Fraternities play a large part in the social life of this campus, and many students look forward to fall rush each year. This year, however, fraternities have found that not everyone enjoys September, as more and more they see Public Safety seemingly harassing them and their parties. Public Safety cars can be seen driving past rush events as often as every few minutes, officers are entering private property without permission, and multiple fraternities are facing suspensions just from incidents that happened in the past few weeks. Greek organizations should not have to suffer this kind of irritation, and all these grievances and others are legitimate complaints that deserve to be openly discussed with the Dean of Students Office. The fraternities need to realize, however, that all of this is a direct result of their own actions.
The official Interfraternity Council rules for rush dictate that no rush event is allowed to have alcohol visible. Yet at most parties, or after-parties, fraternities serve alcohol freely and then are surprised and outraged when they are penalized for it. This continues to happen year after year after year, so fraternities should not be shocked when Public Safety, seeing this trend, steps up enforcement during rush. They have set themselves up for it, and now have to deal with the consequences.
Some fraternities may say that they cannot recruit without alcohol, but at the same time many, if not most, fraternities argue that their organizations recruit to advance their goals of brotherhood and philanthropy as well as fun. They should recruit freshmen who fit that mold, and freshmen should do their part to not join the house where it is the most fun to be drunk.
We are not suggesting that fraternities stop serving alcohol entirely, or that serving to underage people cease. Alcohol is a major part of the social life on nearly every college campus. The IFC should, however, either follow the rules that it set down for itself, or work to change them. If they collaborate with the Dean of Students Office to set guidelines that are acceptable to all involved, then they will not have to deal with the harassment.
