Editorial Conversations: Greek Week
By: Editorial Staff
The question posed to our editorial staff was: Should Greek Week have been canceled for 2010?
Read their responses below.
Brandon Sherman, Class of 2010
Has Greek Week really been cancelled? I’m sure Lehigh’s fraternities and sororities will use the valuable life skills instilled by their “new member education” to pull together and more or less recreate the Week formerly known as Greek. We’ll barely miss the high school antics, after all.
Many students and alumni have been quick to dismiss the cancellation as another casualty of our administration’s “War on Fun.” That may be the case, but I won’t defend that position here. A deeper problem relates to how Lehigh students relate to the so-called “other.” The most divisive and threatening of these relations is the one between Greeks and non-Greeks, and the cancellation of Greek Week abets this division.
The administration reinforces the perception that Greeks are out-of-control coked-out alcoholic racist homophobic misogynists. At the same time, Greeks feel that their space on campus is under attack by both the administration and various student groups – whose antipathy towards Greeks is often influenced by sensationalist rumors.
One thing should be obvious: The Greeks are not monolithic. Plenty of houses hate other houses. Plenty of Greeks even hate their own houses. By continuing to paint 40% of Lehigh’s population with such broad strokes, we foment division within the student body.
Greek Week was one of the few events that at least pretended to encourage some interaction between Greeks and non-Greeks. Its cancellation will push the Greek community back into the very bubble that allowed this behavior to fester in the first place. The administration is wrong to think that bringing down a disciplinary hammer will strengthen Greek life in the long term. Only increased participation and scrutiny from the larger campus community will have the power to move social standards in the right direction.
Benjamin Mumma, Class of 2010
Last year, Greek week was a week-long period of perpetual drunkenness for some, and near perpetual drunkenness for others. Understandably, this resulted in several inappropriate acts which the administration deemed sufficient to order the cancellation of Greek Week for 2010.
Was this fair? Absolutely not. By all accounts, the inappropriate behavior was exhibited by two or three of Lehigh’s twenty-plus Greek organizations. Canceling Greek week is a sanction that punishes all of the fraternities and sororities who participated, many of whom did nothing wrong.
However, everyone can also agree that last year’s Greek week was not ideal. It is the job of the office of fraternity and sorority affairs to try to fix that. Apparently, they felt that two years was needed to do this. If that is the case, canceling Greek week could be justifiable to avoid a repeat of last year.
Was this justified though? Absolutely not. We are looking at a situation with an easy remedy. Make the punishments clear, and let everyone know that certain behavior could result in an individual’s or an organization’s immediate removal from Greek week. If necessary, ban last year’s guilty parties from participating this year. Replace events that may encourage inappropriate activity with other events. This process shouldn’t take two years, it should be done by now.
Clearly, the cancelation was designed to be a statement and indictment against the Greek community, and was excessive based on what actually happened.
Therefore, the Greek community should respond. If the Lehigh is going to continue to tie Greeks down with unnecessary regulations and punishments until the system dies off, Greek life might as well go out with a bang, and this is the year to do it.
Trevor Drummond, Class of 2010
Before I weigh in on this topic wholeheartedly, I offer full disclosure: I’ve written about the Greeks only once before – in my piece entitled Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, and it concerned the attitudes of the community towards the Technology in Society living program. The tone of the article leaned towards the preservation of the system with the understanding that good expansion could come through special interest houses, which are (as the article explains) quite similar to Greek houses, without a set of letters.
Considering the circumstances, as I understand them, Greek Week was cancelled by the Fraternity Management Association, a conglomerate that is Lehigh-run with administration from each house on-board. If this is not correct, I apologize.
If such is, in fact, accurate, then the dispute seems to center around motives and motivation, and not an undue action by the administration’s part.
I did not attend Greek Week last year. I read the coverage, I made my biases, and I sort of left it to the wayside. My understanding was that there were derogatory remarks made publically (derogatory as defined by The Brown & White, or some PC attendees), and someone may or may not have wet herself.
The fact is, the University’s attitude towards the behavior of its students has very much been characterized by the scolded, naughty child approach. Guilt is often assumed before evidence, and the weight of opinion always seems to stand on the side that reads nicer in public relations reports (aka, the politically correct side). I for one believe that political correctness is a means for control. I believe that people do not intrinsically have the right not to be offended, because oftentimes, their offense offends me, so it’s an absurd, moot catch-22. All this considered, while I’m sure some individuals said or did things that everyone would’ve dismissed had it been a private affair, clearly it was a public affair, and someone cried foul.
Should this constitute cancellation? That’s a hard call. If the Greeks really want to shed their reputation as entitled, underachieving, shallow beings that dominate the school’s social scene by force (I’m not saying that these descriptions are accurate or inaccurate – I’m merely restating a partial perception consensus culled from many articles, editorials, and other published works), then it would be in their best interests to rethink their approach.
