Excellent post. Yes, this has gotten out of hand and the President of OU has gone way overboard. I understand he wants to identify everyone on the bus - men and women. The brothers are already receiving death threats - by revealing the individual names, I truly fear for them. As a Tri Delt, and fellow Greek, I’m also very concerned with my sisters at OU. BTW, my chapter pledged 2 black gals this year - they obviously felt more at home with us than the all black sorority we have on campus.
I hate these periodic stories that arise that put Greek life into such a bad light. My college life centered around my fraternity and the good friends I made there. It's been 30 years since my days as an active, and I still count my old brothers as best friends.
Sure, there were the parties... booze and road trips and chasing pretty girls, but there was so much more.
No matter how difficult the class, there was always someone in the frat who had the class before, and was able to help study, share old notes, and so forth. If someone in our fraternity couldn't help, then someone in another one could. I don't think people realize that fraternities weren't at war with each other. At least not constantly.
We emphasized community service, and had local and national philanthropies, as did every Greek organization on campus. We all held events to publicize these charities and raise money, and it was just good manners and good citizenship to help other Greeks with their philanthropies. Even on a relatively small campus, all the Greek organizations raised tens of thousands.
After a hurricane tore through our campus, cleanup efforts were led by the Greeks. Yep, those pretty-boy frats and prissy sorority girls were the ones manning the chain saws, dragging debris from the road, loading dump trucks and cleaning off in the fountain afterwards because the water wasn't back yet.
We never see those stories. My son is in college, but never expressed interest in fraternity life. Of course, he's elected to live in our basement and commute. With his scholarships, he should graduate without any student debt, so I'm not critical of his choices. But I certainly wouldn't have objected had he chosen otherwise.