With the increased use of social media over the past decade, exposure to Greek life on college campuses has increased correspondingly.  It is quite often that news channels get a hold of students being hazed by older members of their fraternity or being forced to perform various embarrassing actions.  This negative light has opened a widespread debate about whether or not all fraternities and sororities should be banned for universities around the nation.  Supporters of this theory tend to argue that there is an increased use of alcohol and drugs among this population, hazing leads to fatalities each and every year, and that these students do not perform as well academically. While this notion to ban Greek life nationwide may seem to prevent crime and promote student wellness, the presence of these organizations on campuses give students the academic and social opportunities, which keep students on the right track to succeed not only academically but socially as well. 

As mentioned briefly above, the fraternity and sorority lifestyles tend to negatively impact students' lives. In an article published by the Journal of American College Health, literature is presented to show that upon joining a fraternity or sorority, students are on average twice as likely to use tobacco products, specifically cigarettes (Cheney et al. 266). However, this data presents its readers with an issue of bias; within the article lies the fact that researchers cannot be sure if data is caused by selection or socialization. Selection in this instance refers to students that are already interested in these activities are the ones that join fraternities and sororities.  Socialization would be the opposite, meaning that students have no predisposed desire to participate in such behavior, until exposed by the members in their particular Greek organization.  Therefore, their research does not hold a strong argument and the presence of tobacco use would remain the same even if Greek life were removed from campuses. In another article, the University of Michigan published a research report about selection and socialization on fraternity and sorority substance use. Their findings presented data that shows how fraternity and sorority members have higher levels of, "Heavy episodic drinking, annual marijuana use, and current cigarette smoking than non-members at all three waves" (McCabe et al. 1). However, in the same report McCabe et al. come to the conclusion that the study gives strong evidence of much higher rates of substance use among US college students who join fraternities and sororities starts before they get into college. With this being determined the connection can be made that undergraduate students who are already heavy substance users before starting college may tend to go through the idea of selection; to select specific fraternities or sororities with the reputation for heavy substance use just like themselves (2). 

Fraternities and sororities couldn't be the ones causing these risky behaviors if the ideas are already in students' heads before even arriving to college (selection). This shows that fraternity and sorority members aren't the problem when it comes to who/what causes risky behavior like substance use, but presents the idea that the prevention tactics currently in use to prevent teen substance use are failing. For example, there are many television advertisements that lead people to believe that drinking alcohol is acceptable on a regular basis because of the way that the ads show people having fun and enjoying themselves when they are consuming alcohol, which is almost the complete opposite of what prevention tactics show. Many students go through a prevention program in elementary school to scare kids away from such things, but when society is teaching young kids two different things it isn't logical to punish them for doing something that looks "natural" all over television. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism published an article on underage drinking, stating that, "Before age 9, children generally view alcohol negatively and see drinking as bad, with adverse effects. By about age 13, however, their expectancies shift, becoming more positive. As would be expected, adolescents who drink the most also place the greatest emphasis on the positive and arousing effects of alcohol" ("Alcohol Alert Underage Drinking 2). The many positive alcohol television ads which are viewed so frequently daily certainly don't help in preventing young kids from substance use. As stated earlier in the University of Michigan research report, the majority of these kids with the positive outlook on alcohol who start drinking early are the ones who join fraternities and sororities because of selection. The kids, specifically, the kids currently in fraternities and sororities cannot be to blame for the way the world around them makes alcohol seem so enjoyable, they cannot be banned by their respective colleges based on this reasoning. According to the NIAAA's same article on underage drinking, the first school based prevention programs were a complete failure, they were, "Primary informational and often used scare tactics; it was assumed that if youth understood the dangers of alcohol use, they would choose not to drink" ("Alcohol Alert Underage Drinking 5). If the supporters of banning Greek life claim that the goal for them is to prevent students from participating in such harmful behavior, like substance use, the supporters of banning Greek life then need to realize that banning Greek life won't fix those problems. When kids start out thinking at such an early age that substances are good, then you have to stop them at a younger age not by the time they get to college. If you wait to stop kids in college then they will simply continue to do what they are doing just off campus. Stronger actions need to be made by everyone, not just those who support a mass extermination of Greek life, to improve substance use prevention programs for elementary, middle, and high school students to catch kids at an earlier age before they begin trying substances. Also, a new law being passed that prevents ads from containing illegal substances including alcohol being shown or talked about on television or radio, I believe would do wonders in decreasing the number of kids who start using substances. Improvement in these areas will eventually trickle up from the next generation of elementary school children who are taught differently all the way until they become college students, ultimately lowering the entire percentage of college students involved in Greek life that use substances and thus improving the quality of all fraternity and sorority chapters and their members across the country. 

Having fewer fraternity and sorority members that consume substances will only improve the organizations in a positive way because having less substance users serving as members means more academically focused minded students. By having members that aren't under the influence of a substance they greatly improves their chances to improve their career and academic futures. Especially with the already made networking connections that Greek life already provides college students with, both while in college and once the students have graduated. In terms of undergraduate opportunities, members of Greek organizations are exposed to research opportunities, volunteer events, and philanthropy events. For example, volunteering to do a certain number of community service hours each semester and participating in philanthropy events are requirements to stay members of Greek organizations, while many other college students wouldn't take time out of their already busy to help the community. While the Greek community is always there to help. Each fraternity and sorority has a different philanthropy event for different causes to help those with different needs. For example, Alpha Delta Pi's main philanthropy events are for the Ronald McDonald House which is a corporation that provides care for very sickly children for little to no cost when families have bad finical difficulties, while Sigma Nu's main philanthropy events are for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. These philanthropy events and by volunteering to do community service show how fraternities and sororities stamp positive impacts on the communities around them by providing for those in need. The Greek life community reaches out to people in need much more frequently than their non-Greek life peers. For example, the New Jersey Institute of Technology published a list of facts about fraternity and sorority members, one fact being that, "The Greek system is the largest network of volunteers in the US, with members donating over 10 million hours of volunteer service each year" ("Fraternity and Sorority Facts" 1). Banning Greek life as a whole wound negatively impact the lives of millions greatly, by losing many volunteer hours and philanthropy donations the people that are less fortunate that count on the help of others just to get by day to day would be in critical need of help.

The network connections that come from joining a fraternity and sorority are made because of the pledging process. Greek life provides students with lasting relationships among each other because of the pledging process, which is what alumni recognize. This is what creates the many networking connections after graduation when trying to find a job. Pledge brothers create a bond as strong as right itself and as lasting as humanity. ("The Creed of Alpha Tau Omega" 1). This provides students an outlet to discuss emotional issues, academics, and many other things. These friendships essentially help boost morale and keep students happy having that many close friends to count on. The bond is something special that hardly anything comes close to, but something that comes close to it is the bond that you have with your teammates on the same sports team. For example, imagine yourself being on a state championship quality winning football team. To achieve your final goal at the end of the year of winning the championship you and every single one of your teammates has to go through hell and back during the season, starting with summer workouts in 100 degree heat, and two a day practices to prepare for the season. You get to a point of complete exhaustion were you want to quit and give up because it gets so awful and tiring with the daily practices and weekend games for months. The only thing that is there to keep you going, to achieve the goal of winning the championship, are your teammates going through the same shit as you. There comes a point where you stop caring about how you feel and start caring about whether or not your brothers are okay and that they all make it out of practice in one piece. It becomes so intense that the only way you can let emotions out, to not explode from stress and anxiety, is to yell words of encouragement at your brothers. To pick them up when they get down in exhausting situations during practice, when they look like they are about to just drop dead on the spot. You have to be there for them or your entire team will fail. You realize that you have to yell at them because at the end of the day they are doing the exact same thing for you, not giving up on anyone knowing that you need all of your brothers to be there at game time to even have a chance of competing in the championship game. An article in the Washington Informer puts the sense of brotherhood that being a pledge brother brings, "There was social prestige and friendship, and the sense of belonging to something great, something lasting, something eternal even" (Muhammad 26). The bond created is truly something that lasts a lifetime and something that brings join to every Greek member. To try and ban Greek organizations ultimately ending these powerful bonds should be considered criminal to end something so strong.

The pledging process however usually involves some type of hazing, some extreme cases were published in the Washington Times after a beloved Clemson student, Tucker Hipps, passed away from alleged hazing activities.  It states that Hipps' body was found in a lake after an early morning workout consisting of his pledge class and older members (Pace 1).   This article moves forward to discuss how Clemson proceeded to suspend all Greek life activities for roughly two months, "due to a 'high number' of incidents 'ranging from alcohol-related medical emergencies to sexual misconduct" (Pace 1).  According to Pace, Clemson is not the only university that has experienced an increased number of forbidden and illegal activities among fraternities.  Specifically, a student from the University of Southern Mississippi is being charged with grand larceny after members of his fraternity sent him on a hunt to capture two Chilean flamingos, ultimately resulting in the death of two flamingos.  Pace proceeds to describe in detail countless activities where pledges were humiliated, severely injured, or in rare instances killed.  These reasons provide a substantial argument for banning Greek life from campuses across the United States, but that is not to say that these Greek organizations will move to an off campus location and continue to participate in the same behaviors.  This would have to be something investigated by education officials and potentially have studies performed upon to determine the most likely outcome of underground or banned fraternities or sororities (2).

Another article from The Bulliten gives more of an overview of what can be done to prevent hazing on college campuses and what strategies are currently in place. In the article it is noted that, "Of students in the study who reported experiencing hazing behavior, nine out of 10 did not consider themselves to have been hazed" (Allan and Madden 1). This clearly shows that people in charge of overseeing if Greek organizations are run correctly need to educate the current fraternity and sorority members on what hazing is. If members actually know what is considered hazing then it will help them govern themselves in identifying and stopping hazing incidents from happening. This helps the supporters that advocate banning Greek life to see that efforts are currently being put forth to reduce these numbers of deaths, crimes and psychological damages caused by hazing. The article describes what hazing is defined as, several studies on what organizations are being hazed (not all are Greek), and the current research that is being done to determine what causes hazing and how to prevent hazing from happening in future situations on college campuses. 

The supporters in favor of banning college Greek life across the board, both fraternities and sororities, are most definitely in favor of protecting student from harming not only themselves, but others.  As presented in the presentation of research above, there are numerous cases where deaths have been reported, sexual misconducted has occurred, and physical punishment has been applied during the pledging process.  The idea that banning Greek life across the board may seem good at first thought, but when giving it other considerations, it could very easily get worse.  If students do not live on or near campus, they will be driving to participate in activities and if alcohol is involved, this would increase the number of DUIs and alcohol related deaths by vehicle.  Having Greek life on campus makes it able to be monitored by school officials, rather than simply the jurisdiction of the police department.  Simply banning Greek life from all universities could potentially have a negative outcome and even a severe adverse effect by forcing the organizations to move off campus. 

Rather than looking to ban Greek life, supporters of playing "advocates" of these students should look into improving these organizations so that they are not only sustainable, but a safe environment for students to be able to grow, network, and enjoy the college experience.  By improving prevention programs and ads on substance use that elementary and teenage students see and hear on a daily basis, and by removing all television and radio ads about alcohol and substance use that show substance use as being enjoyable, it will start the next generation of kids off on the right track. Thus, allowing the next generation of kids to come into Greek life already non-users, which will prevent many future accidents and problems that substance use causes Greek organizations. Also, by educating current students on hazing, what it is, how to spot it, and how to prevent it will prevent many future hazing violations from occurring in Greek life. These few steps can easily be made and will clearly put Greek organizations onto a smart path moving forward. This positive start needs to be put in place immediately because it is going to be a long process to fix the current Greek life system. These ideas aren't the complete solution but they are a start to a new and improved Greek life, one that still has the lifelong bonds that it is so popularly known for creating. As a current student at the University of South Carolina, I feel that there is most definitely a line between the actions described in these resources above and what actually occurs.  These descriptions are on a case-by-case basis and are simply more heavily scrutinized when the individual(s) are affiliated with a Greek organization.  For example, many high school students die each year from alcohol related deaths and you don't hear about them on the news, but when someone dies from alcohol and they are related to a Greek organizations most people know about it and it's on the news. This is probably due to the high number of deaths in high school vs the low number of deaths from hazing in college. For example, the CDC posted that there have been 4,300 deaths of underage kids each year from excessive drinking since 2010 ("Alcohol and Public Health" 1), versus only 57 deaths due to hazing since 2000 according to Fraternal Squib (1). This huge difference in numbers is no different than when the media shines a negative light when famous people commit a crime as opposed to a local, who commits the same crime and does not receive any shame. Also, it proves that the steps to improve the current prevention programs for young teens is of much higher importance than banning Greek life. Solving the main problem of underage drinking first will positively help Greek life in their efforts in becoming a better organization as a whole. This is how fraternity and sorority life in the long run will benefit positively from the new generation of informed kids as they become older eventually making their way to college More importantly, solving the problem of underage drinking will save the many lives of young children who don't even make it to college and get the opportunity to become a part of a special brotherhood with bonds that last a lifetime. Solving the main problem first, and then seeing its effects on whether or not Greek life is still a problem should be everyone's concern at this point with 4,300 deaths per year currently due to underage drinking. I believe that putting forth more effort into stopping underage drinking will make Greek life better overall in the near future.

