attention every guy in a fraternity

I hope our fraternity pledges are safe, too. But wouldn't it be a really good thing if all Greeks - fraternity men and sorority women - were proactive in advocating against hazing and especially alcohol-driven hazing? I think so. What happened to the Phi Delt pledge at LSU has had a serious impact on all Greeks there - all Greek activity has been suspended while investigations are conducted. If the KA pledge who was hospitalized last year because of alcohol hazing had died, might not our entire Greek system been dealt with similarly. All of us know that we have sorority members who end up in the ER from alcohol poisoning - several each year. And most get their booze in one of the fraternities. And we sorority women continue to support the fraternities by giving higher popularity rankings to those who party the most and best. What happens if one of our women were to die or a Mizzou fraternity pledge or active member? Is it going to take a tragedy for us to change course and begin to mature into responsible living? I sure as hell hope not!

Wake up sorority and fraternity members at Mizzou! It's time for a reality check! We're under siege and we have only ourselves to blame. Greek Life in this country is being negatively bombarded in the media (TV, newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc.). Why? Our obsession with alcohol and partying; and of course there's hazing and deaths occurring from hazing. University administrations, especially LSU and Penn State, are taking control of Greek Life activities. Our tendency is to oppose such action and oppose it strongly. However, might not it be worth some strong oversight in order to preserve the Greek system? At least let's consider the possibility. It's a fact that the Federal Government is becoming involved as are some State legislatures and the court system. So we can certainly expect university administrations to expect accountability and implement deterrents. If we Greeks were to take the founding principles and tenets of each of our organizations seriously and to heart, we, too would support accountability and deterrents. I suspect that each of our Greek organizations has the building or development of character as one of its founding goals. Perhaps if we resolve to pay more attention to that and to improved academic achievement (supposedly what we're here in college for anyway), we'd not be all that burdened by the increased expectations of accountability and the increased deterrents that are surely headed our way.

This has been going on for a long time. If fraternities cared, they would have done something about it a long time ago.

I agree with Zou and WhThFu. No one is trying to shift blame for anything, and no one is saying that sororities determine policies for fraternities or PanHel makes rules for IFC members. I think what they're saying is pretty realistic and reflects some truth. And a good point was made in the example of the drunk sorority girl telling where she got her alcohol. She was the one who made the ultimate decision to drink but the punishment is put on the fraternity. Do we want the fraternities to stop letting us drink when we want to? We all have a part in this and trying to play the blame game is just damned wrong.

To Hmmm & Correct:

Sit through a fraternity chapter meeting some night and then try to say that sororities don't at least strongly influence fraternity social procedures from time to time. No, sororities don't make the rules for fraternities but they do have an influence in reality. This isn't placing blame on the women but simply saying that all of us are influenced by peer pressure. And the Mizzou Greek system is full of peer pressure. That's very unfortunate sometimes.

Idiot,

So you're basically saying women are Labradors. If fraternities don't turn off the alcohol, women will just keep drinking... what a low opinion you have of your women. Why is it entirely on the Fraternity to decide if someone has had enough? Professional bartenders don't consistently make that decision successfully.