Greek life is dead

This school has gone so soft.

This university used to have a greek life comparable to SEC schools — where greek life is thriving. At IU, it’s a new fraternity/sorority placed on C&D or getting the 🥾 every few weeks.

Some of these punishments are completely warranted. Things like SA and bigotry are not okay and should be treated seriously. Recent events have called for appropriate action.

We currently live in the shadow of IU greek life’s ghost. Greek life here has been neutered to the point where it is unrecognizable. Sororities and fraternities are basically glorified t-shirt clubs at this point.

When you get your bid, what do you expect happens next? Do you think you just shake hands with the brothers/sisters, and that’s it? You simply rush for a week or two, get your bid, then reap all the benefits of being in your greek organization?

I think I can speak for most members of greek life when I say that “hazing” is a very important aspect of it. I put hazing in quotations to emphasize how soft it has gotten. Obviously, there are lines that need to be drawn — but to change the definition of hazing, to the point where pretty much ANYTHING a new member has to do is grounds for suspension/termination, is ludicrous. And, quite frankly, it’s concerning. Hazing is nothing like it used to be before social media became ubiquitous amongst the student population.

EVERY student organization at ANY university, greek life or not, has their issues. Even the caving club here at IU got placed on suspension a few years back, after one of its members got trapped in a cave for like 3 days. We hear stories about hazing existing in school bands all the time. Hazing, as this school defines it, happens everywhere.

Do new members think they’re being singled out? That they’re somehow special or exempt from hazing? EVERYONE in their respective house went through some form of hazing. The sophomores, juniors and seniors. And guess what? It brought their pledge classes closer, avoiding superficial relationships and forming meaningful, less shallow ones.

IFC and Penhel have sold out. We’ve allowed individuals who have never been affiliated with a greek organization to have complete control. There exists no meaningful, productive line of communication between IU greek life and the university’s administration. It exists solely to hand out punishments. This is in stark contrast to other universities, where greek life and the school communicate with each other; they address issues and concerns and work together to resolve them. This is the polar opposite at IU.

Perhaps the plan for the administration is to make greek life here so unappealing that freshmen simply do not participate in it, thus slowly killing it off…

Such poor effort on the university’s end. It’s just plain lazy. Zero effort to make a change. Just kick off anyone who breaks the rules.