On many college campuses, fraternities own the social scene. They host the parties. They provide the alcohol. They set the rules.
But as more colleges are looking to combat sexual assaults, some observers are suggesting that sororities begin to exert their own control over the social scene, by hosting parties in their own houses.
That idea was floated in a New York Times article last week that has sparked discussion inside and outside colleges. But sorority leaders and experts on Greek life see a future of sorority ragers as highly unlikely, for reasons that are grounded in law and in culture.
Among the key issues:
Most sororities don’t allow alcohol.
Sororities have traditionally not permitted alcohol in their houses. That isn’t a top-down policy of the National Panhellenic Conference, the umbrella organization for 26 national and international women’s sororities. The policy is decided by each sorority’s national chapter, said Julie Johnson, the panhellenics chairman for the conference. Ms. Johnson said she wasn’t aware of any member organizations that allow alcohol to be served in their houses.
Member sororities do host social events at other venues, a spokeswoman for the conference added, usually with licensed bartenders and security precautions. “I don’t see the open hosting of common events happening in our facilities,” Ms. Johnson said.
The rule stems from tradition. When sororities were created, Ms. Johnson said, they had the same rules that residence halls imposed on female students: no alcohol, no men staying over, and a house mother or dormitory mother to supervise.
But there are legal reasons as well, Ms. Johnson said, because many women who live in sorority houses are under 21.
Sorority houses aren’t built for partying.
Unlike fraternity houses, sorority houses aren’t built to host raucous parties.
Most fraternity houses feature rooms—often basements—designed to host social events. They are usually large spaces with concrete floors and dim lighting, said Gentry R. McCreary, an affiliated consultant with the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management, a consulting and law firm that advises colleges.
Sorority facilities are generally “a heck of a lot nicer” than fraternity houses, said Alexandra Robbins, author of Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities. “They don’t have the giant, sticky-floored basements or the architecture that would host enough students in your typical party atmosphere.”
At Cornell University, where a third of undergraduates are members of Greek organizations, sororities were built to be only living facilities, said Travis T. Apgar, senior associate dean of students. As a result, holding large-scale social events in such an environment can grow complicated for many reasons, including logistical factors like local building and fire codes.
“There have been students who have believed that sororities should be able to host their own social events with alcohol,” Mr. Apgar said. “But at the same time, when they think about the quality of living in their sorority houses and so forth, they also see a great deal of benefits to not having alcohol in their house.”
Parties would not only be likely to wreak havoc on the houses themselves; they would also change the environment of the houses.
“People live in these houses, they sleep there,” Ms. Robbins said. “For a sorority sister, that means there’s going to be even more pressure to attend parties when some sisters or many sisters who I spoke to don’t want to have to go to every mixer.”
An even bigger obstacle is that some sororities do not have their own houses but instead use university housing, as at Auburn University. In such situations, the sorority must observe university housing rules, which may prohibit alcohol altogether.
On the 685 campuses where National Panhellenic Conference organizations have chapters, only 304 offer some form of housing, according to the spokeswoman.
Parties bring great liability.
Opening sorority houses to parties would also open them up to legal liability that sororities have been able to avoid by not holding such events.
“Sororities are businesses,” Ms. Robbins said. “They’re not going to want to pay the money for liability insurance involving (a) parties in the house and (b) alcohol in the house.”
To make this change, Mr. McCreary said, sororities would have to act against the advice of their lawyers and insurance companies. “I think that’s a tall order,” he said.
It’s possible, he said, that a progressive-minded group would pilot an opt-in program and pay higher insurance premiums to allow it to host such events. But, he added, it would take a group willing to say, “‘Yes, we understand this might expose us to some liability, but we really believe it might make our members safer.’”
A new venue may simply reproduce the same problems.
Experts also argue that moving parties from one venue to another would not solve the underlying problems.
“The issue is, to me, … not so much where the alcohol is being consumed, it’s how the alcohol is being consumed, that’s the problem,” Ms. Johnson said. Students are drinking to excess. They aren’t having a drink or two, but instead they’re getting “blackout drunk,” she said.
A better solution, Mr. McCreary argued, would be getting alcohol out of Greek houses entirely and hosting events in controlled, third-party environments. Removing the “residential component"—namely, upstairs bedrooms—would create a safer environment.
That’s the conversation Mr. McCreary would rather be having.
