Posted on 11/21/2017 2:11:18 PM PST by GoldenState_Rose
Starting next fall, new USC undergrads will no longer be able to rush fraternities and sororities, the university announced over the weekend. They can join Greek-letter organizations after completing their first semester at the University Park institution.
The new policy was revealed by USC student affairs vice president Ainsley Carry in a letter addressed to the "USC community." It was first reported by university publication The Daily Trojan. The change was made as part of an effort to find "the most effective ways to support students in their first year of enrollment," according to the letter.
"This is the toughest year of the transition to college life as students experience the most social and academic challenges," Carry wrote. The change will "allow them to acclimate to the university's academic and social climate before participating in Greek-letter organizations."
The policy essentially prohibits incoming freshman and transfer students from rushing fraternities and sororities — organizations that are part of USC's Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Council. It requires would-be Greek participants to have a 2.5 GPA and 12 units — about one semester — under their belts.
"The idea is to just put a pause on this mad rush to affiliate with Greek organizations," says Lisa Wade, an Occidental College sociology professor who authored the 2017 book American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus. "It could give students some breathing room."
Although USC is a so-called "dry rush" school, the rule change could reduce the extreme imbibing that often accompanies a teen's first months on campus, she said. " A lot of rush events are technically supposed to be dry, but we know that's not always the case," Wade says.
"We know it's really those first couple weeks when college students are at the highest risk of hurting themselves" via over-drinking, she says. "Not adding extra pressure to the already intense pressure to hit the ground running with the partying is a good thing."
Wade made waves earlier this year when she called on campuses to do away with fraternities and sororities altogether. She argued that fraternity parties, in particular, are dangerous places for teen women, who often are plied with alcohol. She described the organizations as "single-sex organizations that are designed to horde power and influence specifically for wealthy white men."
USC has joined a number of universities in recent years that are prohibiting new students from going Greek, Carry noted in her letter. Wade says it's a positive step so long as it eventually leads to the closure of fraternities and sororities. "It's preferable to allowing first-semester students to rush," she says.
Carry says he worked with Greek organizations for weeks in coming up with the new rules. USC's Interfraternity Council, however, was not happy with the result. In a statement the organization argued that the school was limiting companionship and social life at a time when new students, who are often new adults, need it the most.
"We believe the proposed changes will have a detrimental effect on the well-being of many first-year students," according to the statement.
I think this was the policy at UCLA back in the ‘60s.
I don’t like the singling out of “white men” as the villains...but overall I think this move is a good thing.
Freedom of assembly is right there in the first amendment to the US constitution.
USC is a private institution.
They can still join BLM, La Raza and Antifa right?
They ought to wait until their sophomore year...................
Just wondering, if there were fraternities not located on campus, what effing business would it be to low IQ admin campus non academic leeches what group a student joined?
As loathsome as most fraternities appear to be, I’d go to a good attorney (e.g., not a liberal one) and take those clowns to court.
College isn’t the government, it is an organization you choose to voluntarily enter into a relationship with, as such it is free to have rules about your conduct, including rules forbidding you from joining other organizations. They also have rules for the frats and sororities as that too is a voluntary relationship and they are under no compulsion to certify them as parts of the university.
Zero. Point. Zero.
Dormitories are a profit center for universities.
Most require freshman to live in the dorms and get a meal plan. This can run in the range of $15K at year or more.
The frats are cutting in on USC’s captive market.
Exactly right. Just because they are paying to sit in a classroom a few hours a week, it does not follow that one would give up ones freedom of association.
I wish the Trojan band knew how to play more than one song.
My (private) university had the same policy when I pledged a sorority back in the 90s, and I would imagine it still does. Freshmen could not go through rush until the spring semester; there was a smaller fall rush for sophomores and above. My college best friend and I went through spring rush during our sophomore year, but a couple of my good friends from high school went through fall rush just before school started their freshman year at a state school. Both girls failed out of school by the end of that year (one by the end of the first semester!). I’m sure most people could handle it, but those two sure couldn’t, lol.
I don’t regret being required to wait for spring rush; it gave us all a chance to get settled before Greek madness began.
Not a bad policy change at all. Gives the rising Freshmen students time to adjust to college.
PC and pretty much anything remotely fun being illegal (you can go to jail for doing just about any prank that was common in the 70s, have sucked the entire life out of fraternities. I loved my fraternity, but if I was a student today, you could not pay me enough to join one (even mine)
Before we all suddenly start sounding like Pajama boy, ponder these cogent thoughts by Milo on the subject:
University administrators across the nation have been cracking down on Greek life. Why? Because they see them as an existential threat to their feminist agenda. They want a culture of numales, neutered bearded people who want to hug muslims not defend their country. A place where men can be manly and women can be womanly. It is your gender studies’ department’s worst nightmare. And it drives them insane.
In a way, it makes sense that the same administrators who hate Western civilization – and are ripping out of your curriculum the highest achievements of that civilization’s artists and thinkers — would try to stamp out the kind of male camaraderie on which that civilization was built, going as far back as my ancient Greek ancestors.
Look, don’t be idiots. Don’t haze your freshmen into the hospital. And do try not to break the law. But don’t let these miserable self-righteous p****** ruin your college experience either. In modern society, there are fewer and fewer opportunities for men to be men. For masculinity to flourish in all its glory. For daring and risk-taking to live free, or at least relatively free. Fraternities are one of those places. They deserve to be protected.
But you can’t hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn’t we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn’t this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg - isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but I for one am not going to stand here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!
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