Wesleyan orders fraternities to become coed
Source: Associated Press
Wesleyan orders fraternities to become coed
By PAT EATON-ROBB, Associated Press | September 22, 2014 | Updated: September 22, 2014 7:50pm
MIDDLETOWN, Conn. (AP) — Wesleyan University in Connecticut on Monday ordered its fraternities with houses on campus to become coeducational within three years, a move it says is not just about bad behavior but also equality.
Wesleyan follows Trinity College in Hartford, which began the transition starting in 2012, citing problems with drinking and drug use in Greek organizations. It also comes less than a month after Wesleyan closed the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house after a woman attending a party there was seriously injured after falling from a third-floor window.
But school spokeswoman Kate Carlisle said the changes are not a response to any one incident.
"This has been the subject of ongoing concern and discussion among the people in the administration, the school community, the alumni community and so forth for a number of years," she said.
The decision was announced in a letter to the university community from President Michael Roth and trustees Chairman Joshua Boger. It requires Greek organizations with houses on campus to have both male and female members and to have each gender "well represented" in their organizational leadership to qualify for housing on campus and the use of university spaces.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Wesleyan-orders-fraternities-to-become-coed-5772315.php
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What will happen is that their current non-coed fraternities will likely move to off-campus housing where the university will be able to exert even less control over them and there will be even less supervision and more problems. This doesn't solve the issues of a Greek system, it magnifies them...if you have systemic homophobia, you will have more homophobia; if you have underaged drinking, you'll have more underaged drinking; if you have a culture of violence, exploitation and abuse towards women (or if you prefer to put it this way: "If you have a rape culture"
, you're more likely to have rape, violence, exploitation and sexual abuse. It's hard enough to combat systemic problems without engaging in pointless, stupid and short-sighted faux-equality actions which do little other than make it harder to combat systemic problems. If the goal was to get their nationals to revoke the charters, that is not likely to happen; it's more likely that WU ends up in court where universities have fared poorly on this front.
Having been a fraternity man, a chapter officer, an IFC officer, a national board of directors member and a university Greek-life administrator--there's a reason why most entities from nationals, to IFCs, to I believe the even NPC/NIC, oppose these kinds of actions or any action which will act to push on-campus housed Greeks to off-campus housing...and it's not tradition, it's risk-awareness.
We engage in sustained campaigns to push chapters to accept on-campus housing precisely because it fixes a lot of the run-away stupidity that comes from cohabitation of 20-30 poorly-socialized on-their-own-for-the-first-time without-supervision 17-23 year olds. You work to get them into on-campus housing and under the supervision of a professional adult house parent employed by the university and approved by the alumni or national association of the fraternity (Usually, a 27-40 year old responsible fraternity alumni with experience in campus housing.)...not work to get them out of such housing.
