As the College Council reevaluates the ban, it is a good time to consider how the ban actually works on campus-and we don't think it's working. While the current "underground" fraternity system does not have any deleterious effects on the College social scene, it is nonetheless a presence on campus. The current guidelines largely go unenforced, and when a frat party or pledging activities take place on campus, the administration usually looks the other way but occasionally responds by giving individual members subtle slaps on the wrist.
It's simply unfair to sometimes punish certain people without utilizing the Disciplinary Committee. There is no uniform system in place for dealing with fraternity activities that occur on campus. While the infractions have been largely benign to date, if a more harmful violation of the ban were to occur, the College would lack a precedent for responding. The current system of unofficial punishment places an elephant in the room at our Fair College and runs counter to the open dialogue we work so hard to foster.
It would be impossible and undesirable to eliminate the fraternities altogether. They continue to play a role in the lives of our alumni who provide our endowment. More importantly for us, however, is that they consitute a small percentage of the College social scene, and they seem largely to evade the pratfalls that fraternities at larger universities with ingrained Greek systems experience, like dangerous and excessive hazing and violence toward women. The fraternities contribute to the social scene for a relatively high percentage of students with a minimum of negative effects on the community at large; indeed, we can't say that about every extracurricular group on campus.
The College currently engages in overt false advertising toward prospective and current students alike. While we do not encourage a change in the bylaws, uniform enforcement of the current system and a bit more honesty on the part of the administration would do everyone good.