Those Cheering on the Fraternity Counter Protestors Should Ask Themselves Three Questions

 

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.