While the recent Zeta Psi controversy has been covered quite closely by student newspapers at Dartmouth, this incident and the wider campus debate over Greek life and issues relating to the Student Life Initiative has made headlines in college and national newspapers across the country, from Texas to Virginia to Massachusetts.
The Zeta Psi story was picked up by the Associated Press, the Union Leader and the Valley News among others and was featured in news pieces on CNN and other Boston television stations like Fox 25.
Coverage in other college newspapers varied from accurate to inaccurate, and some seem to echo the same diverse, passionate sentiments found on the Dartmouth campus. References to Dartmouth's prestige and Ivy League membership are common, yet so are mentions of the fact that Dartmouth inspired the rowdy comedy "Animal House."
Most recently, an editorial compiled by the staff of the Daily Texan, the campus daily at the University of Texas at Austin, condemned Dartmouth's Zeta Psi fraternity for the publication of newsletters containing sexually explicit material.
The authors note that "Dartmouth College is the school that inspired the movie Animal House, and now, more than 20 years after the movie's release, the school is still living up to its rowdy party image. Only this time, that party spirit is at the expense of women."
Further, they continue, that the Zeta Psi "sex papers" show fraternity brothers as stereotypical sexists, an image fraternities across the country have worked to combat.
The editorial concludes that, "Any tradition that systematically and intentionally not only degrades women, but also supports the act of rape, should have been eradicated a long time ago."
An April 6 editorial in the Cavalier Daily, the student paper at the University of Virginia, takes quite a different stance.
The author, Laura Purcells, describes the SLI debacle as an example of an institution's attempt to blame the Greek system for the existence of deeper problems in campus social life.
Purcells says, "The misconception that the only purpose of these social clubs is to provide a forum for excessive drinking and sexual promiscuity has long cast question upon the idea of fraternities and sororities being supported by learning institutions such as the University of Virginia."
She then goes on to discuss this "misconception" as it exists at the "prominent Dartmouth College."
For example, she found Dartmouth's claim that "the abolition of fraternities and sororities will 'eliminate alcohol abuse on campus'" to be "absurd."
"Would anyone in his or her right mind claim that if Greek life were to be abolished at UVA tomorrow, that excessive alcohol consumption would cease?" she asks.
A story with the headline "Greek system in jeopardy at Dartmouth," written by Amanda Munoz, ran in the April 26 edition of the Tufts Daily, the student paper at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.
The article summarizes the recent controversies over remarks yelled from the porch of Psi Upsilon, as well as the Zeta Psi newsletter controversy.
It begins, too, with references to the movie "Animal House," and contains several factual errors.
According to the Tufts article, " ... this reputation [for the popularity of Greek life] was put in jeopardy this February when the Dartmouth administration announced plans to eliminate the school's fraternity and sorority system."
However, the Student Life Initiative was announced in February 1999 and not this year.
Several paragraphs later, the article states that "another incident that enraged students and faculty occurred late last semester, when racist and sexist remarks were shouted at female passerby by members of the school's Psi Upsilon fraternity."
"Psi Upsilon publicly apologized for the incident and condemned the remarks, but a similar incident occurred in March when Psi Upsilon members yelled 'Wah-hoo-wah, scalp those bitches!' at a passing female student."
The article had the facts wrong because there was only one occasion on which members of Psi Upsilon shouted offending remarks at passerby, which were regarded by some as racist and sexist.
