CMV: Universities should end their endorsement and sponsorship of Fraternities and Sororities.

During the bidding process, my fraternity would consider some aspects in line with our values, such as scholarship, commitment to other organizations, and services. Note that there are other values that were important to my fraternity nationally, but they tend to be things that everyone unilaterally likes in the people they hang out with.

So, someone would always get a bid if everyone liked him. But if someone was more in the middle of the rushees, their academic performance, service work, and involvement in other parts of the campus was influential in whether or not they were given a bid.

I don't think that selecting individuals based on group values is that abstract or any more abstract that the decisions people make in their daily lives. The abstract values are things that, as I've said above, everyone generally values. Integrity, humility, compassion, sincerity, etc. Everyone is making value-based decisions around those things pretty much all the time they deal with people.

And the ones that people aren't constantly evaluating tend to be quite concrete, in my opinion. For my fraternity (and most others), these were measurable things such as campus involvement, academic performance, and service.

And your last comment about "exclusivity for exclusivity's sake alone" is absurdly reductionist. Greek organizations offer two big things that most other clubs don't:

  1. A very strong social component. Say what you will, but this is important. People are social creatures. And I'm not talking only about parties. Literally any time I had free time, I had a buddy that was also free to hang out, play sports, get food, whatever I was trying to do. (you are sort of paying for friends, haha)
  2. A varied set of focuses. A lot of other clubs focus on specific things and they do them better than fraternities and sororities. Good Greek organizations are more like a buffet. You can get involved in mechanical and construction projects, theater, leadership, business development, tech work, fundraising, and other areas. All the things I listed are things that I participated in with my fraternity.

Of course, the potential for abuse is high. There are antiquated traditions of hazing that only see similar strength in sports organizations. Some fraternities really only do the bare minimum to stay active and the rest of the focus is purely on partying and binge-drinking. But you could get those same things if you fall in with a certain crowd of people, irrespective of any organizational affiliation.

/r/changemyview Thread Parent