Last week, Binghamton University issued a cease-and-desist order to all Greek Life organizations, banning pledging until further notice. But I don’t need to tell you that. It’s been splashed across the front pages of Pipe Dream and mentioned by various other local and national news outlets, including The New York Times.
For most students, reaction to the suspension has been broken down into two categories: indifference and glee; glee that the over-privileged, friend-buying, self-centered meatheads and JAPs that fill the Greek Life rosters are finally getting what they deserve.
But anyone who has done more than silently judge those wearing letters from afar knows that there is as much variety within Greek Life as there is on campus as a whole.
Unfortunately, such blanket stereotypes are unavoidable. We are only human; it is in our nature to oversimplify things.
What’s sad is that the University administration has drawn the same broad conclusions as those students who deride all members of Greek organizations as vapid narcissists.
In the emergency meeting following the cease-and-desist order, the leaders of Greek Life were met by universal condemnation. A cop who insisted that if your organization wasn’t under investigation, it was simply because you hadn’t been caught yet. A dean of students who, when asked whether members of Greek organizations could be invited to the house, eat lunch with or even talk to their former pledges, simply called on the next person without so much as gracing the question with a response.
It was a startling display of ineptitude. If such unprecedented action was being taken, surely it was being undertaken after lengthy discussion and clarification of details, right? Or, at the very least, was it based off solid evidence?
Nope. Administrators seemed unsure of their answers. They would charge that they had lots and lots of evidence, then admit that it was hearsay.
They would say they were suspending pledging because, once crossed into the organization, a “loyalty factor” would prevent new members from coming forward to the University. But then they would assert that much of the evidence they received had come from the members of the organizations.
The meeting was indicative of the uncertainty with which the University is approaching the situation. Instead of crafting a policy that targeted offending organizations, the administration blindly lashed out.
Pipe Dream’s article this week on the suspension was even more telling of the administration’s mindset. “Nobody is going to tell us anything,” said Brian Rose, vice president of student affairs. That is false on its face, given the “unprecedented” number of complaints the University has claimed it has received.
Hazing is bad. We can agree on that. Why some would undergo humiliation and forego their dignity and bodily health to become a Greek is beyond me. But hazing is already a crime here and in most other states. The University actively and aggressively attempts to stop hazing, yet it has been around, according to The New York Times, since 1657.
Legislators have legislated, police have policed, hazers have been charged with hazing. But for more than three-and-a-half centuries, it has carried on unabated.
Suspending pledging — for less than a semester at that — is not going to stop it. As it has been pointed out, reports of hazing probably stemmed from, and continue at, unrecognized organizations. In the privacy of those houses, it is hard to be aware of and stop every instance of hazing. It has been tried, and it has failed.
What has effectively been eliminated, though, are the legitimate and campus-recognized parts of pledging. The suspension placed the rule-abiding organizations in limbo, and punished the pledges who chose to join these groups.
If you’re at Binghamton, you’re probably not that dumb. And if you join a Greek organization, you’re probably even smarter — there are academic criteria all prospective members must meet before being allowed to join any fraternity or sorority.
But instead of respecting our intelligence by asking for input, instead of respecting the intelligence of those who joined legitimate organizations by not suspending their pledging, the University has indicted all 56 Greek organizations.
What is most appalling about the suspension is that it was undertaken with what the Times called “more rumors than facts” about hazing. Based on hearsay, the University has cast a pall over the entire Greek system and has made all members of Greek Life guilty until proven innocent. Let’s hope the Greek system is not doomed by that folly.