Constable: Fraternities still viable during pandemic, changing times

I still remember the day I came out to the woman who would become my wife.

"You?" she stammered in disbelief. "You were in a fraternity?"

As a proud "GDI" (Independent) at the Greek-heavy University of Illinois, she had grown accustomed to making assumptions about "frat boys." Namely that we mirror the characters in the 1978 movie "Animal House" by being smug, slimy, smirking, obnoxious, cocky, indoctrinated, arrogant, insufferable, crude, smarmy, egotistical, crass, unpleasant, drunken, boorish, creepy, pompous, lying, unfaithful, vulgar, selfish, juvenile, cheating, clueless, misogynistic, academically challenged, party-crazed punks.

My fraternity, while certainly not immune to those attributes at times, deserves credit for keeping me in school, teaching me how to study, exposing me to new people and new experiences, and giving me some lifelong friends. One is a prominent lawyer I see almost every year when he makes the trip to Wrigley Field to watch the Chicago Cubs, and another is a cardiologist who kept my mom alive and healthy until she was 92. We stood up at each other's weddings and have been together at bar mitzvahs and funerals.

Those kinds of positive outcomes are still happening for college fraternity members, says Judson Horras, president and CEO of the North American Interfraternity Conference, based in the Indianapolis area.

"The vast majority are still having a great experience," Horras says. "There are about a quarter-million students in fraternities. It's as strong as it's ever been."

My old college fraternity inducted a record 35 new members in February, before the pandemic lockdowns. Since then, 11 fraternities at the University of Georgia were fined by the Interfraternity Council for violating social distancing guidelines, and Indiana University has nine fraternities under quarantine because of COVID-19 outbreaks. But dorms and off-campus housing have similar problems. Purdue University suspended 13 athletes this week for holding a party in a campus residence hall.

Problems such as stupidity, racism, sexism, substance abuse, sexual assault and hazing aren't confined to fraternities. About half of all college students suffer from some hazing incident before they get to college, Horras says, with cases involving clubs, music groups, sports teams and military organizations. Every year, about 1,825 college students from the ages of 18 to 24 die from alcohol-related, unintentional injuries; about 696,000 students are assaulted by another student who has been drinking; and about 97,000 students report alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape, according to information compiled by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health.

"Fraternities are continuing to evolve," Horras says. His organization's Anti-Hazing Coalition brings together parents of hazing victims and fraternities to spread awareness and lobby Congress for tougher laws. Last year, the organization prohibited fraternities from serving drinks that contain more than 15% alcohol.

Fraternity membership struggled in the years after the Vietnam War but hit record highs by the 1990s.

Many fraternities were openly racist for a century, and racist acts and a lack of members of color remain problems. My fraternity banned Black members until 1971, but I had no idea of that awful history when I joined; our chapter had two Black members, many Jewish members, and our president was one of several gay members.

A 2020 study led by professor Gary R. Pike at Indiana University found that fraternities generally are less diverse than the rest of campus, but fraternity members have "significantly higher levels of discussions with diverse others than independent students." The study also found that fraternity members "are more engaged, report greater learning gains, and are more satisfied than students who are not members."

"Fraternities today are providing love and care, which is still timeless and essential," Horras says. "It's why young men are still joining."