BEFORE we begin, let me just take my hat off to both sides in this debate. Over the past weeks, the University community has been privilege to some of the most clever fliers ever posted on Grounds. If every student organization marketed themselves this well, you would hear far fewer complaints about student apathy.
The fliers posted two weeks ago launched a debate that is fairly unprecedented here at the University. It is common for students here to either bemoan or praise the Greek system - or at least their individual part of it. We form judgments - often extreme ones - about the Greek system early on in our time here at the University. Back when there was first-year fall rush, many students had either written-off completely or embraced entirely the Greek system two weeks into the school year. Even with rush moved back to January, it does not take new students much longer to form their own opinions about this system.
Rather than criticizing those fliers, we should use them as an opportunity to re-evaluate our own attitudes toward a system that claims roughly one of three University students - and influences an even greater number.
The most striking aspect of the fliers was the humor. Certainly, a couple of them might have been a bit sensationalist, but come on. A.C. Slater? Balky and Cousin Larry? Hasselhoff? Now that's comedy if I've ever seen it. The fliers posted in response to the first wave were good as well. How do you spell funny? M-U-L-L-E-T. That's how. But more than making most of us laugh, the fliers articulated the sentiments of a sizable portion of the University community. While about one-third of the University's undergraduates are in a fraternity or sorority, there is a large cross-section of the student body - not to mention faculty and administrative figures - that views the Greek system with disdain.
They feel this way for the reasons the fliers talked about: the hazing, the alcohol and drug abuse, the closeted and sometimes - as that Confederate flag photo illustrated - not-so-closeted bigotry, as well as others. To be sure, it is highly unfair and untrue to paint everyone in the Greek system with such a broad brush. But at the very least, these fliers laid out in words and pictures how much of the University perceives some of its own. These perceptions are largely exaggerated and in many cases undue, but the fact is that this is how a significant portion of the University's students, faculty and administrators feel, though it is unlikely they could express themselves as well as the fliers did. Once both sides acknowledge these perceptions, we can move on to the fliers' true intent - a real dialogue among and between the different groups.
Every year it seems that various groups within the University community hold some sort of forum on race relations or gender relations or any other kind of relations. These are well-intentioned. The problem is that only those with a vested interest - and thus a pre-formed opinion - ever show up to observe or participate. Dialogue only helps when it is taking place out on the streets, in dorm rooms, in libraries and in students' homes around Grounds. This is the way students form and alter opinions, through conversations with friends and peers. It would not have happened in the Chemistry auditorium with a pre-selected panel. Only the virulently anti-Greek and unabashedly pro-Greek students would have bothered to show up. And you can be sure that none of them would have changed their minds no matter what was said. While many would find them offensive, those fliers at the very least got people thinking about why they feel the way they do about the Greek system. Too often many of us simply coast along on our opinions built upon stereotypes, instead of examining the reasons behind such beliefs.
The reactions to the anti-rush fliers were varied. Some students gave the appropriate reaction: laughing and thinking about the fliers' message. Others took them far too seriously and responded with an almost violent level of passion. Still others responded to the fliers in kind. Fortunately, all the sides in question used humor as the guiding principle in making these fliers. Not only was it effective, but in many ways the humor that the posters employed helped moderate an otherwise harsh anti-rush message.
We must bear in mind that these fliers likely were not intended as personal affronts to anyone in particular. While many found them understandably offensive, at least they made us dig up and re-evaluate some previously hardened views about a large segment of the University community. If you detest rush, why do you feel that way? On the other hand, if you adore the Greek system, how do you respond to the established hazing tradition? These are the questions we need to ask ourselves, especially in light of the troubles fraternities are facing at campuses across the nation. When students can engage one another in dialogue on such an important issue, the community only can benefit from the exchange. And, one hopes, that was the posters' intent from the start.
(Timothy DuBoff's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily.)
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