The University of South Carolina located in Columbia, SC is a big SEC school with big spirit, big populations, big Greek Life, and big plans to end all pledging in said Greek Life. What!? You heard that right; one of the biggest southern universities is on track to bring an end to the bond-building and sister/brotherhood-kindling time period between formal rush and initiation into fraternities and sororities. This change is in response to a history of hazing turmoil and alleged abuse that is common during this pledging period. This is true, pledging has a history of hazing activities, drug and alcohol use, and both physical and mental harm. That being said, these behaviors are not true to all organizations, creating a highly polarized argument down in Cola.
As a proud Gamecock myself and a member of the SC Alpha chapter of Pi Beta Phi, I have had nothing but a positive Greek Life experience and I think that ending the pledging period would truly take away from that experience. This is the time where you learn about your organization and are slowly introduced to its in’s and out’s before you earn the responsibility of becoming a full-fledged member. However, the university thinks otherwise, and is aiming to be one of the very few schools to bring this to an end and narrow its months-long process down to one week.
A spokesman for USC claims that the goal is to bring Greek organizations back to their roots and founding principles, whereas the USC Fraternity Council president calls it “administrative overreach”. It has been a turbulent year for the community with eight frats receiving misconduct violations last year and one pledge fatality from alcohol poisoning. Regardless of what the right decision is, removing the pledging period from all Greek organizations is a bold move.
This topic is still up in the air and no final decisions have been made, but there is a Greek Life crackdown on the horizon for USC and many other schools. We are unsure if this plan will go into effect and if it does, how soon it will occur, but both sides have justified arguments and it will be interesting to watch this story play out. Stay tuned…
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