Leary 1

Lydia Leary
u0684057
Writing 2010
Contribution Paper
Jennifer Courtney
Are College Students Truly Safe?
The analyzation of Sororities and Fraternities and their effects on student health

College should be a safe place where students can go and gain an education while
making connections and friendships that will last a lifetime. College should not be a place where
students feel pressured to fit in. College should definitely not be a place where people feel so
pressured to fit in, that they lose sight of what is important and do things that could damage their
lives forever. More and more frequently we are hearing about incidents that are occurring due to
decisions made by fraternity and sorority members.
Throughout this article, the word fraternity, will refer to both sororities and fraternities.
There is an increasing focus on the harmfulness of fraternities on Universities and the students
at these universities. Students are facing huge issues both physically and mentally by joining
these institutions. Over the past few years, the major issues that are arising due to Fraternities
are: rape, hazing, and self image. These are huge issues that are facing students now. There
are many rules put into place for students that prohibit hazing and underadge drinking, etc. but
these rules are not being forced hard enough and members are still hazing and student health is
still a major issue. Fraternities are supposed to be a place of inclusion and acceptance, not a
place of discrimination, yet that is what they have turned into. Think about yourself as a
vulnerable teenage girl or boy entering your first year of college, we are all so scared and shy
our first year of college just looking for a place to fit in. Imagine being turned away from a group
of friends just because you were of a different race or were a little heavier than the other girls or
boys or less attractive. How would that affect you? Not only would that affect your college years,
but it would affect your whole life. Or imagine you were let into one of these institutions but in

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order to be initiated in, you must fill up your body with copious amounts of alcohol, leading to
alcohol poisoning, or ultimately death. This is what the institution of Fraternities has turned into,
a place of discrimination, hate, and bad decision making.
There is something that needs to be done to stop these fraternities in order to preserve
the health and well-being of the Universities students. Fraternities need to return to what they
once were, a community for students, not a place to party. Fraternities began as a place where
students were able to get together and debate what was going on in the country and when
colleges were not offering as many classes as they are now, they were able to meet together
and talk about things that they wanted to learn. Fraternities and sororities were established to
further the social, scholastic, and professional interests of its members. (Appalachian State
University). Furthering the social, scholastic and professional interests of its members does not
mean hazing or crazy ritual stunts, it means bettering the well being of the students involved.
Rape
Rape is increasing more and more over the years, particularly occurring in fraternities.
After a study conducted by Boswell and Spade, Further, 1 out of 4 college women say they
were raped or experienced an attempted rape, and 1 out of 12 college men say they forced a
woman to have sexual intercourse against her will. (Boswell, Spade, 1996). This article written
by Boswell and Spade then goes on to speak to women and men about the most likely place
that they feel rape would occur. The most common answer among all of those questioned, was
at a Fraternity house.
Many can argue that rape can occur anywhere and therefore the fact that it is at a
Fraternity house does not matter, because if we were to eliminate fraternities, rape would still
occur. This is an extremely valid argument, the only reason this is not logical, is because other
parties happening at college kids homes, are not part of the University. These Fraternities were
developed in order to protect and help students. Fraternities were originally developed as a

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second home or family for students coming from far away and needed a place to fit in.
Fraternities were not designed as place where the whole point is to party and drink.
There are countless incidents that are occurring nationwide with fraternities and rape.
Many studies have been conducted on fraternities and rape. According to these studies, men in
fraternities are three times more likely to commit rape. This goes for girls in sororities as well, it
is 74% more likely that a girl in a sorority will be raped than other college women (Valenti).
There are countless victims from rape and rape is increasing more and more on college
campuses. A fraternity at Wesleyan University called themselves The Rape Factory. This is a
huge incident that just recently went to court. Another incident in 2010 occurred when fraternity
boys from Yale were walking around campus yelling No means yes, yes means anal! This is
not the environment that students should be living in.
In another article, written by Bleecker and Murnen they conduct a test in which they
analyze how many derogatory images boys on campus have of women and compared these
from boys in a fraternity and boys who were not in a fraternity. Another component of this test is
they had these boy take a rape supportive scale, and the fraternity members scored significantly
higher on this supportive rape scale, A male experimenter took digital pictures of all of the
images of women displayed in the rooms of 30 fraternity men and 30 non-fraternity men on a
residential, small, liberal arts college campus. The men also filled out a rape myth acceptance
scale. A total of 91 images were found in the form of posters, pin-ups, advertisements, or
computer screen savers. It was found that fraternity men had significantly more images of
women displayed in their rooms and that the images were rated significantly more degrading
than those in the rooms of non-fraternity men. Fraternity men were found to have significantly
higher scores on a rape supportive attitude scale (RSA). (Bleecker, Murnen, 2005). Rape can
tie in heavily with hazing amongst fraternity members because they feel the need to fit in and
will do whatever they are asked in order to fit in.
Hazing

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Along with rape comes another factor, Hazing. Hazing is a huge factor that is facing
students who join fraternities today. Going back to the description of what Fraternities originated
as and what they have come to now, hazing is a huge risk for students well being. For an
organization that originated for the pure basis of helping students and accepting anyone into a
family to help them through their college years, we sure have changed the institution drastically.
Now, in order to get accepted into a Fraternity you must have the credentials in order to do so.
By credentials I mean: the looks. the attitude, and of course you must pass all of the initiation
stunts and hazing, no matter how risque.
The most common form of hazing amongst college students is through drinking games.
In a study conducted by the Anti Hazing group, they found that 73% of fraternity members
participate in some sort of hazing. Hazing affects students health in a myriad of ways. These
hazing rituals can be things that are extremely dangerous to students, like drinking. There have
been countless occurrences that are becoming more and more frequent with students and the
deaths that have occurred at a fraternity event due to alcohol poisoning from a hazing or
initiation act. If these institutions chose to be anti hazing, like they should be, families would not
be losing their children due to lack of judgment and just pure stupidity. There is one occurrence
in particular that emphasizes how initiation drinking went way too far, this is just one of many
occurrences happening nationwide. This incident involves an initiation stunt at MIT. Benjamin
Wynne and his fellow fraternity members downed enough alcohol to run up a bar tab totaling
more than $ 2,000. Matthew Garofalo chugged from a bottle of Southern Comfort that his big
brother in the fraternity had provided. Scott Krueger tipped back some Jack Daniel's and then
settled in for the night with a bottle of Bacardi spiced rum. The three were doing what fraternity
pledges have done for decades: pouring copious amounts of beer and hard liquor into their
stomachs in an initiation-night ritual. Many pledges wake up the next day with a nasty headache
and stories worth swapping for years to come. But Mr. Wynne, Mr. Garofalo, and Mr. Krueger
did not wake up. (Reisburg, 1998). Three students died because of a dumb initiation stunt that

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could have been stopped, and should have been stopped. Because of this pure act of stupidity,
3 families now have to live without their sons. That is not okay. Fraternities now care more about
drinking than the safety of their own students. One thing in particular from this article that should
be picked out is the fact that the Big Brother was the one who supplied all of the alcohol. The
one person who you are supposed to trust more than anyone to watch over you, was the one
person who supplied all of the alcohol that lead to this boys death.
Hazing and Rape are huge safety issues when dealing with students. These factors are
drastically affecting the wellbeing of the students these Universities and institutions are
supposed to be protecting. More and more college campuses are putting up signs and are
enforcing rape policies because of the increasing number of times that rape is occurring
nationwide, particularly in Fraternity houses. Hazing is leading to numerous counts of deaths in
Fraternity houses nationwide. Should these institutions that are leading to rape and hazing be
kept around, or should something be done to stop all this madness and these institutions should
go back to the way that they once were.
Self Worth
The next huge component when looking at how detrimental Fraternities can be to
student health, is the idea of Self worth and self image. As time is going on, our world is
becoming more and more focused on how we look and we are all becoming more judgmental.
Like brought up earlier, Fraternities were originally created as a safe place for students to have
a family away from their family. Now, Fraternities are caring more about the appearance of their
members than anything else. On recruitment week, you are forced to dress up the best that you
can and act as fake as you can in order to get into the house that you would like. You are then
brought in front of all the members of the house and are forced to talk to these members while
they judge everything about you. With all that we are facing, judging college students is the last
thing we should be allowing to happen. It should be about being apart of a family and everyone
should be allowed in, rather than a select number.

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This idea of exclusion is really detrimental to students mental health. You look at the
statistics of depression, suicides, etc. and the majority of it stems from not fitting in or bullying.
According to a study conducted by Emory University, One in 10 college students has made a
plan for suicide and There are more than 1,000 suicides on college campuses every year
(Suicide Statistics). These are huge statistics that are occurring on college campuses. Emory
University even went further and analyzed the risk factors specific to college students when
dealing with suicide. The main risk factors prevalent to college students are, loss of a safety
net found at home, social pressure, and isolation and alienation (Suicide Statistics). All of these
risk factors could be solved with Fraternities or they could be caused by Fraternities.
We all know about suicide and how it is becoming more and more prevalent in our day to
day lives with all of the bullying happening and all of the pressure to fit in. College should be a
place where you can find that second family, like it once was. Universities should not be letting
fraternities turn into what they are now. With these statistics, it is so easy to see just how
horrible turning away a member can be. A person can already be very self conscious looking for
a home away from home, and they think a fraternity could be the perfect place, but then they get
rejected by their peers for an unknown reason and their mind goes to a thousand different
things that this fraternity could have dislike about them, thus leading to depression or ultimately
suicide.
These institutions should be a place of inclusion, not a place of exclusion. In an expose
written by Alexandra Robbins, she goes undercover in a Fraternity house to see what it really is
like, and to her horror it was not a safe place for students at all. In her expose she found that
these girls were dealing with drugs, bad sexual relationships, and even discrimination between
their own members, The adults who are supposed to be setting a healthy example aren't doing
a good job at it. Delta Zeta forced twenty-three sisters at DePauw University to resign from
active membership, kicking them out of the house in the middle of the school year. The ejected
sisters, who were reportedly were good students with no behavioral issues, said the national

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office booted them because of their looks. All of the overweight Vietnamese, and Korean sisters
in the chapter were dismissed, along with the chapter president. The sisters who remained, half
of whom resigned in protest, were slender and pretty. (Robbins, 2005). This is just one incident
that is happening nationwide with students being ejected from a group because of their looks.
This is not at all how Fraternities should be running themselves. Universities should not be
allowing this to happen. Schools are supposed to be looking out for their students best interest,
and this is definitely not it. It is easy for one to argue that, well if so much bad is happening from
these fraternities and they are causing so much harm to student health, students should just
stop joining. That is easy for us to say, but going back to the argument about the want to fit in,
fraternities are viewed in society as the cool kids as the kids who are going to the parties and
are having the most fun. Students want to be apart of these because they want to be doing
things and by being excluded from them they are missing out on an essential part of their
college experience. Some choose to not be apart of them, because they are just not into that
lifestyle, but others are just looking for a place to fit in and call a second home.
Another instance just recently occurred in the news was when a group of Fraternity
members were yelling inappropriate racial comments from their front lawn to students of
different races passing by, one student they yelled at happened to be their student body
president who happened to be Indian. This has stirred a lot of attention in the media for how
hateful and inappropriate it truly is. This event happened at USC and it illustrates just how badly
Fraternity members are treating women and people of different races. Fraternity members
yelled out their window at the Student Body president, You Indian Piece of S**t. They did not
have any idea that it was her and continually apologized to her after realizing who she was. This
was one of many incidents that are occurring nationwide due to the horrible behavior and
treatment from Fraternity members. This incident, like many others, show just how horrible
fraternities are treating others and their members and just how detrimental this can be to
student mental health.

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What can be done?
After all of this horrific evidence has been brought forth about all the wrongdoings that
are happening nationwide by fraternities and how bad it can be for student health, there is
obviously something that needs to be done here. There are honestly many things that could be
done to limit the institutions from causing so much harm before going to the ultimate solution,
which would be to eliminate fraternities completely. But instead of being that drastic, there are
definitely things that can be done. This is not to say that Fraternities are all bad, because there
are not. There are many that are good and there are many good things that come out of
fraternities. What needs to be fixed in fraternities is the rape, hazing, discrimination, and
everything that is detrimental to student health. If fraternities go back to their origins and change
the things that are bringing them down, they will be very beneficial to Universities and students.
All of it comes back to student health. Fraternities and their philanthropies are very beneficial
and can make colleges look really good, but if they are forcing students to do initiation stunts or
students are being hazed on campuses, something needs to be done.
The first thing that can be done, is more University and police enforcement on policies
that are already put into place. On Greek Row, cops are always stationed outside, just waiting
for something bad to happen. Cops should be stationed at every party checking for IDs making
sure anyone underage is not going into these parties. With cops right out the door, or even
inside these parties, rape is less likely to occur as well as hazing. University should also enforce
hazing and rape rules more seriously. If any fraternity member is suspected or accused for rape
or hazing the whole fraternity house should be in extreme trouble. By letting these fraternities
constantly off the hook, we are opening to door for more and more horrible things to happen.
Another thing that can definitely be done is enforcing the dry campus policy. Many
schools claim to be dry campuses yet right around the corner on Greek row, outrageous parties
are happening and at these parties are where initiation stunts are happening and so is rape. If a
campus is supposed to be dry, this should go for its Greek system as well. Fraternities are

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supposed to be representations of the school and the school should be enforcing the fact that
drinking should not be going on in these houses. Universities are not able to control everything
their students do off campus, but they for sure can control the institutions that they support from
inappropriate partying, underage drinking, rape, etc. By enforcing this dry campus idea, this
limits rape and drinking from happening at these institutions. Another thing that can go along
with eliminating rape and hazing is to be inclusive to all members that want to join. Anyone that
is able to pay the fees associated with the fraternity should be able to join.
This idea of an all inclusive Fraternity will eliminate bad self image, and help to eliminate
rape and hazing. By letting people in with all different personalities and looks, not just what the
fraternity had originally let in, new people with fresh ideas and better ideals will be let into these
institutions and will make sure that things like rape, hazing, underadge drinking are not
happening. Typically people who are joining these fraternities come in with the same ideals and
perceptions of what is going to be going on in these house and go in wanting to party and all of
the things that come along with it. By letting everyone in who can afford it, Universities are able
to change the way these houses are perceived and they are able to go back to the way that
these institutions were once created for. This also will help eliminate suicides caused by
alienation and lack of fitting in.

Conclusion
Fraternities and their impact on student health is a huge issue that is facing college
students and families today nationwide. As time is going on, more issues are arising and less is
being done to help protect students. Fraternities have a huge impact on students health, both
mentally and physically. These institutions were once started as a place for students to find
refuge and peace, but after extenuating research, it is clear that this is no longer the case.
These fraternities have turned into a place of hatred and bad decision making.

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Fraternities are affecting student health through rape, hazing, and self worth. Students
go into college wanting to find another home, a shelter, a group where they can fit in, and
instead they are met with shut doors and discrimination and hatred. This is not how the
institution should be. And if students are accepted into these homes, they are then met with
insane initiations that if they choose to opt out of, they are shunned by the group.
There is so much that can be done to help ensure student health, but none of it is being
done. Schools and police should be enforcing the rules that are already in place. Cops are
stationed outside Greek Row, yet rape is still happening and no one is doing anything to stop it.
Universities and the police force need to actively be checking IDs and checking parties ensuring
the safety of its students. Not everyone can be protected, and the University cannot protect all
of its students, but on campus and at University sanctioned groups like Fraternities, the
University should be doing everything in its power to make sure every single rule is followed to a
t. There also should be no drinking at Fraternities on campuses that claim to be dry
campuses. And lastly, Fraternities should be a group that everyone is able to join, not only
those that are attractive or cool enough to join.
Fraternities are causing a lot of trouble for Universities and are causing extreme harm to
their members and students. This is an extreme issue and it deserves research and analysis by
anyone who is passionate about it. Universities should be looking at the results that these
institutions are having, not just the positive, and be looking for alternatives or ways to fix these
issues that they are facing. More research can be done on solutions and ways as to how to fix
this. This is a huge issue and it need to be fixed.

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Works Cited

Boswell, A. Ayres, and Joan Z. Spade. "Fraternities and Collegiate Rape Culture:
Why are Some Fraternities More Dangerous Places For Women?" Gender and
Society 10.2 (1996): 133-47. Print.
Bleecker, E., and Sarah Murnen. Fraternity Membership, the Display of Degrading Sexual
Images of Women and Rape Myth Acceptance. Sex Roles 53.7 (2005): 487-93. Print.
"Fraternity and Sorority Hazing Facts." Stop Hazing. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Oct.
2015. <http://www.stophazing.org/fraternity-sorority-hazing-facts/>.
"Fraternity and Sorority Life." History of Greek Life -. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Nov. 2015.
<https://greeks.appstate.edu/history-of-greek-life>.
Hoover, Eric. As Deaths Mount, a Question is Raised: Are Students Hard-Wired for Hazing.
Chronicle of Higher Educations (2012): n. pag. Print.
Reisburg, Leo. When Alcohol Kills, Who is Responsible? MITs Inaction Blamed for
Contributing to Death of Freshman. Chronicle of Higher Education 45.11 (1998): n.
pag. Print.
Robbins, Alexandra. Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities. N.p.: n.p., 2005. Print.
"Suicide Statistics." Suicide Statistics. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Nov. 2015.
<http://www.emorycaresforyou.emory.edu/resources/suicidestatistics.html>.

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Valenti, Jessica. "Frat Brothers Rape 300% More. One in 5 Women Is Sexually Assaulted
on Campus. Should We Ban Frats?" The Guardian. N.p., 24 Sept. 2014. Web. 20
Oct. 2015.
<http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/24/rape-sexual-assault-banrats>.