Editor’s Note: This is a guest commentary. The opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial board.

“You joined a frat? You know frats and sororities are historically classist, elitist and racist, right? Like inherently so.”

Those were my older sister’s first words to me when I told her I joined a music fraternity on campus last spring, Sigma Alpha Iota, Chapter Epsilon. I paused. I hadn’t thought about that before. I asked her to explain further.

She started with a story from her anthropology class back at the University of Washington. It is not a university where social life is ruled by Greek life, but UW is known for frat parties. Her anthropology professor on the first day of class during introductions stated, “For those of you who are in frats or sororities on campus, you should know they are a part of institutionalized racism…” This professor explained that historically fraternities have been monetarily exclusive and socially exclusive, including but not limited to having previous rules against letting people of color in or requiring members to have a certain amount of wealth, etc. Fraternities fit into this discrimination system, with elitism and racism in their centers. This is not even mentioning how sexism comes into play; the unsafe environment of many frat parties for women, some hazing practices or even sexist selection processes requiring women to be feminine or conventionally attractive enough to get into a sorority.

The next day, half of her class was gone.

After hearing this, I understood better why frats and sororities defend and even promote discrimination in the U.S. 

And it’s not too hard to find evidence of this either.

Cornell had to suspend frat parties about 11 months ago because of drugged drinks and sexual harassment, and in 2019, Syracuse University had to suspend frat activities because of a female Black student was being verbally harassed by frat members.

So, what about here at Ithaca College? What about my fraternity, SAI?

Well, the college decided years ago to end affiliated fraternities and sororities on campus because of the overwhelming concern for student safety. Except, a few fraternities were officially allowed to stay: three music fraternities. Though a couple of unaffiliated social ones can still be found as well.

Could even professional fraternities be safe? Could professional fraternities give into racist or elitist systems and ways of thinking? Or is it that all fraternities allow racism along with other discriminations to take place with few repercussions?

Professional or social, affiliated or unaffiliated, music-based or not, Greek life on campus today still has serious issues and is quite unchecked by administration. Overall, the system with Greek life at the college has severe flaws that could lead to irreversible damages if unresolved.

Some of the issues are with Greek national organization rules and procedures, but some are Ithaca College-based.

This involves insufficient reporting procedures, incomplete definition of hazing and a lack of communication and connection between Greek life, the Office of Student Engagement and the college administration. Furthermore, there is nothing holding student organizations accountable or responsible for unsafe spaces and failure to report discrimination or hazing to the appropriate administrative bodies. A report can be made against an individual for their actions but against a student campus organization, not really. There was little clarity as to what can be done in fraternities vs. regular student clubs and organizations. 

A safety net with substantial holes in it doesn’t make for much of a safety net at all.

As some know, there’s been racism and discrimination in the music fraternity Sigma Alpha Iota (SAI) this past year and negligence throughout this time. Primarily, discrimination was in the form of racist jokes or comments met with no contestation, but laughter. There was also a lack of responsibility from the executive board to hold people accountable for hurtful actions, and equally importantly, an unsupportive executive board failing to report to the SAI National board, to the Council of Music Fraternities and to the school. All of the aforementioned steps were not done in a timely, respectful manner. Eventually, a petition was made by the affected member in order to get some action to be taken.

Now, it can be hard to see why lack of action to address discrimination would be just as important as the discrimination itself. But negligence, when present in leadership, is discrimination.

Executive members of SAI did not act in the way they should have, and some denied the severity of the situation, and even their negligent actions as part of the discrimination. Similar to those UW students, they could listen through criticisms but did not want to engage any further with the honest reality of the situation.

What is to happen with SAI and this member? That is to be seen in the coming weeks. Some work is being done, with reports to complete and discussions taking place, but will it be enough? I don’t know.

Now, personally, having talked to a few administrators, a policy framework is more visible to me, but to even search, define and comprehend current policies was hard and tedious. And what was to be understood? Policies connected to Greek life but by a few dots and overstretching, winding lines. It was and still is baffling to me 

It is obvious that more clear, direct and complete policies need to be in place between music Greek life, the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance and the college overall. This should even include other professional fraternities and their representing schools, as well as unaffiliated groups, because they do recruit on campus and therefore should have some more oversight in the college. I believe policies should be in place that connect the Office of Student Engagement and Greek life because fraternities do have many events on campus (e.g. Greek Week) and even SAI recruits during student org fairs.

When discrimination or hazing occurs in a student organization and goes unopposed and undisciplined by the executive board for long enough, this creates an unsafe space. If this unsafe space goes unchecked for long enough, this can lead to even more further damaging discriminatory acts, and possibly even irreversible physical harm. Harm that could be too similar to what happened at our campus, not too long ago.

SK Aptacy (she/her) is a senior economics major. Contact her at [email protected].