Opening up The D last week, I thought I was reading the joke issue. How could something so abrupt and surprising be anything but a sick joke? I am unaffiliated. I believe that a lot of bad baggage goes along with the fraternity system. In my two and half years at Dartmouth I have set foot in fraternities a little more than a dozen times. So why should it be that I find the recent developments to be so disturbing? I would like to offer my thoughts on why an unaffiliated junior thinks the president and the trustees should cease and desist.
The first reason I find the latest developments so disturbing is their extreme abruptness. No warning that such a development was in store was given to students. Even President Wright's letter and the Trustees' five principles gave no indication that the principles would lead to the end of the fraternity system as we know it. The announcement seemed to come from nowhere. At the same time fraternities and sororities were even more flabbergasted at the news in light of the fact that several of them had recently sat down to dinner with College President James Wright, who like the Trojan horse gave no indication of the surprise waiting for them. This plan did not organically grow forth from an ongoing process of dialogue and discussion as it seems that every other campus policy must, but was the simply the brainchild of the administration to be imposed at whim.
The second reason I find this development so distasteful is the tone in which Wright and the Trustees have presented it. Though the Trustees and the president have the prerogative to simply impose their will, presenting it in those terms seems to be a great show of arrogance. By declaring this not to be a 'referendum' and indicating that they plan on moving forward no matter what the opposition, the administration only reinforces its image as autocratic. The powers that be are saying that this decision has been made whether we like it or not. Though they realize that many of the alumni and students will disagree they really do not care. Whether or not the students and alumni agree is inconsequential; this plan will move forward with or without the help of the students and alumni.
But the biggest criticism I have, might best be stated in a question: what is the administration's end game? On the general level is that the social system must be improved, something to which most can agree. But beyond this what does the administration desire. The only thing I can see on which the administration is clear is that the fraternity system as we know it must end. But why? Because it is not inclusive? The testimony of the thousands of current and past fraternity and sorority members seems to render this objection unwarranted. These members have found fraternities to be welcoming, places of brotherhood and sisterhood, they have forged lifetime bonds with people from different backgrounds and interests. At the same time, the administration's criticism of the single-sex nature of system is a faulty one at best. As I overheard one young lady saying, sororities offer women a safe and inviting place separate from the opposite sex. And if anything the experiment in trying t
o erase and paper over the differences between the sexes of the last decades, has shown us that sometimes coed is not always best. Finally, if one desires to expand social options why begin by eliminating or drastically changing one whole aspect of the social system? Should we not instead of eliminating actually expand and improve that which already exists? These are serious questions to be raised about the administration's end game.
All of these together raise serious objections to ending the fraternity system as we know. The final might be its discontinuity with tradition. To simply end such a system after more than 150 years without articulating good reasons is example of a most extreme self-centered arrogance, an arrogance which gives no vote to our ancestors, to tradition, what Testator called the democracy of the dead. In the end we may be witnessing yet another manifestation of the utopian's desire to control each and every institution so as to be able to attempt to create his world view. The fraternity system doesn't fit into this view and thus must be annihilated. It is reason enough for me, one with serious concerns about the fraternity system and someone who is not a frequenter of fraternities, to register my opposition to the Trustees' plan.
