By: Lily Calderin

A Darker Side to Greek Life

Millions of girls across the United States are in a sorority and millions of women around the country were members of a sorority during their time in college. Greek life, although very popular, can cause students to endure some pretty harmful events. Greek life is infamous for hazing, drugging, and even sexual misconduct. These events date back to the early 1900s and have continued to occur today. Sorority comes from the Latin word "soror" which means sister but they are not all the sisters who encourage you to be the best you can be (2). There have been policies put into place to reduce the damaging effects of Greek life but nothing has made it stop completely. Many hazing events date all the way back to the time of the Greeks but have changed slightly over time. Would you want to join a sorority if you knew all of the dangerous things that take place behind the scenes? From the creation of Greek life, the progression of hazing and other activities has minimized but society has not gotten rid of it completely. 

History of Sororities
The first Greek life organization in the United States was a fraternity because during that time period very few women could attend college and if they could, they could not join any on campus organizations. The first Greek letter student society was Phi Beta Kappa which was founded in 1776 in Williamsburg, Virginia at the College of William and Mary. Phi Beta Kappa was created for students who did not gain acceptance into a more prestigious society on campus which was known as the Flat Hat Club. Phi Beta Kappa began to expand to include members who went to other colleges which caused membership to become more of an honor. Phi Beta Kappa paved the way for modern fraternities and sororities that we are familiar with today. The first general Fraternity in the United States is considered to be Kappa Alpha which was created at Union College in 1825 by John Hart Hunter. Kappa Alpha adopted many of their practices from Phi Beta Kappa and made the development of friendship their main goal. The increase in popularity of Kappa Alpha led to the creation of the first national fraternity which was Sigma Phi in 1831 at Hamilton College. This rapid growth was then put to a pause as a result of the civil war but rapidly increased again once the war was over. (2) 

After the Civil War is when the United States was introduced to its first sorority, Alpha Delta Pi in 1851. At this time, women were now able to attend college and participate in all it had to offer. After Alpha Delta Pi was created, the United States started to see the creation of other sororities such as Kappa Alpha Theta, Kappa Delta, Delta Delta Delta, and many more (2). Sororities during this time were a place for women to join and talk about the struggles they were facing because this was something that women did not previously have. Sorority life took American women by storm and it evolved exponentially. 

Figure 1

Alpha Delta Pi Founders (1)

Hazing

Sorority life has been known for its hazing rituals such as practical jokes, physical abuse, forced alcohol consumption, and humiliation. The act of hazing dates all the way back to Greek times and it is traced all the way back to Plato. At the time of Plato, hazing was called "pennalism". "Pennalism" is defined as a time of torment and mild oppression among first year students. Acts such as pennalism continued on through the middle ages and are even still occurring today (5). In 1864, pennalism started to be referred to as hazing. This marked the day that Harvard expelled their first student as a result of hazing. This student hazed other students by hitting them and forcing them to perform acts of servitude. In the 19th century through the 21st, hazing has been used as a way to make freshman realize that they are inferior to the upperclassmen who have come before them. Hazing gained more traction in the first twenty years of the 1900s when more and more groups started to perform hazing type acts on new members. By 1912, hazing deaths became very common. Hazing has the ability to cause young girls severe mental harm due to the events they are put through. 

One of the most talked about hazing events in sororities is the washing machine test. This takes place when a girl is forced to sit naked on a washing machine that is turned on while girls in the sorority stand around her and look at her. The whole point of going this is to see if any areas on her body "jiggle" and that parts that did "jiggle" would be circled with a black marker. This method of hazing has been used in the past to make sure that only the skinniest of girls make it into the sorority. If a girl was found to have any areas on her body that did "jiggle" she would be made fun of and forced to go on a diet to lose weight (6). Almost half of all college students have been involved in some form of Greek life hazing. Since 1970, there has been at least one Greek life hazing related death each year. There are states that have anti-hazing laws but these have proven to not be enough to stop hazing completely (7). Sororities are still ridden with hazing but now it just needs to be done in a much more secretive manner. 

Influence of Alcohol

College students are the perfect age group for victimization and a high-risk group for drugging. Sororities open up doors for drugging to happen because of the frequent parties that are thrown. Under the influence of alcohol and other substances, one might not realize if something harmful is put into their drink. A study was conducted that found that 1 in 13 college students suspected or knew that someone had put a drug into their drink while at a Greek life event (4). Being a member of a Sorority leads young girls to drink at a greater frequency than they would if they were not in a sorority. Binge drinking is extremely prevalent in college but more of a problem for those in Greek life.  The new freedom that young college girls are experiencing leads them to make worse decisions because they are not under any adult supervision. A study was conducted from 1980-1999 and it focused on alcohol use in the Greek system. This study found that Greek life was associated with heady drinking which often led to injury or death (10). It was found that sorority life promoted the dangerous practice of binge drinking. Drugging drinks and binge drinking is not a new problem that universities around the country are facing because it has been going on for decades. One recent trend that is taking sorority life by storm is the "borg". "Borg" stands for black out rage gallon and it is a way for students to carry a large amount of alcohol with them to the parties that they go to. These gallons have caused a numerous amount of students to end up in the hospital due to the large amounts of alcohol that they have consumed.  

When girls consume this much alcohol and are not aware of what they are doing, they open a whole new set of dangerous doors. Greek life parties have a very high number of party rape incidents eben though campuses work to minimize this. Historically white fraternity houses are at an even greater risk for "party rape" to occur and it had been this was for centuries. The effects of sexual assault are very severe and can cause people to become suicidal (9). The very large number of cases like this happen to girls in sororities who are at Greek life parties. Being under the influence of alcohol makes people not totally aware of what is going on around them and some even get to the point of not remembering the night before. As a result, the chances of being taken advantage of increase significantly. Women have tried numerous ways to prevent these acts from occuring and one thing they thought of was to boycott fraternities but that is one method that did not last very long. Sexual Assault within Greek life has been going on since the 1900s and nothing has been done to stop it completely because it is something that is extremely hard to monitor. 

Figure 5

Scott, Catie. “Borg Names We’re Sick of Seeing — Jerk Magazine.” Jerk Magazine, April 4, 2023. https://jerkmagazine.net/9mfehhs6kt2vag7aqn19w0hd2b5dka/2023/4/3/borg-names-were-sick-of-seeing. (8)

Figure 6

“SORORITY INITIATION.” Cheezburger, April 1, 2011. https://cheezburger.com/4602459136/sorority-initiation. (13)

Endnotes

1.  “History - Alpha Delta Pi,” n.d. https://alphadeltapi.org/page/history/.

2.  “Fraternity and Sorority - New World Encyclopedia,” n.d. https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Fraternity_and_sorority#Early_beginnings.

3.  Carly Beard. “Legally Blonde LSAT Clip,” November 4, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puyVsj0r08E.

4.  “Binge Drinking, Greek-Life Membership, and First-Year Undergraduates: The ‘Perfect Storm’ for Drugging Victimization.” Journal of School Violence, 2017. https://heinonline-org.ezproxy.bu.edu/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/wjsv16&id=173&collection=journals&index=.

5.  Klinger, Gavin. “Hazing: Its Beginning and Evolution Throughout History.” Medium, April 22, 2018. https://medium.com/@gavinklinger57/hazing-its-beginning-and-evolution-throughout-history-fee3cd68ca06.

6.  Bartowwe. “Sorority Hazing (Washing Machine) | USC Digital Folklore Archives,” April 24, 2016. http://folklore.usc.edu/sorority-hazing-washing-machine/.

7. Hazing. “Hazing Statistics | Hazing,” n.d. https://hazing.umd.edu/hazing-statistics.

8.  Scott, Catie. “Borg Names We’re Sick of Seeing — Jerk Magazine.” Jerk Magazine, April 4, 2023. https://jerkmagazine.net/9mfehhs6kt2vag7aqn19w0hd2b5dka/2023/4/3/borg-names-were-sick-of-seeing.

9. “Navigating the Risks of Party Rape in Historically White Greek Life at an Elite College: Women’s Accounts.” Sociology of Education, 2023.

10.  “Alcohol Use in the Greek System.” National Library of Medicine, n.d.

11. Perkins, Michael J. “A History of Hazing.” The Dartmouth Review, March 21, 2020. https://dartreview.com/a-history-of-hazing/.

12.  Dahuwy87. “Sorority Paddling.” Dahuwy87, July 3, 2015. https://dahuwy87.pixnet.net/blog/post/17561965.

13.  “SORORITY INITIATION.” Cheezburger, April 1, 2011. https://cheezburger.com/4602459136/sorority-initiation.