What Happened After 2 Colleges Banned Hard Liquor at Fraternities

Source: https://www.chronicle.com/

By Andy Tsubasa Field

October 21, 2018

In 2015, Jason Blincow, then president of the U. of Missouri at Columbia’s Interfraternity Council, helped introduce a ban on hard liquor for fraternity and sorority members.

Three years ago, when beer wasn’t allowed in certain fraternity houses at the University of Missouri at Columbia, some of their members turned to drinking more liquor, said Jason Blincow, who was president of the campus’s Interfraternity Council at the time. Some members reasoned that drinking the more-potent liquor – easily hidden in bottles and cups – was a better way to thwart the council’s auditors, who would turn up at parties unannounced and report violations.

That culture of secrecy, he said, is partly what prompted him and other fraternity leaders to decide to ban hard liquor at Mizzou in 2015.

The university isn’t the only one to ban hard liquor at fraternities and sororities in an effort to prevent life-threatening accidents. Still, it’s unclear how effective the bans have been, even when they have drawn much-needed buy-in from students.

“Some of the worst stories that [people] have probably heard from fraternities all over the country is regarding alcohol poisoning, things happening behind closed doors,” Blincow said. “We were trying to eliminate that kind of behavior because we felt that people were hiding in bedrooms, or hiding when somebody is feeling sick because they were afraid of getting in trouble, instead of getting someone help when they needed it.”

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Last month the North-American Interfraternity Conference, which represents 66 national and international fraternities, called on its chapters to ban hard liquor at all facilities and campus events. Under the new rule, the member fraternities have until September 2019 to ban all drinks that exceed a 15-percent alcohol content, except when served by a third-party vendor.

Fraternity chapters at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities became the first to follow the rule, on September 30, according to the Minnesota Daily. The campus newspaper reported that fraternity leaders had given the chapters until Halloween to write the ban into their bylaws.

Some fraternities are already following a campuswide ban on hard liquor. For example, in the same year Mizzou set its ban, Purdue University renewed its own, from 2010. In both cases, it was student fraternity leaders who put the ban into effect.

Behind Closed Doors

But the process at Mizzou was not without obstacles. In 2014 administrators met with fraternity alumni to discuss ways to prevent sexual assaults of women in fraternity houses. What resulted was a draft proposal that recommended barring women from the houses from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. three nights a week, conducting drug tests on all Greek members, banning fraternities and sororities from holding social events outside Columbia, and prohibiting hard liquor, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

The first three ideas didn’t resonate with many students. Twitter accounts expressed anger about the recommended drug tests and curfew, and they drew hundreds of followers. The Panhellenic Council, representing Mizzou’s sororities, criticized both measures in a letter. The letter, however, did support a ban on out-of-town social events, saying they “created certain ‘expectations’ for guests of any gender that attend as a fraternity man’s date,” including sharing a bed.

The hard-liquor ban was more popular. In 2015 the student-run Interfraternity Council updated its bylaws to prohibit liquor at all fraternity houses and events, according to Blincow, the former president.

Stricter enforcement by the university was intended to go hand in hand with the new policy, Blincow said. As a result of the ban, council leaders said auditors, hired to monitor fraternity houses at events, were required to report incidents directly to the administration’s Office of Student Accountability and Support, instead of the council, according to the Columbia Missourian. Blincow and council members decided that increasing enforcement would bring more transparency, he said.

“People were drinking in fraternity houses just like kids drink in dorms when they aren’t supposed to,” Blincow said. “So I think the issue is that it was happening anyways, and we didn’t want it happening behind closed doors.”

“It was happening anyways, and we didn’t want it happening behind closed doors.”

However, despite the 2015 policy shift Blincow described, the rules suggest that the Interfraternity Council has reversed course since then. According to its constitution, which was updated in September 2017, reports from auditors go to the fraternity’s president, the chapter adviser, and council leaders. If those people determine that a violation has occurred, the report “can be forwarded to the Office of Student Conduct.”

Christian Basi, a Mizzou spokesman, and Jonathan Rummel, the coordinator of the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life, declined to comment on how the ban has been enforced.

So it’s unclear how successful the ban has been. But Mizzou fraternities have been disciplined for violating the hard-liquor ban five times over the past four years, according to the campus’s “Community Conduct History” list. During the same period, fraternities have committed 83 other alcohol-related violations, the list says.

‘Blackout Culture’

Purdue banned hard liquor in 2010 after a student died at an off-campus party and a semester saw more than two dozen alcohol-related medical calls, said Brandon J. Cutler, the university’s associate dean of students. As a result, the Interfraternity Council Council and the Panhellenic Association prohibited alcohol at chapter houses and social events for a week before deciding to ban hard liquor altogether. Five years later, Greek leaders renewed the ban.

At Purdue, unlike Mizzou, a group of student leaders, not third-party auditors, enforces the liquor ban, Cutler said. The Interfraternity Council then determines what penalties to impose.

If those students catch fraternity members not complying with the rules, they file a report with the council. When such a complaint is filed, the administration conducts an investigation, Cutler said. Then students on the council decide if there has been a violation.

Purdue’s administration publishes a list showing violations and penalties the council imposes on fraternity chapters, providing an incentive for fraternities to follow the rules.

“The students are the ones that lead all the meetings,” Cutler said. “So if a report came in, the university has a role in assisting with the investigation, but the adjudication, sanctioning process, all of the compliance that takes place after, is run by student leaders.”

There have been some signs of improvement at Purdue’s fraternities since the ban took effect, Cutler said. Since 2010 the fraternities’ cumulative GPA has increased, from 2.91 to 3.11, he said, and their membership has grown. But Katie Sermersheim, vice provost for student life, said that trends could have been influenced by an increase in enrollment from students with higher high-school grades.

On Purdue’s student-organization sanctions list, one fraternity is identified as having violated the alcohol ban at an unspecified date. Meanwhile, 10 other frats have incurred active sanctions over various alcohol-related violations. Sixteen other fraternities have been disciplined over the past two years, but those penalties have expired.

“The hard-alcohol ban has helped to improve the overall health and safety of our members, guests, and organizations.”

“We believe the hard-alcohol ban has helped to improve the overall health and safety of our members, guests, and organizations,” Cutler said.

Steven Lorenz, a former president of the Phi Delta Theta chapter at Purdue, said he supports the ban. Fraternities can be a part of the solution to what he calls “blackout culture,” he said.

“We are able to develop people, specifically men, who are able to be productive members of society. And not just focused on drinking,” he said. “We were founded on ‘sound learning, friendship, and moral rectitude.’ On the document that governs us, nowhere does it say, ‘We have to drink beer or hard alcohol on the weekends.'”