Skeletons come creeping out of the closet.
With all the news surrounding the University of Oklahoma SAE fraternity members chanting a disturbing song about hanging black people, the death of an SAE brother at Cornell in 2011 has catapulted back into the spotlight.
Especially because the young man who died during the alcohol-infused hazing ritual, sophomore George Desdunes of Brooklyn, was black.
The ritual–utterly moronic–was a simulated kidnapping perpetrated by brothers of the fraternity. Desdunes and a fellow member were taken off-campus, blindfolded, tied up, and were forced to recite information about the fraternity. The penalty for incorrect answers was a shot of alcohol. Desdunes survived the incident and was taken back to the fraternity house, despite the fact that he had passed out. The next day janitors found him lying on a couch. He was dead.
According to the New York Times, an autopsy revealed Desdunes had a blood alcohol content of 0.356– over four times the legal limit (other reports indicate it was even higher).
After the incident, Cornell swiftly terminated the SAE chapter at Cornell for at least five years, meaning a chapter cannot begin to re-form until 2016. Criminal cases against three fraternity members the following year resulted in acquittals, but Desdunes’ family is still involved in a $25 million civil lawsuit against the national SAE organization.
The family’s lawyer, Douglas Fierberg, recently spoke to the LA Times: “Fierberg said the racial chants against blacks by members of the SAE fraternity at the University of Oklahoma fit into a pattern of irresponsible behavior that is condoned by the groups’ national leadership.”
Of course, there is no insinuation here the hazing death of Desdunes was racially motivated. The point is that fraternities are cesspools of debauchery–and the most inane part is that most of the time the idiocy is directed at themselves. They mentally and physically abuse, hurt, and even kill each other all in the name of “tradition” and “brotherhood.”
Joining a fraternity is optional, I know, so it’s not as if anyone is forced to forgo their sense of dignity in the vain pursuit of social status and sorority hookups. I also recognize the positive aspects of fraternities–the life-time friends, the professional network, and the lively social atmosphere they create not just for brothers but everyone on campus. But I think young men arriving on college campuses who are interested in joining social fraternities should begin to hold their self-respect and self-worth in higher regard.
Is an elite set of Greek letters on your jacket and a hot hookup every weekend worth a lifetime after your four years at college knowing you lost all dignity in obtaining them?
Chances are, twenty, thirty years from now a “beta” or a “phi” or a “sigma” won’t mean much to current fraternity members.
For the members of Cornell’s chapter of SAE in 2011, the image of George Desdunes as he lay dying on the couch with his hands and feet still tied up, passed out drunk with vomit strewn across as him, will.
One thing that seems not to have changed since the 1960s and 70s is the silliness of “hazing”. I could not understand it then and can’t understand it now.