Re: Jin: The Price of Our Community: Paying With Your Life
I am writing to commend Lydia Jin for her recent column, “The Price of Community,” in the May 6, 2025 edition of The Dartmouth.
I am a member of the Class of 2016 and former Editor-in-Chief of this newspaper. I was unaffiliated with the Greek system, and I know firsthand the fortitude it takes to criticize Greek houses.
As a freshman and sophomore, I wrote opinion columns. Sometimes, I criticized the Greek system. Students would regularly approach me in the Class of 1953 Commons, Collis, fraternity basements and elsewhere to confront me, furious about whatever I’d written.
I also remember how surreal it felt to watch people I knew during our first year rush and subsequently pledge during the next — the way they transformed into worse versions of themselves.
As an unaffiliated person, sometimes I became an outlet for their private complaints. People confessed trauma from hazing, then publicly denied such hazing occurred. People pondered de-pledging, then recruited new members. People acknowledged certain predatory brothers, then denied sexual misconduct allegations against them.
Weirdest of all, perhaps, was being treated as less-than for three years, only to watch those same classmates distance themselves from Greek life upon graduation, assuring me that they saw the system as it was all along. Suddenly, they wanted my approval.
I commend Ms. Jin for writing about Greek life honestly and critically. Dartmouth has never rewarded free-thinking or individuality as to its own campus politics. If its students continue to interrogate its incentives to conform, everyone will be better for it.
Sincerely,
Katie R. McKay ’16
Katie McKay is a member of the Class of 2016. Guest columns represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
