Maybe ...
The institutional power of national fraternities, like the power of sports franchises, makes it difficult to react against abuses like those at Penn State. Institutional self-preservation destroys decent impulses. Reading the article, I felt that the most dreadful thing was that none of the participants sought medical aid when it became clear that the young man was terribly injured. The one who tried to persuade the leaders was quashed ... although, of course, he still could have called 911. Even after the death, the leaders' emphasis was covering the organization's assets.
So, while I agree that organizations for men are important, both the decline in the general quality of college life and the institutional stronghold mentality make it more difficult for fraternities to be a positive environment.
Sports teams have also been corrupted, at least down to the high school level in many areas. Anthony Esolen, the cultural critic and professor of English (You'll have to search - I don't know how to put in a nice link in the text like you did!) has observed that a much lower percentage of adults and teens participates in sports teams than 50 years ago. Even though people tended to work longer hours and be much poorer than today, they played on community, employer-based, and school teams in much greater numbers. Now only a few participate, while most are inert (but emotionally involved) spectators. (Hispanics seem to be something of an exception - adults often play soccer as well as watching.)
Participating on a sports team can have a great deal of benefit, both in physical fitness and socialization, but not as much if the team is mainly a financial concern. Then you get the NFL and NBA, with their high-paid felons.
...is diminishing.
To be sure, this fall is self-inflicted to a large degree. Sigma Alpha Epsilon banned pledging - a good thing if pledging=hazing. Many national fraternities have seen local chapters shut down for drinking etc. Horrific behavior should not be tolerated.
At the same time, there have always been forces arrayed against fraternities. And I don't mean just feminists and liberals - indeed, several people on this thread are clearly anti-fraternity and I'd doubt they're liberal. I think some of it is class warfare: Many people think frat boys are all rich kids who used daddy's money to drive their Beemer to buy coke. Some of the dislike is based on an error in assuming that any "frat boy" is milquetoast and can't think for himself. A good chunk of the dislike hinges on the question of why would anyone want to join an organization that treats its pledges badly - a not unfair question. Throw all of these into the hopper and you get a new life form that, seeing a wounded Greek system, attacks repeatedly.
Fraternities are transformed into lawsuits in waiting, parents pull their sons from fraternities, and the death spiral begins. As you note, the death spiral is at play in many other group efforts - sports, Scouts, and the like. In conjunction, there are fewer outlets for boys to develop masculine elements.
Of course there will always be fathers to teach boys how to act like men...assuming the family remains in tact, mothers know who IS the father, and the fathers don't take their cues from MSNBC.
In the end, my support for fraternities is comparable to my support for the Church...man is a fallible creature but the church triumphant cannot be tarnished. Similarly, fraternity brothers may generally have weaker morals today than yesterday, but against the backdrop of shrinking venues for men to learn how to act like men, I am not willing to face colleges where the chief means for men to learn how to act like men is at an Antifa rally.