It was one of those soft, soporific, "step in the right direction" Washington moments that's become the norm for our bumbling shell of a Congress. It was also an unwitting indictment of America's inability to tackle hard truths.
President Joe Biden just signed the Stop Campus Hazing Act, requiring colleges to report on the number of fraternity and sorority hazing incidents on their campuses every year. Does that do anything good? Ummm...sure. Maybe? A bit more sunlight on a deadly danger that afflicts 73 percent of fraternity or sorority kids is probably not a bad thing.
But let's not start dishing out Profiles in Courage awards. What Congress mostly did was highlight its own impotence: in the face of schools allowing our best and brightest to be tormented, bullied, poisoned, and humiliated by outside organizations that are also responsible for lost education, hatred, and violence among our kids, Congress asked for better record keeping.
In related news, your local fire department just issued a report on how many arsons are currently blazing downtown.
Why will no one say the obvious? The "Greek system"—fraternities and sororities on college campuses— is hurting our kids. Badly. It is a parasitic infection inside our institutions of higher learning that fuels binge drinking, racism, and, of course, dangerous hazing, among what is supposed to be the cradle of American leadership.
Consider the frat report card. Greek membership lowers students' grades. It increases both the chances that a kid will develop substance abuse while in school and that they will end up with a lifelong alcohol abuse problem. Largely because of all the drinking, in one 10 year period from 2005-2014, more than 60 people died in incidents linked to fraternities; uncounted thousands more have been injured, like the kid set on fire by four of his "brothers" last year. As mentioned above, frats have long been a hotbed of vicious, undiluted racism—a legacy that is lightly papered over today and yet still regularly breaks into the open. Being in a sorority makes women three times more likely to be sexually assaulted.
If gangs were visiting this kind of damage upon our kids, we would call in the National Guard. When frats do it, we go to the movies.
So, let's say what the cowards in Congress won't: we should ban fraternities and sororities. And we should have done it a long time ago.
To be sure, there are obstacles. Maria Konnikova summarized one daunting tally of them in The Atlantic: "Fraternity men make up 85 percent of U.S. Supreme Court justices since 1910, 63 percent of all U.S. presidential cabinet members since 1900, and, historically, 76 percent of U.S. senators and 85 percent of Fortune 500 executives." That's a lot of entrenched power inside our government.
But there's a better chance of government acting against a vile status quo than waiting for colleges and universities to change. After all, the schools are in on the financial racket. Greek organizations own about $3 billion worth of real estate on 800 campuses, providing student housing that the university would otherwise have to pay for. Fraternity and sorority alumnae are frequently among the most loyal school donors. And in some places, if financial pressure isn't enough, the frats simply annex power: the University of Alabama is largely ruled by a shadow Greek organization called "The Machine."
If we want Congress to wake up, we can at least start by blowing up the lame excuses for perpetuating the system. The three you usually hear boil down to "frats do good things too," "change can't happen politically," and "legally, we can't stop them."
First, no, Greek organizations are not a force for good: the claim of academic benefit is specious, the notion that fraternities perform significant community service is sophistry. Reliable figures are scarce, but the volunteer tracking service Givefinity trumpets the claim that the Greek system is "the largest network of volunteers in the United States, as they raise over 7 million dollars each year and donate over 10 million hours of volunteer service!" That works out to an average of about one dollar and one hour donated per year per member. So fraternities are community service organizations in the same way that the Miss America Pageant is a scholarship program and Cap'n Crunch is a naval officer.
Second, there is a strong political argument for change that can appeal to both parties. Democrats: fraternities are the most obvious protection scheme for white men—"privilege," if you will—ever created. Why do Greek-affiliated students, who are weaker academically, make more money initially upon graduation? Because they already come from more educated, higher-income families with better professional networks. Is this engine of persistent inequality really a system that matches your values?
Republicans: key Trump allies Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are lecturing us on this topic right now. Ramaswamy: "Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence...A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers."
Doesn't it sound like the MAGA brain trust is against the campus jock-ocracy, and might be into some bold, bipartisan action to fix one of its dumbest manifestations?
Third, what about the constitutional protection for free association? Isn't Congress essentially powerless? Not at all. For one thing, Congress just showed the power of jawboning academic leaders into cleaning up their act. What if Congress had the backbone to haul in university presidents, like they memorably did for campus anti-Israel protests, to demand to know what they're doing to get these outside entities to stop maiming kids? Some of the top schools in America—including Harvard, Amherst, and Swarthmore—have partially or fully booted the frats off campus. Public pressure works.
As for free association, of course people can associate however they want. But the rest of us don't need to pay for it. How do you think Congress gets schools to comply with Title IX policy requirements? By threatening to withhold federal funds, which make up 14 percent of all college revenue. Congress could say frats or funds: you choose.
Enough is enough. There is a mountain of evidence that kids are suffering from a broken vestige of a system that produces no positive value. They are not waving, but drowning. Our government should be ashamed to be merely standing by, taking notes.
Matt Robison is a writer, podcast host, and former congressional staffer.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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