Transcripts For CSPAN2 John Hechinger True Gentlemen 2017112

After this so leave your chairs where they are that would be great also we are recording this event with that question and answer portion of the program we just want to hear what you have to say and we are here for the book trump for the book true gentlemen of the Fraternity System across the country that have been getting a lot of publicity but specifically sigma Alpha Episilon with those under graduate brothers representatives have been extreme where we listening to john today with this . And also a finalist for the pulitzer two years ago to enjoy dinner conversation today as the top editor for Higher Education and the Washington Post contributor [applause] it is great to be here. So we will open for questions. How many if you are in fraternities . , and if you are parents . To get about third in fraternities. Were you in a fraternity . With a series of stories that Bloomberg News and when i was finished i found myself with all these questions, why did so men desperately want to join these organizations when putting their lives at risk essentially . Why did many of those young men get a lot from fraternitys but the headlines are so awful . That is a mystery to me. Did it hurt you were not in a fraternity in terms of your reporting . I was always asked solon of the extraordinary things about reporting is focusing heavily on sigma Alpha Episilon, the fraternity itself is very open to exploration. I was introduced dat meetings that i attended it was clear they called sae the deadliest fraternity but there were open to show me their archives and basically at everything that i could. They get help to have a fresh look at the fraternity it would have agreed to share my undergraduate experience. Looking through the history of fraternities and secret societies end they were segregated but it took longer to integrate to be very white or not very friendly to gays but what about their history did you find interesting not only the secret societies but segregated . They started off with Higher Education was essentially white male than with women and minorities they kept themselves as white male organizations creating a system where the newcomers found their own organizations, a jewish fraternities, catholics and womens fraternities or sororities. The system is a direct reflection with the extraordinary amount of segregation. Given where society is going to be much more diverse that they make up a large majority on most campuses of 60 . And then and that is the contradiction and then with 400,000 members 50,000 more than a decade ago. And there is a challenge in terms of men having less of a presence not achieving at the same level as women on College Campuses but it is essential to college life. They often end control the social life and the network is just unbelievable to move second to politics but the grade point average tends to go down but your earnings go up by more than a third. [laughter] that is the advantages to joining. So just how big the fraternities are. With the business of fraternitys owning property, how many schools have them and of those that do,. They have 3 billion. The quarter of a Million Students and the largest landlords with the National Organizations. With 4 million alumni with a disproportionate role in government. Going back to a the history of a secret society tucked away and did the beginning colleges wanted nothing to do with them. As that counterculture was a change of the drinking age. Now these places could have of all where the storms could not which will solidified the drinking but it has always been a pretty strong part of the culture even going back 100 years. Haven the founder of sae maybe died of alcohol. 1856 sae was founded at university of alabama but the founder was a brilliant student valedictorians going to the seminary becoming a chaplain and and he died but then it appeared he was swept away into the water he was found days later there is no evidence she was drinking it is maurer fraternity lower. So is suggest that one of the most important leaders was a temperance advocate. In the 1500 page history the help me write the book and is very against fraternities. En with the cathedral like building it is like these to science and bin and refund this jeff condemned by College President s from the beginning that has been that way from the beginning. Q mnuchin condemned it has the office of greek life even though despite all the problems they seem to have her embrace them and when you look on the web sites nobody talks about the issues with this great feeling that your children that Higher Education has a lovehate relationship. That is a big selling point to the outofstate students like indiana because of the social life centered on fraternities. And then they become the most loyal voters. Making up 90 percent of alumni of the 60 percent of donors. They are loyal with a great deal of of power to attract students and they are promoted on these campuses their palatial mountains mansions that are appeasing then when something goes wrong the universities will be pretty . To condemn them that is true. So who is responsible . Do parents rarely understand hundreds or thousands of miles away . Wannabe issues i looked at what is insurance. That is how we started looking at fraternities and one of the problem since the 80s is the they had trouble getting insurance because the risk is just like a toxic waste dump. So fraternities really struggled with this and the solution was to craft insurance policies that excluded drinking and hazing and Sexual Assault. You dont want to subsidize that. Is somebody terrible happens and there is a lawsuit the Fraternity Members that doesnt cover them it covers the National Organization but they are on their own in these losses can drag on for years. So parents have to tap into the homeowner policy to hire the lawyers and pale settlements. And most parents dont know that. Definitely not. The title of the book true gentlemen comes from a the creed of sae which the beginnings as the true gentleman is the conduct from goodwill and the acute sense so you think these are supposed to be gentleman who are supposed to act well but as you note in the book all of the incidences of alcohol, death, other incidents stemming from our call, a Sexual Assaults, how bad is it . And how does it compare if most people with fraternities will say it is no worse than Everything Else on campus. That is a pervasive problem. What happens is no worse than the rest. So is that happening any worse . We definitely hear that a lot there is the sense among Fraternity Members because they are higher profile there held to account with the problem drinking but this is problem on campus no doubt but the social science researchs clear that fraternitfraternit why men drink more than anyone else on campus. They binge drink at twice the level of other members with study after study that shows this if you are worried about the drinking problems certainly it is the place to look but in terms of Sexual Assaults the best data i confine shows fraternity parties themselves women who frequent fraternity parties are one and a half times the risk of Sexual Assault. What i am not clear if a lot of Sexual Assaults involve the overall environment and that is what fraternity parties are like or something about the culture of the fraternities themselves in terms of consent that there is a lot of cases of disturbing emails that become public. Isnt part of a the problem and try to attract as many women as possible houses with many rooms, they get them to drive them it is part of the culture and planning of these events . Many times it is invite only but that is usually that all women are welcome so that you have a very high ratio of women to men which is another reason to join the fraternity to have access to these parties. But you have under age bartenders people away from home for the first time, that is make Sexual Assault a particular outcome. To me that shows there is a serious problem. Talk about the stories in the book about a specific incidents and there is one case in bin court know where they leave the guy on the couch overnight he is dead in the morning. We have seen more recent incidents where cameras captured the student that died and it makes you wonder with those students at cornell part of sae, it is a selective school, athletes school, athletes, coming from varying backgrounds but what happens in this environment that logic does not kick and . In all of these cases is seems there is a moment in reading the reports somebody says maybe we should go to the hospital or do something but then groupthink takes over and they go on pouring alcohol. What happens . Is there something you saw as a pattern with the kids that ended up dying . Did anybody say we should stop . Mentioning penn state there were a lot of students in february you said we really should and i think there is a problem that if you report you have been drinking then perhaps the University Shutdown dutch chapter so there is underage drinking and the chapter lies to the university and everybody then somebody gets really drunk and it is dangerous there is a decision made that he will be okay and sleep better off we have all passed out and it will be fine. There justice and the recognition how dangerous this is. There are so many cases the most dangerous hazing is you take a freshman who doesnt know his alcohol tolerance and give him a bag of liquor and tell him to finish it calling it a challenge. You pray on their insecurities and one of the chapters involved in maryland i spoke with for hours and hours really got a sense of why he stuck with it. He really wanted the social life. He thought it was a way to succeed, and work on wall street and once he suffered the early indignities, he was strapped in a basement for nine hours listening to some horrible music. [laughter] he was a prisoner forced to drink and beaten with up paddle so why would you continue . He said i have already done this they keep telling me it will not get worse. But that is the other thing it is hard to stop. You lose your free will. The story is fascinating the tissue grew up in Montgomery County but his whole life changed largely because in these few weeks to pledge a fraternity can you talk about that went into a whole different direction . He wanted to join he didnt just drop out he reported this to the police and eventually he did not pursue that as far but the school to their credit found out and started a disciplinary proceeding documented the hazing he was telling us about. His name got out and was harassed by other Fraternity Members and people said he was lying and to this day we can find people who say it didnt happen and i looked at this for a long time and found another witness who said absolutely i was in the basement with him and the school said it happened but it is hard by the end he didnt want to stay there. Key went to the university of maryland and then stayed at home. He says he has nightmares and it can be pretty traumatic. As a typical reporter we just talked about some pretty bad things so i heard some of your callin shows you have done. It is interesting people will always called to say your focuses focused on the negatives so what about the great things . Talk about the positives. The Positive Side is important. Historically when reading of college rethink of the residential experience, liberal arts studying topics useful to our careers, networking of fraternities help to create that environment for colleges. When they started there were social fraternities but in the early 19th century colleges was a dreary place no place to live, studying greek and latin, they were literary societies of american poetry shall they wanted to create a College Experience and that continues today if you are at tens of thousands of people it isnt easy of lots felt it gave them a group of friends and a family. There is some research that shows members of fraternities report a higher sense of wellbeing and feel better prepared for life more loyal to their universities. You had a figure from indiana of the percentage . 19 of alumni the 60 percent of daughters and that is pretty common. That is an interesting point. Twenty years of covering Higher Education one of the things against reform are the alums who are pretty powerful or on the boards of trustees and when you say we want to change athletics or fraternities you cannot do that because that was my College Experience. Do you sent since that lovehate relationship is the issue of many are powerful . And big donors so it is hard to reform with their in powerful positions . That is sure the sauls Barry University case the founder of the chapter withdrew a 2 million donations about was a real consequence to the university. With a lot like, there is the split and some are very upset that fraternities are losing track of their founding values of true gentlemen that sae been working hard to figure of the way for word. I see a very recent president who will work very hard on this to find different ways to move forward i focused on and sae because after all the deaths more than any other fraternity, they decided to ban pledging which is where most of the death had happened period a half years ago. And have not had a death since. Their insurance rates have gone down the losses have diminished it is like 90 percent drop. One of the of messages of the of book and wanted to send it has gone on for a long time but there are strands that people can look at they can focus on alcohol there are those within the of fraternities to want to work with the colleges in just this week all State University Fraternity Council agreed campus wide they would move to a band of parties with alcohol. Seems like a really good place to start, the banning the theres also i think some promise in saying freshman first semester freshman year is not a good time to join a from a turnty wait until second semester. Thats there are a number of colleges that have tried that. With the thought that you know, that is the most dangerous time for a young man. So thats another possibility. I was also amazed at how little data there was how Little Information you could find about what was actually happening. So i proposed it that the colleges would, you know, have public listingses of where Sexual Assaults have occurred over at least reports of Sexual Assaults or alcohol related hospitalizations by fraternities, fraternities are now disclosed grade point averages a enthats actually l been effect of in materials they compete with each other to have reasonable grade point average or highest and also compete for, you know, having safest fraternity thats true about demographics. You know about with its not wiewdzly known that there are Fraternity Chapters that dont have black members. I went to alabama there were a number that had never had a black member not that thats something that should be made public and push from a turnties to change. Question. To what extents does the sorority culture is it linked does it parallel or inhabit a separate universe . You talk about that a little bit . One of the things about very arety that is interesting is in the 60s when when fraternities basically decided not to have in house advisors and not to have that much adult supervision sororities kept they have basically inhouse adult living in every chapter. And they also almost all sororities ban ban alcohol in the chapter. So there are no parties with alcohol in the chapter but actually chapters are a lot nicer like all trashed you know, listen to that. [laughter] and you just dont see that many alcohol related deaths at sororities. So theyre a lot safer so now when they go to Fraternity Party at high risk there have been studying showing like three times you live in a sorority you might be three times the risk for rape. So thats kind of a mixed bag. So i think that if both from aty and sorority had same approach i think fraternities qowb safer. To what extent are fraternities religiously not segregated in my day i did not belong to a fraternity but jewish fraternities and a gentile fraternity has at all changed is there any fac for example . Yes, one of the main figures in the book brad cone who was one of the leaders who called or for the pledge he was the first jewish president of fae so definitely theres been progress on that front. Sp especially since, you know, one of the chapters looks at the 1950s when you know, before 1951 there was a clause in the law it is that said that you had to be an arien to be a member of fc and neither parent could be a fulled blooded jew, and it was pretty and that was highly debated. They dropped that clause in 1919 but in the suspect i found in a hearing they were doing it for publicly for Public Relations and they kept discriminating for years after. But now, i mean, ting that the religious i dont hear that much about religious but you with hear some fraternities in general antismettic episodes, and there still are jewish historically jewish fraternities but i think now the issue really is more is more an issue of issue of race i went to convention a big debate about addings a not discrimination clause. And at first members lined up and said you know, we dont want to have but you needed a twothirds vote to pass, and the members talked to each other you know minority members particularly were extremely upset about this. And they went back the next morning, and there were pees passionate speeches including from Steve Churchill here in the audience about how this isnt who we are. We have had this history. We need to address i