Fraternity culture under scrutiny in wake of Cornell allegations

Amna Nawaz:

The fallout from the 2024 sexual assault allegations at Cornell University continues. Tonight, faculty members plan to introduce a resolution of no confidence in how the university's leadership handled an alleged gang rape at the Chi Phi fraternity.

The Jane Doe in that case is suing the university and has accused seven men of the assault, all of whom deny any wrongdoing. Cornell has since banned the Chi Phi fraternity. And university President Michael Kotlikoff suspended all fraternity parties through the end of the academic year. He also committed to a thorough review of fraternity life at Cornell to determine whether and how it can safely continue.

For more now, we turn to Jud Horras. He's president and CEO of the North American Interfraternity Conference, and to John Hechinger. He's a deputy managing editor of Bloomberg News and author of the book "True Gentlemen: The Broken Pledge of America's Fraternities."

Welcome to you both, and thank you for being here.

And, John Hechinger, I will begin with you because the Cornell case is forcing a closer examination of fraternities in America. In your view, based on your work, is this case an outlier or is it indicative of a larger culture or pattern of behavior within fraternities?

John Hechinger, Deputy Managing Editor, Bloomberg News:

Well, I think it's a particularly horrific example of a pattern of behavior that I have seen throughout my research.

If we're talking about sexual assault, fraternity houses are a dangerous place for women. My research shows that women who go to fraternity parties run 1.5 times the risk of sexual assault, and sorority women who are most exposed to fraternity parties run three times the risk of rape.

And in my book, I looked at one very one large fraternity. I looked at 230 chapters over five years and found 15 examples of sexual assault. As with the case in Cornell, most of them kind of did not receive any kind of reckoning. I only found one case where anyone was -- faced criminal charges.

So this is definitely a broader problem in fraternity life that I think now is -- people are starting to address.

Amna Nawaz:

Jud Horras, I'd love for you to respond to that. Does this deserve more attention and scrutiny?

Jud Horras, President and CEO, North American Interfraternity Conference: Well, let's start with Cornell. Those men, directly and indirectly, they agreed to a higher standard by being a fraternity man, and they completely failed that.

The closure of the chapter, the expulsion of members is the right decision. Let's let the courts play out on the rest. But we know that. We also know that there's a quarter-of-a-million young men in a fraternity today in college. And the vast majority of them are having a wonderful experience.

But specific to fraternities, we have to take accountability for any problems that we create. But it's important to note, even Cornell in their study, follow-up study, said you were twice as likely to have sexual misconduct happen in a residence hall on campus than you were in a fraternity house.

So we have to lead the change. So many of the undergraduates I talked to are angry about what happened at Cornell, that it represents -- in some way is connected to them. And we are redirecting that anger into addressing cultures on their campus and in their chapters.

Amna Nawaz:

John Hechinger, respond to what you just heard there, especially in terms of the idea that there are similar crimes, similar misconduct being carried out across college campuses, not necessarily just at fraternities, which is an alarming issue we can talk about separately, but why the focus on fraternities in your view?

John Hechinger:

There's a sort of disproportionate amount of drinking and sort of out-of-control behavior at fraternities.

Fraternity men and sorority women are among the heaviest drinkers on campus, and fraternity men are hosting parties where there's an enormous amount of underage drinking that's not well supervised; 75 percent of the people in fraternities are underage.

And yet they're kind of the hosts and the unofficial bartenders at -- on most campuses. And what people in public health told me is, that's kind of a recipe for a dangerous environment, where sexual assaults are likely to happen.

And, again, I would point out that Cornell found that half of the women and affiliated with sorority life said they were they were subject to sexual assault, which was almost twice the level of those who weren't. So I think there's -- there is a disproportionate risk there. And I think that's why people are so concerned.

Amna Nawaz:

Jud, go ahead.

Jud Horras:

Well, again, you're citing what sorority women -- it doesn't say who did it.

And this is kind of, I think, confirmation bias sometimes people have. Let's look at the facts. We advocated for a federal law that was enacted two years ago, along with parents who've lost sons to hazing. Part of that is, you have to list all student organization discipline.

So if you go to the Cornell Web site, as an example, which is consistent, five of the seven student organizations listed last year for hazing were not all-male fraternities. They were sports clubs and other business fraternities that are co-ed.

So we have to take responsibility for our actions, no doubt about it. That's why we're advocating for -- on hazing specifically, we have had a dozen states where we have advocated and got stronger felony criminal laws. Part of our approach is, we are -- we have to hold individuals visibly and publicly accountable for this behavior, because we can do prevention work, which we do, and invest millions of dollars in it.

But if students see other students get away with bad behavior and not be held accountable, all of the prevention work is useless.

Amna Nawaz:

We're focusing a lot on Cornell here, Jud, but there's been other headlines people have been focusing on. There was the University of Arizona that said this month it was suspending fraternity activity after misconduct reports. There was an 18-year-old who died during hazing at Northern Arizona University.

There were 14 people arrested at Penn State for running a cocaine trafficking ring out of two fraternities. Taken together, do these suggest to you a deeper problem or a series of isolated incidents?

Jud Horras:

Well, look, any student that does cocaine trafficking needs to be held criminally accountable. And so I see that and the Northern Arizona situation as confirmation that individual accountability, very publicly.

And in cases of sexual misconduct, they're charged with a crime very publicly, students have to see this as unacceptable behavior. I want to be clear, we accept that we are a part of a culture and a system that we have to address. That's why we have done so much work on state laws, on federal laws, on prevention work.

But I tell everyone, when you work with 18-to-22-year-old men, you are constantly every year inheriting a new group of freshmen. Prevention education is critical. Individual accountability and group accountability is critical. So we accept that. But another statistic people have to keep in mind, nearly 1,500 students died last year from alcohol-related injuries.

Not all of those are in fraternities and sororities. The value that we're providing to young men, even today, in the middle of all of this, we have record enrollment, is enduring, and that's what fraternity is about, is doing the positives. It's a lifelong brotherhood and connection. It's helping them with career readiness.

It's addressing a lot of the mental health challenges in young men today and the desire to even go to higher ed.

Amna Nawaz:

John Hechinger, I have less than a minute here.

But we said that we saw the Cornell president says he's going to carry out a thorough review. Jud Horras has been talking about accountability. What kind of reforms, what kind of kind of ability should come out of this review?

John Hechinger:

Well, I think that there has to be a really hard look at whether fraternities can responsibly serve liquor at events on campus.

And I think what Cornell has shown is that that's been a real problem. And I think the fraternities and the universities that have made -- have made a real difference in terms of behavior have cut back on alcohol abuse and really alcohol at parties.

So the question is whether fraternities can kind of disengage and disentangle the brotherhood that Jud is talking about from some of these kind of darker impulses that they have that's often fueled with out-of-control drinking and drug abuse.

And, yes, people can be held individually accountable, but it's pretty hard to do that on a case-by-case. The police aren't usually equipped to police underage drinking. Sexual assault is often not investigated, as we have seen. So, I mean, many people that I spoke to for the book saw this as a public health problem.

And a public health problem often involves changing a campus culture, a drinking culture. And the heaviest drinkers on campus are at fraternities and sororities. So, if you want to cut back on that, you have to cut back on the drinking in Greek life. There's no way around it.

Amna Nawaz:

Certainly lots more to discuss here. We will have to leave it there for now, though.

Thank you to you both, John Hechinger and Jud Horras, for being here.

Jud Horras:

Thank you.

John Hechinger:

Thank you.