Staff Editorial
In the “bubble” that is Swarthmore College, it’s often easy to forget that the vast array of higher education options don’t all subscribe to the same sort of unique progressive cultural assumptions that we do. Not all universities and colleges — in fact, barely any — purport Quaker values and its accompanying noble virtues. We do, however, share some semblance of the stereotypical, yet not to say ideal, college experience: greek life.
With the modest existence of only two inclusive fraternities on campus (Delta Upsilon and Phi Psi) and the absence of sororities (save from the tangential all-female Ladies’ Soiree Society and the newly formed Not Yet Sisters), to say that Swarthmore has a thriving greek life would be a severe overstatement. But perhaps that is a good thing.
In the Mar. 28 Rolling Stone article “Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy,” Janet Reitman writes about the savage hazing rituals that happen at Dartmouth fraternities. Andrew Lohse, a Dartmouth student and former Sigma Alpha Epsilon brother, detailed those rituals, exposing the unpalatable subculture that seems inherent, at least in popular discourse, to fraternities and sororities.
Keeping with the College’s mission of justice and respect, Swarthmore’s frats have broadly managed to avoid tolerating a culture of what Lohse accuses Dartmouth’s storied greek system of perpetuating — “pervasive hazing, substance abuse and sexual assault,” as well as an “intoxicating nihilism that dominates campus social life.”
Yes, there have been the incidents of excessive drinking and assault, but on balance, Swarthmore’s brotherhood is a well-meaning reflection of the College’s larger campus community. And now, with the potential for the livelihood of a Swat sorority, Not Yet Sisters has an imperative role in encouraging and exercising itself primarily as a collection of ethically-sound Swarthmore women.
But the issue of violence in mainstream culture is not limited to just frats and sororities. It’s not even in the confines of college life. The violence and cruelty on par with Dartmouth’s ostensible cultural dysfunctions is evident in a multiplicity of organized institutions. From sports to war, human aggression is not just made manifest, but it is also reinforced and reproduced time and time again — the New Orleans Saints pay athletes who injure players on opposing teams more money, and a United States soldier kills 16 Afghan civilians while another burns the Qur’an.
The problem with violence at schools like Dartmouth, or even Swarthmore, is somehow more acute, though. It’s also more consequential. The students who witness and partake in these sorts of sadistic ceremonies are inevitably the same students who graduate from elite universities and go on to hold high positions in the bureaucratic order of this country and abroad.
College is not the most formative developmental period, but it’s certainly early enough to instill the sense that “good people can do awful things to one another for absolutely no reason.” Moreover, this psychological precedent that Lohse describes is set specifically for men — the same men that run our country and companies and, essentially, our dominant culture.
So what do the inhumane practices of other college’s frats and sororities have to do with Swarthmore exactly? Perhaps it points to the deafening silence experienced by not just Dartmouth, but Swat as well. The silence about issues that matter in a way that far exceeds the spatial and temporal limits of this campus.
Only when we are honest with ourselves that sexist gender dynamics and blind entitlement are characteristic of many elite educational institutions, ours included, can we begin to initiate a process of accountability, but also change.
Pledging a frat at Swat isn’t fatal, but our tolerance of even the most mild forms of violence are.
