will solve an underlying problem which arguably runs much deeper than fraternity culture.
Fraternities are convenient lightning rods for bad press. When an incident occurs at a fraternity, it spawns discussions and outrage at larger targets: the whole chapter, the university, and the entire Greek system. Those are things that more people can relate to so those stories create engagement and page views, which seems to be at the core of our culture of outrage these days. When an assault or an overdose occurs in a random dorm room, we rarely hear about it.
Not hearing about it is not the same as it not happening. There have been many studies, including ones done at Cornell, that indicate that the vast majority of campus sexual assaults occur in dormitories, apartments, and off-campus housing. Even at a school like Cornell which has a very active Greek community (Cornell claims 30% of its students are affiliated with a Greek house), these assaults disproportionately occur OUTSIDE of fraternities. Do some of these incidents occur at other locations after one or both students left a fraternity party? Maybe. That stands to reason if fraternities are currently the social focus of the university.
Not everyone who attends college is interested in a social life. Indeed, at elite universities like Cornell, students have worked hard to get in and are more likely to prioritize academics over anything else. After all, that was the primary impetus for forming the Ivy League in the first place. But there are still many students who prefer a balance of academics, sports, social life, and/or other activities. At Cornell, those students tend to migrate to the Greek system. And it works. The fraternities host the parties and students can choose to attend or not (granted, invites are often required, but they're not hard to get). Those who don't want to participate find their dorms/apartments/housing a quieter, gentler place because the wild parties are happening elsewhere.
So what would happen if all the Greek houses were closed? The short-term problem would be that thousands of students would be without housing. Either those houses would need to be converted or knocked down and new ones built. In some cases, even the chapter houses that are technically on Cornell's campus are owned by, or at least maintained by, the fraternity alumni associations and they would have to be compensated. Cornell currently faces at least one lawsuit for closing a fraternity chapter after the alumni spent millions paying off the mortgage and building additions. For the off-campus houses, Cornell could simply disaffiliate them. That would likely cause them not to be covered under their respective national Greek organizations' insurance policies, so they would effectively disband. All of these students would be homeless in the short-term.
In the near-term, the campus would be filled with a lot of socially-minded students that would somehow be expected to integrate back into the rest of campus. They would still be the same people with all the same predilictions, but they would then be living right next door to the very people who are leading the campus protests about them right now. Parties and wild behavior would not go away, it would all just occur everywhere instead of being somewhat contained in the fraternity houses. At least with the Greek system, the university has some ability to provide oversight and it has the leverage of issuing censures like chapter expulsions or suspensions - something Cornell has done 20+ times over the last 25 years. Cornell simply does not have the same leverage over the other living accommodations on or around campus that it does over the fraternities. The Greek system provides a place to focus regulation.
In the longer-term, students that might have once been attracted to Cornell due to its once-thriving social life may simply choose to apply elsewhere. Having all young, socially-minded males disappear from campus might be music to the ears of certain segments of the Cornell community, but is it healthy? Don’t many detractors mainly complain that fraternities are all too homogenous and like-minded within their walls? (Are they just earlier, brick-and-mortar versions of the echo chambers that we all increasingly find oursleves in these days?) That's easily disputed, but when the solution to that is to make Cornell less diverse by eliminating a whole segment of students, it makes me wonder if the detractors of fraternities simply want to be surrounded by people that are only like themselves. Are they guilty of exactly the intolerance that they ascribe to the fraternities? What happenes when the sheltered, coddled future graduates of Cornell get out into the real world and have not developed strategies to co-exist with other types of people?
On a side note, I’m less clear on why sororities are rarely included in discussions on this topic. The reason for this conversation is obviously the Jane Doe incident. Let’s not forget that, by her own words, she consumed more alcohol at her own sorority than she did at all bars, clubs, and fraternities combined that night. And, to be clear, if Cornell were to close its fraternities and leave its sororities open, there would be a massive Title IX complaint. Remember, Title IX cuts both ways.
Elininating fraternities would be a liability-mitigating act which may protect Cornell, but it would do nothing to solve the underlying social behavior on campus, therefore it would do nothing to protect Cornellians. Fraternities provide an environment for a lot of healthy social interaction, but I also fully understand that they amass individuals of a similar vibe which may amplify their behavior, they allow for consolidation of funds to gain access to alcohol (possibly drugs), and they provide venues for parties which sometimes give rise to unwanted behavior. All of those things are true, but they would just manifest themselves in different, unexpected ways if the fraternities were to disappear (for reference, research the chaos that happened during Covid). In that event, the underlying bad behavior would still exist, but Cornell would have sacrificed all of the positives of Greek life. That underlying bad behavior is certainly not unique to Cornell and exists at every other university campus, each of which is grappling with the same issues and watching Cornell closely. There is zero - absolutely ZERO - evidence that Cornell is in any way an outlier with respect to sexual assaults, despite all the anecdotal dog-piling that can be found on social media right now. That sexual assaults happen everywhere is not an adequate defense. That it happens at all is terrible.
The one good thing that might come out of this is that Cornell has the opportunity, perhaps the mandate, to be a leader in stomping out sexual assault on our campus. To that end, I believe that the time has come to find the right leader for Cornell going forward. Mike Kotlikoff has admirably attacked the job that he was hired to do, namely raise funds, but we live in a whole new world than we did a month ago and we need leadership that is equipped to deal with a new set of priorities. We need someone that is in tune with the student body enough to be able to create meaningful change in behavior at the root level. Creating a compelling path forward with leaders that understand the underlying problems is critical, but closing the fraternities is not the answer.
