I read with great interest Dawn Watkins Wiese’s recent piece
in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Fraternities are a Cure for What Ails
Higher Education.” In it, the author extols the virtues of the fraternity
members involved in campus counter-protests targeting the recent surge of
Pro-Palestinian encampments on college campuses. The article cites the virtues
of patriotism, camaraderie and (interestingly enough) civility as an anecdote
for the various ills associated with the “professionally organized and
well-funded rabble rousers” running amuck on college campuses these days.
Many in the fraternity/sorority industry have shared the
article and echoed its underlying premises, which appear to be twofold – that fraternity
members are paragons of virtue on college campuses overrun with professional
protestors, and that fraternity members are victims in a vast conspiracy
perpetrated by left-wing campus administrators who revile their very existence.
I have seen the article cheered by a number of fraternity executives and
prominent alumni volunteers and donors across the fraternity world.
As I have reflected on the article and its underlying
arguments, I have come up with three questions for the author and those who support
her arguments.
Do we believe these students were acting on deeply held
and well-researched beliefs about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict?
I won’t pretend to know the beliefs or motivations of the
fraternity members who have participated in the various counter-protests across
the country. I assume that a variety of factors, some laudable, others less so,
have driven these counter-protests and demonstrations. But to accept the basic
tenants of the article, we are asked to believe that these young men are acting
out of deeply held convictions about America’s support of Israel in the ongoing
conflict in Gaza. I have not found this to be the case in my recent
interactions with fraternity members, many of whom lack much of an historical
understanding of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The author makes repeated
references to patriotism, a concept that has been co-opted by modern day
Trumpian conservatism. Which is considered the more patriotic act – the
protection of an American flag, or the protection of civil liberties such as
free speech and assembly that the flag represents?
While some of the students engaged in these counter protests
may be acting from deeply held beliefs, I suspect that many of them are simply
embracing the Trumpian fever dream of “owning the libs.” By taunting “woke”
campus protestors and “backing the blue” by assisting police officers in
breaking up encampments, these fraternity members are simply staking out their
territory in the campus culture wars. This is being done not as an act of
deeply held and well-researched beliefs about American foreign policy or
nuanced ideals of patriotism, but rather as an act of political theater. To be
clear, there is an important conversation that needs to be taking place on
college campuses regarding America’s place in a world on the brink, and the
conservative voice in that conversation is an important one. Unfortunately, the
behavior exhibited by fraternity members over the last several weeks falls
short of the seriousness that this conversation warrants.
Are we prepared for the reality of fraternities
planting their stake in the campus culture wars?
If my suspicions above are even remotely close to the truth,
then the fraternity and sorority industry has a much larger issue on their
hands. I know this because I have spent the last few years studying the
intersection of fraternity culture and political ideology. Extending the work
of Jonathan Haidt’s moral foundations theory, which examines the moral roots of
political ideology, Joshua Schutts and I found a number of problematic
relationships between political conservatism and fraternity social and hazing
culture.
In our research, we have found that political conservatism
has strong and predictive relationships with hazing motivations designed to
reinforce group hierarchy, power dynamics, and in-group loyalty. Conservatism
is correlated with tolerance with more severe forms of hazing. It is correlated
with increased concern with campus social hierarchies, alcohol use, and moral
disengagement. As fraternity chapters become more politically conservative,
problematic attitudes and behaviors around hazing and social culture worsen.
This is especially problematic given the fact that
fraternity members increasingly self-identify as conservative. Between 2019 and
2024, in a national sample of nearly 50,000 fraternity members representing 12
national fraternities, the percentage of fraternity members who identify as
“very liberal” or “liberal” has fallen from 19 percent to 12 percent.
Meanwhile, the percentage of fraternity members who identify as “very
conservative” or “conservative” has swelled to over 43 percent. Even prior to
these recent counter-protests, fraternities were rapidly becoming more
conservative.
If the fraternity industry makes the decision to cheer on
fraternity members staking out a position on the far right of the campus
culture wars, they should do so with a clear understanding of the potential
repercussions. In a world of social media virality, any cheering of these
students by fraternity leaders is likely to spawn copycat behavior on other
campuses, especially as we enter what promises to be a tense and hotly
contested Presidential election. If fraternities, through their behavior,
become increasingly associated with Trumpism and right-wing political activism,
that will have a significant impact on the pipeline of students joining. It
would be reasonable to expect that, in this environment, fraternities would
become increasingly monolithic – less racially diverse, less socio-economically
diverse, and less politically diverse. In other words, we risk the danger of
college fraternities becoming conservative echo chambers. If that happens, we
need to be prepared to address the changing hazing and social cultures that
will inevitably follow.
Do we actually believe any of this is civil?
The author of the WSJ article chose to characterize the
behavior of fraternity members in these cases as promoting “civility.” Given
the widely available video footage and eyewitness accounts of these
“counter-protests,” I found that to be an interesting choice of words. According
to a recently filed lawsuit, fraternity members who helped campus police clear
the encampment at Arizona State University are alleged to have been partying
and drinking at the time. At Ole Miss, a fraternity member was filmed taunting
a black protester by hopping from foot to foot and grunting like an ape. As the
author of the WSJ article was quick to point out, that student was quickly
expelled from his fraternity. What the author failed to mention is that the
Mississippi chapter of the NAACP has also identified two other fraternity
members as engaging in behavior that was equally problematic – taunting a black
female protestor by calling her, among other things “Lizzo,” presumably in
reference to her weight and skin color and chanting “lock her up.” News reports have identified those men as
members of a fraternity with well-documented historical ties to the Ku Klux
Klan and the perpetuation of “lost cause” mythology. “Civil” is not a word I would use to describe
any of this behavior.
The article also references a single study that found that
fraternity members self-report higher levels of interest in “interactions with
diverse others,” using that single study to advance an argument that
fraternities, contrary to popular belief, are bastions of diversity and
inclusion. The academic literature related to fraternity members and their
beliefs and attitudes around diversity and inclusion is actually quite
substantial, and the results of those various studies paint a picture that is
decidedly less clear than what a single study might lead us to think. After a
decade studying fraternities and sororities, it is clear to me that membership
is a mixed bag – there are definite positives outcomes associated with
membership, as well as clear drawbacks. Anyone who knowingly tries to whitewash
this reality with cherry-picked studies highlighting only the benefits while
ignoring or downplaying the drawbacks should not be taken seriously.
Concluding Thoughts
I would love nothing more than to see college fraternity men
come forward and engage in meaningful, thoughtful, civil dialogue about the
issues happening in the world. What we have seen in recent weeks is not any of
those things. If fraternity members want to engage in the important
conversations happening all around them, there are numerous ways for them to do
that. But showing up en masse as roving bands of vigilante campus patriots
reeks of Proud Boy thuggery, not civic virtue. When I read of their behaviors,
I was immediately reminded of the Muscadins who roamed the streets of Paris
with wooden clubs following the fall of Robespierre in 1794. These behaviors
should not be lauded – they should be categorically disavowed. I hope
fraternity leaders will utilize this opportunity to engage their membership in
conversations about how fraternity men can be civically engaged in ways that
add value to these conversations. I feel strongly that fraternities offer one
of the best opportunities on college campuses for students with differing
worldviews to connect with and learn from one another. If we allow fraternity
houses to become monolithic conservative echo chambers, that opportunity may be
lost forever.
