The logical aftermath of the story about the racist song sung by some Sigma Alpha Epsilon members at the University of Oklahoma has played out. A few of the identified students were expelled from the University, the SAE chapter there has been de-chartered by SAE Headquarters and the members were forced to leave their house, including the non-racists you can be assured were also part of the membership.
And, of course, there are voices, particularly amongst the liberal elite, asking why in 2015 we still have a fraternity system in our nation's universities. So someone needs to alter the narrative, and who better than yours truly, who spent every single day of his college existence living inside a fraternity house.
The difficult part of this piece is that so, so many people who were never members already have a fixed impression of what it means to be in a fraternity, and what fraternities are. That impression is formed on a combination of a movie-fueled stereotype -- drinking, debauchery, slovenliness -- with a layer of specific incidents propagated by a hungry news media for which incidents of racism, hazing or alleged sexual assault -- even when they turn out to be faked -- make for good copy that bears out the liberal narrative the media promote.
Good news seldom leads, especially when it isn't really new, and so the aspects of the Greek system that are far more meritorious are often known only to those who participate in them -- and their beneficiaries.
Moreover, the fact that most fraternities on a given campus are actually part of larger, multi-chapter organizations that have existed for well over 100 years, is given no positive ink, nor any room to have its merits promoted. SAE, for example, has existed since its founding before the War Between the States, over 150 years ago. Phi Delta Theta, of which I am a member now 45 years, dates back even earlier, to 1848, and has 160,000 living initiates. One of our first 20 members, in fact, joined in 1849 and went on to become the 23rd President of the United States.
In Phi Delta Theta, to use an example, we have three core principles -- friendship, sound learning and rectitude. Most other large fraternities have comparable guides for solid citizenship, educational advancement and growth as a human being; it is actually why they are founded in the first place. Then, subsequent chapters arise at a college because groups of like-minded young men (I assume the same applies to sororities, which MIT did not have when I was a student but does now) choose to associate. They decide that the cardinal principles of, in our case, Phi Delta Theta, are the grounds on which they wish to build their society (local chapter).
I can guarantee you that is only the first step; it typically takes upwards of two years before the Fraternity agrees to present a charter to a new group, and only then after stringent scholarship, community service and other requirements are met and sustained. Phi Delta Theta was the first national fraternity to ban alcohol from its houses 15 years ago, and you might well understand that the type of person willing to join a fraternity chapter that is "dry" is, let's say, a bit different from one who would choose not to join because it is dry. Our membership has never been stronger. By the way, one of the interest groups recently seeking to become a chapter was at Delaware State University, a historically black school.
One of the brothers who was actually from my own chapter is a gentleman named Drew Houston, whom you may know as the founder and CEO of Dropbox, the cloud-storage facility that has dominated the cross-platform storage market. In 2013, my own 40th reunion, Drew was the youngest ever commencement speaker at MIT, and made it a point in his speech to note that he "didn't expect to get his MBA on the roof of Phi Delta Theta, but I did." In other words, the social relationships of his fraternity spawned the maturity needed to develop an amazing product and company. He's worth an amazing fortune now, but when his speech was over he went straight back to the Phi Delt house to meet chapter alumni celebrating our reunion, and I can tell you he was just as respectful of those of us who came before him, as we older alumni were impressed by Drew. Fraternities create men.
I need to impart more about what it means to be part of a community of brothers, while one is far from home. For me, a freshman living with 40 other guys who had the commitment of brothers to help me and my classmates adapt and grow, well, that was important. As children, we grow up seeking boundaries from our parents, and even in college we are learning them. That's called "gaining life lessons", and as fraternity men we gain that from our environment. We learn the work ethic from having to maintain a chapter and a house together; we learn from the association with others who have recently trod the same path.
Indeed -- we learn the responsibility for the management and maintenance of a large house -- from financial to janitorial -- and how to conduct ourselves personally when our actions reflect 40 others who wear the same letters. We learn our responsibilities to our campus community and the greater community as well, by adopting charitable and good-will activities as part of our life and part of our calendar.
The man who graduates from a college with years of fraternal life is far more often a better person for it. His decisions reflect the impact that his actions -- and his words -- have on others as well as on himself (which is why we particularly have contempt for the actors in this week's OU episode). In Phi Delta Theta, we recruit with the phrase "Become the best version of yourself." That is not the motto of an organization trying to find guys who can take down the most beer.
The stereotypes will always be there, because when push comes to shove, 18-22-year-old kids are at a very transient time in their development. They're going to do things that maybe they shouldn't, and don't always have someone around to advise them, and don't always listen when they do. Fraternities have a role in preventing that, far more than facilitating it.
For every OU incident, there are hundreds of chapters and tens of thousands of young men who are doing better academically because they get guidance from brothers who care; who are working in community service projects because the chapters believe it part of their mission; who understand what it is to be a gentleman because they are taught to be gentlemen. They are becoming better versions of themselves.
You won't see it on the evening news. When a fraternity -- mine -- was a driving force behind the $5 million raised for ALS in the viral 2014 ice bucket challenge, our name was almost never noted. But let a couple bad apples get drunk and go all KKK on a bus, and everyone on earth knows who did it.
Neil Armstrong (first man on the moon) ... Benjamin Harrison (23rd president) ... Adlai Stevenson, Sr. (23rd U.S. vice president) ... a long, long list of distinguished Americans and Canadians have been my brothers, and each, like Drew Houston, became who he was in part because of his fraternal experience. SAE's list is equally impressive -- William McKinley ... Robert Goddard ... Ross Perot ... and the couple dozen other large fraternities can each boast distinguished graduates who wore their badges.
Someone has to stand up and defend the institution so vital to us as college students and beyond in life. I'm proud to do so.
Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
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