In response to Liz McGrew’s letter on Friday, it’s ridiculous to think that sorority recruitment is somehow superior to that of fraternities because sororities “actually follow the rules.” The truth is, sororities follow the rules because, due to the nature of formal recruitment, they will actually get in trouble for breaking the rules, whether they be common sense (no alcohol during rush) or completely asinine (must have more girls than guys in Facebook profile pictures). If sororities were thrown into an open recruitment scenario like fraternities, they would undoubtedly “completely disregard” the rules like fraternities supposedly do.

I also hate to trample on your expert opinion on what fraternity rush involves, but speaking from experience, as both a rushee and a rusher, I have never seen “ambulance worthy levels of alcohol” or hazing during rush, and I fail to see how those things would attract anybody to a fraternity. Alcohol use and abuse does exist in the fraternity system, exactly as it does in the college environment in general. Hazing also exists in pledgeship (FYI: that’s the part after recruitment is over), but in the largest Greek system in the world, surprise, there are bad apples that don’t live up to our collective values. Alcohol abuse and hazing are also frequent occurrences in sororities, and they are problems that all Greeks need to deal with, not just the fraternities.

As far as the “ridiculously unbalanced” sizes of fraternities and sororities, if you’d done some basic research, you’d have found that the IFC and PHC have roughly the same membership numbers. The difference is that while 18 PHC sororities participate in formal recruitment, there are 45 IFC fraternities competing against each other for recruitment. Do a little fifth grade math, and you’ll figure out why sororities are, on average, larger than fraternities, just like virtually every other Greek system.

As a proud fraternity member, I’m used to deflecting the unfair stereotypes and generalizations that abound about the Greek system. It is entirely pointless and counterproductive to respond to criticism of an element within the Greek system by, in turn, criticizing another element within the same community.

Unlike Ms. McGrew, I’ve decided not to include my letters after my name, because these rants bring no credit to them, but only serve to illustrate that the modern Greek system has its problems, and that divisive bickering can’t solve them, only a united Greek community.

Zach Gooding

Senior in ACES