Reform efforts

A key issue in this area is whether or not certain US fraternities, Dutch and Belgian corpora, UK exclusive clubs and Australian colleges that break rules – and sometimes laws – can be reformed and, importantly, be trusted to maintain that reform. The historical evidence across societies but especially in the US raises scepticism. The record of such student clubs in the Netherlands, for example, conveys that repetitive reform efforts within the past six decades have often met – despite fervent and repetitive assurances of betterment – resistance and recidivism. Indeed, it seems that the hardline traditional ones have no intention of changing and cannot be relied on to carry out any proposed reforms for any length of time. As Wade (2017) asserts, the traditional US fraternities are highly resistant to reform as their raison d’être is to remain a near autonomous and exclusively male institution with near unassailable ‘traditions’. Importantly, this remains a grave matter related to risk that can be fatal and to gender-based violence that is serious in its consequences, and both forms of misconduct can be clearly defined as criminal. Does this lead to abolishing such institutions? That in turn raises the issue of what conduct is unacceptable in the university. It could be asked whether male students masturbating into women’s shampoo and filming it are suited to be in any academic community. And the same goes for breaking down the door of a fellow student’s bedroom, trashing it and throwing everything out of the window, or publicly urinating on a female member of the university’s staff during an event that staff were encouraged to attend by that very student society.

But however obnoxious those practices may be viewed, there can surely be no ambiguity when it comes to indisputably serious crime along with culpable negligence and institutional failure. On the latter there is strong evidence of a defensive wall of denial and selective perception particularly in some arrogant, self-congratulatory universities that allowed offenders to get away with forms of abuse over long periods. Regarding this most disturbing matter it appears that the situation in the US among some fraternities and some colleges is extreme compared to the UK and especially to the Netherlands.