UR Greek Life: Failed Reform and The Case for Abolition

Introduction

In light of recent events depicting members of the University of Richmond’s (UR) Greek Life engaging in acts of racism and sexual assault, the Abolish Richmond Greek Life movement has seen a resurgence in UR community members calling for the abolition of the Interfraternity Council and the National Panhellenic Conference organizations that represent chapters across seven fraternities and eight sororities, respectively. Proponents of dismantling Greek Life at UR argue that the institution discriminates against students on the basis of race, gender, sexuality, and other characteristics Photo Credit: Ryan Doherty citing that fraternities and sororities were designed to other students who are not heterosexual, white, and hailing from a place of socioeconomic-privilege. The exceptions to these forms of exclusion are Greek Life chapters that were created in response to the isolation of marginalized students, such as Alpha Phi Alpha, the first historically Black intercollegiate fraternity. Disagreement and pushback against Abolish Richmond Greek Life has also arisen, with supporters of reformation to Greek Life stating that abolition is unnecessary and arguing that the institution is one of philanthropy and service to the UR community simply in need of systemic change.

This article will investigate and refute two common arguments for reform, closely analyzing the Center for Student Involvement’s (CSI) internal review concerning UR fraternities and sororities and the specific measures implemented afterward which have failed to address several major concerns of the Abolish Richmond Greek Life movement.

Greek Life as a Catalyst for Philanthropy and Service

Supporters of reforming UR Greek Life argue that various chapters are integral in spurring philanthropic efforts, given the emphasis fraternities and sororities put on assisting organizations which aim to improve the well-being of historically marginalized groups. The intention to offer support through volunteer efforts, donations, and other philanthropic means may seem virtuous and sincere; however, no public documentation exists on the financial impact UR Greek Life organizations have, making its efforts performative and insubstantial to the missions of these chapters. Furthermore, this lack of transparency in tracking philanthropy demonstrates an interest in portraying Greek Life as a group of social organizations which “speak and do good” but have no empirical evidence to stand on to determine whether their efforts are actually making a difference. A lack of statistical data on the service hours members of UR Greek Life collect in combination with the donations each chapter contributes 11 per year makes it difficult to not only discern whether Interfraternity and Panhellenic organizations are functioning philanthropically, in the way many fraternity and sorority presidents claim, but also leaves the impression that Greek Life at UR consist of groups on campus without a history of conflict and oppression. Philanthropy may seem like a vital tool in supporting the wider community, but the lack of oversight in tracking the efforts chapters make demonstrates that the primary goal of UR Greek Life is not to serve the community but instead to uplift its own image. Better tracking of philanthropy along with other performance metrics was a key issue in CSI’s internal review of Greek Life organizations at UR. “Prioritized System-Wide Recommen dations” published by CSI in its review indicate a requirement for chapters to govern themselves in a way that allows for improved collection of data which assesses performance; however, this recommendation does not provide information on how fraternities and sororities will gauge the impact they have in areas such as donating to charities and serving local communities through volunteer efforts. Reform in data tracking has thus only addressed the existence of the issue, rather than ensuring chapters are promoting a culture of philanthropy.

Increasing Diversity Through Improved Advertising of Greek Life

Along with benefits like philanthropy, proponents of UR Greek Life argue that issues of exclusion can be solved through strengthening efforts to advertise chapters to the broader UR student population, making abolition an extreme measure to one that can be solved by restructuring the way fraternities and sororities address inclusivity. In an Op-Ed published by William Barnett through the UR Collegian, the former president of the Interfraternity Council outlines several reasons to improve communication of the existence of Greek Life on UR’s campus, including the need to address “problems of acceptance and inclusion,” while at the same time underscoring the importance of these issues occurring within chapters themselves by declaring that they are not exclusive to the institution as a whole. The solution that Barnett proposes is to expose more students, specifically those underrepresented in chapters, to the presence of Greek Life organizations. However, Barnett does not demonstrate specifically what issues of acceptance and inclusion fraternities and sororities are experiencing, nor does he address the plausibility of students marginalized by the institution avoiding Greek Life because of its discriminatory roots. It is also unlikely that improved advertising measures will help increase member diversity given the obstacles preventing low-income students, students of color, and students of diverse gender and sexual identities from joining in the first place, which include a nonexhaustive list of accounts of racism, homophobia, and sexual assault documented by ex and current members of UR chapters themselves. Improving student diversity within UR Greek Life will not solve the issues of exclusivity that marginalized students face; it will only expose them to the biases and stereotypes which chapters hold. Likewise, increased advertising is not a strategy to help fraternities and sororities to achieve reform. Addressing their histories of racism, classism, interpersonal violence, transphobia, homophobia, sexism, and ableism will. However, given the views of current student leaders within UR Greek Life as well as the failure of the CSI’s internal review to emphasize the problematic history of the institution, reform will not be successful in restructuring chapters that refuse to acknowledge the oppression that they were founded on.

The Case for Abolition Failed Reform

Abolition of UR Greek Life is a complex issue that is due, in no small part, to the lack of data fraternities and sororities collect to prove the positive impact they have on campus. Additionally, the financial stake UR holds in dismantling Greek Life is large given the influence alumni donors who participated in various chapters have in donating funds for organizations on campus. Both alumni and current students alike argue that Greek Life is integral to UR members’ socialization and that the institution also provides an outlet for charitable and philanthropic efforts. Although, neither of these claims can be corroborated with institutional data that measures the performance of UR fraternities and sororities. The CSI’s internal review has attempted to resolve the issue of tracking chapters’ impact but does not clearly demonstrate what UR Greek Life must do to report on performance metrics. In section “E” of CSI’s “Prioritized System-Wide Recommendations,” alterations to data tracking only suggest that fraternities and sororities implement a better system to prove that chapters are engaging with communities by donating and volunteering their time to various organizations The report also demands that UR itself enforce the guidelines that CSI has published but again does not specifically state how. Thus, the internal review conducted by CSI in addition to its results and recommendations indicates the need for abolishing UR Greek Life as the institution continues to lack accountability and transparency in the way chapters are governed, further allowing issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion to fester.

The Need for Abolition

Although the CSI’s internal review indicates and targets issues of discrimination and marginalization, its attempt at issuing system-wide recommendations has been lackluster, since the advice the review gives in improving diversity, equity, and inclusion within UR Greek Life does not recognize the oppressive history that the institution was built on, which is a core reason as to why many students call on UR to remove chapters entirely. The aim in reformation has thus only been on identifying issues to a degree of partiality that obscures why Greek Life is being investigated and reprimanded to begin with. This obscurity also lies in the fact that chapters are not willing to bring about systemic change to their operations and policies that students have had grievances with unless required to directly by UR itself.

Instead of listening to the communities that have experienced discrimination from UR Greek Life, the institution has decided to reform a system that was designed to exclude marginalized students; it is not one that has become broken through time, only further exposed in its discriminatory roots. Failed attempts at reformation highlight the necessity to remove Greek Life’s presence from UR’s campus. Otherwise, students will continue to encounter small and large-scale oppression by and from the guise of fraternities and sororities that promote themselves as philanthropic but only virtue signal to the communities they were developed to serve.

Discrimination & Marginalization

The impact of UR Greek Life, despite not being clear in its intended efforts of philanthropy and service, has been documented by numerous accounts of discrimination which continue to marginalize and other diverse communities of students on campus. Student experiences with micro and macro aggressions can be found on both Abolish Richmond Greek Life’s Instagram page as well as that of Abolish Greek Life. Additionally, the harms that Greek Life as a whole have perpetuated can be found within Abolish Greek Life’s posts concerning how the institution has discriminated against students on the basis of race, sexuality, and gender, issues of which are not isolated to UR fraternities and sororities but are amplified by the university’s history as a privately white institution.

Conclusion

Whether UR Greek Life is a conduit for philanthropy and service remains to be seen given both chapters’ lack of transparency and that of CSI’s. Volunteerism and donations to local organizations and communities are certainly examples of philanthropic means, but that service is lost when done in an attempt to illustrate fraternities and sororities as a benefit to the UR campus without recognizing the history of conflict and oppression that the institution was founded upon and continues to perpetuate. Reformation, when actioned with the intention of only solving internal struggles within chapters and not realizing the systemic harms of each organization, addresses only a fraction of a larger, more complex issue of UR Greek Life intending to exclude students who do not come from a state of overwhelming privilege.

The system-wide recommendations that CSI has provided to help improve the efficiency of Greek Life chapters in governing themselves and identifying issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion proves insubstantial since these measures do not indicate specifically how fraternities and sororities are going to implement the changes they suggest and the discrimination UR Greek Life has been involved in and was founded upon since its inception. The issues that supporters of UR Greek Life aim to alleviate will only be resolved when the identities and beliefs of students who suffer at the hands of these organizations are amplified, and the insistence to reform an institution that was designed to discriminate against them only diminishes the perspectives of these students, making abolition all the more necessary.