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Every year, we hear stories about fraternities across U.S. campuses — women being treated like objects and pledges dying during recruitment — and then we act surprised each time, as if we don’t see the same stories play out over and over within these fraternities.
Last month, Cornell University’s student newspaper broke the story of an alleged gang rape at the school’s Chi Phi frat house on Oct. 19, 2024. A former student alleged she was coerced into consuming various drugs before seven fraternity members — invited from a group chat of more than 50 members — went upstairs to rape her for seven hours in her unconscious state.
What happened at Cornell was an evil, unforgivable act. But this kind of treatment toward women did not start in that house, and it will not end in that house. For hundreds of years, we have allowed men to create and uplift secret social clubs that are fundamentally built on bias. The men at Cornell will probably never pay for their crimes; even if they do, it won’t change the thousands of frat members across the country who use their power to keep their actions under the radar and continually abuse others.
The first Greek life fraternity arose in 1776. The original concept was for students to be able to meet in private places for the sake of discussion and debate that was not monitored by a school’s faculty. At the time, many schools had strict rules about religion and curriculums, and many students wanted to be able to educate themselves outside of those rules.
In the earliest Greek life, membership was often restricted to only white Christians, in some cases even going as far as to write clauses describing members must be “Aryan.” They also needed to be of high social and economic status. Women were not involved in any way; it took nearly a century for the first sorority, Alpha Delta Pi, to be founded.
At some point in the past couple hundred years, something clearly changed. Nowadays, we don’t typically associate frats with literary discussion and academic debate, but rather with rape, hazing, secrecy and hazardous amounts of alcohol.
I’m a firm believer that a reputation this bad did not come from nothing. Fraternities have spent hundreds of years contributing to the growth of a society built to support powerful men who do not need or deserve our support.
Frats were literally created to give men secret clubs without external consequences, and yet we’re still surprised when they use that privilege to do horrible things. Every year, someone comes along preaching about how they’re one of the good ones, but men who are truly good aren’t intrigued by the idea of secret societies characterized by harassment and rape. The problem here isn’t a few bad members in one bad house. The problem is frats altogether.
Colorado State University is not above this. It was only two years ago when multiple university organizations publicly called out Lambda Chi Alpha for a display of blackface, as well as rumors of serious drugging concerns. In 2022, CSU’s Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter was unrecognized by the university due to hazing behavior. In 2004, a CSU sophomore, Samantha Spady, died of alcohol poisoning while inside the Sigma Pi frat house.
We have watched people die during recruitment, women’s bodies get referred to as “free pussy” and witnessed displays of racism and classism around every turn, yet we continue to believe these fraternities will get better.
The kind of men fraternities appeal to are the same men who originally founded fraternities on the basis of secrecy, racism and violence. They’re the same men who did everything they could to consolidate power on campus within their own secret world and who are still finding ways to hide their actions in this secret world.
Fraternities may be a part of our school’s history, but they should not be something we continue to promote. It’s a systematic way to keep men on top, and it needs to be abolished across college campuses.
This week, my social media feed is flooded with women sharing their own sexual assault stories, details of gruesome assaults that took place on college campuses or in frat houses and videos of students protesting and calling for an end to sexual violence against women. Meanwhile, the responses I see from the Greek life institutions on our own campus are Canva Instagram stories explaining how they “stand with survivors.” But you cannot stand with survivors from Instagram while your organization’s history shows how little you think of women. It does not add up.
How much longer are we willing to tolerate frats on a campus that claims to be safe for female students? We say the right words and proclaim how much we disapprove of what happened at Cornell, but we continue to watch as our school devotes time and energy to a system that’s bound to hurt people in a purposefully secret system that does not receive the same consequences as other groups.
Reach Skylar White at letters@collegian.com or on social media @RMCollegian.
