As the 2025 summer president of Dartmouth’s Interfraternity Council and a member of Greek Life at Dartmouth, I feel as though I have a unique perspective from both a macro and personal level that I’d like to share in response to The Dartmouth's article about Greek Life.
When I read “Say it!: The ‘bizarre’ internal politics of slurs in fraternities,” I appreciated The Dartmouth platforming a perspective on a difficult yet necessary topic of harmful language in Greek spaces, particularly fraternities. However, I also felt the article was incomplete, as it isolated a few incidents to represent Dartmouth’s Greek Life system as a whole. Additionally, I was concerned that the article was based on only four Greek Life members when Dartmouth’s Greek Life system is a complex and diverse culture of over 2,700 students.
Over the past decade, Dartmouth’s Greek Life culture has changed significantly, becoming more open, diverse and reflective of the broader campus community. While neither Dartmouth nor Greek leadership tracks metrics such as racial, religious or socioeconomic diversity, I can attest that membership today spans a much wider range of backgrounds. It is far less monolithic than in past eras. In comparison with peer institutions ranging from large Southeastern Conference schools to small liberal arts colleges, Dartmouth distinguishes itself as a leader, with a Greek system that is meaningfully more inclusive than most, even as it continues to evolve.
As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community myself, I can testify that I’ve heard hurtful language — although quite rare — used on Dartmouth’s campus in different settings, and I am strongly in favor of any effort and voice to curb this language. In this light, I really do appreciate how the article gave students a platform to express their concerns and share firsthand experiences. However, this being said, I disagreed with the inference that the 25X Masters Tournament or Dartmouth fraternities as a whole reflect a culture of homophobia or racism.
Around three-quarters of eligible Dartmouth students are officially involved in Greek Life on campus, and even more engage with it in some social capacity. Just as Dartmouth’s wide range of racial, ethnic, socioeconomic and sexual identities is intertwined with diversity across its 20+ chapters, Greek Life is also intertwined with diversity across its 20+ chapters. Every chapter — often led by their DEI chair & other house executives — participates in training and community-building events through the Office of Greek Life. These include the Dartmouth Seltzer Project — which funds non-alcoholic beverages for Greek spaces — and the Sexual Violence Prevention Project. In other words, Dartmouth Greek Life has many systems and policies in place to promote the accessibility, inclusivity, safety and accountability of its diverse landscape — efforts that are often overlooked.
I look back on Greek Life culture during the summer term of 2025, and I simply do not see the picture that The Dartmouth’s “Say it!: The ‘bizarre’ internal politics of slurs in fraternities” article painted. When I think about the Masters Tournament, I see a class tradition that brings a diverse range of classmates together for socializing, competition and fun — and even with Polar waters as the main beverage of consumption. I saw equal enthusiasm and participation in both the female-identifying and male-identifying tournaments — which of course shouldn’t be anything unique, but unfortunately, Greek spaces at Dartmouth have been historically exclusionary. If a small subset of tournament spectators crossed a line with their chants, I do not believe their behavior reflects the broader culture of Greek Life during the 25X term. Likewise, alleged internal, isolated misconduct in Greek spaces should not be used to characterize the values or actions of thousands of students.
Moving forward, I’d encourage The Dartmouth to be thoughtful about what’s included in “Freshman Fall Student Editions,” since those pieces can shape early impressions, and to clarify the criteria used to distinguish opinion pieces from news articles.
Greek Life at Dartmouth is evolving and is by no means perfect. While there is always room for improvement, affiliated and unaffiliated students use Greek Life to find connections, share experiences and create meaningful memories that strengthen Dartmouth’s broader campus community.
Guest columns represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
