A SAE fraternity house.
In November, Yale University’s chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon was accused of denying girls of color entrance into one of their parties. Racial tension was already brewing on Yale’s campus at the time as one university official had recently, controversially responded to evidence of some students’ racist Halloween costumes. Yale recently concluded that girls of color were not denied from the party after all and that some people were turned away because the party was overcrowded. But this incident was all-too believable because it easily fit into a broader trend already evident at fraternities across the country.
While the original Facebook post that exposed the SAE incident is apparently fabricated, it received close to 2,000 likes as well as a plethora of comments from other Facebook users, many of whom shared experiencing discrimination, sexual misconduct and racism in relation to the same chapter of SAE. One user, for example, reportedly commented to express her sympathy and also recalled the time at “spring fling two years ago when I was called a n***er b**ch.”
This single incident isn’t the first time the broader SAE organization has been under fire for racist allegations, either. The University of Oklahoma’s SAE chapter notoriously came under fire for a leaked video of members singing a racist song in March and just a few months later Stanford University’s SAE chapter lost campus housing and other privileges due to multiple incidents of misconduct. A Cornell student was even killed after an SAE hazing ritual in 2011. The list goes on.
Of course, SAE is hardly the only fraternity to act in a racially charged or otherwise discriminatory manner. In fact, at least 30 fraternities have been shut down since the beginning of March in response to similarly racist behaviors and plenty of college administrations have also banned or limited fraternities’ social activities in various ways. There are also plenty of incidents — like racist parties and costumes — that go unaddressed on college campuses across the country altogether.
This violence isn’t always rooted in racist attitudes, though. Members also promote and participate in violent behaviors, like hazing rituals and sexual assault. There has been one hazing-related death in college each year since 1970 and multiple studies show that fraternity culture is linked to other violent campus issues, like sexual assault. In fact, according to one study, fraternity brothers rape 300% more than their non-Greek counterparts.
The problems with fraternities are clear. How we can solve these problems, however, is seemingly less obvious. College administrations and national Greek chapters frequently opt to immediately suspend or ban chapters who engage in these behaviors, but doing so fails to address the root of these issues and does little to improve systemic problems in fraternity culture overall. By trying to pin racist or sexist attitudes to single chapters, these organizations refuse to take responsibility for, adequately address and ultimately change this unacceptable behavior. Fraternities must do better to hold themselves and their members accountable for their actions and work to educate their members and address the problem at its root rather than treat symptoms as they continue to emerge.
