Standing up to Harvard — an online effort to take action against Harvard’s policy banning same-sex organizations — flooded social media feeds this week.
As a member of the Delta Zeta Sorority, I appreciate the support to stand up for our own chapters and Greek organizations, as we should.
However, I wonder where this support was when our own Greek organizations go under scrutiny. We should stand up for our own community and encourage Greek members to uphold the values we hold so dear.
Members of Greek organizations are not just part of personal organizations, but the whole community. When one fails, we all do.
Why is Harvard doing this? Where are we failing?
According to the Harvard Gazette, 60 percent of women questioned from the 2015 class responded to a poll regarding sexual assault. Of those, 31 percent reported they experienced some kind of unwanted sexual contact in their time at the university.
Alex Brizee | Argonaut
According to a letter from Harvard, one of the biggest risk factors is alcohol use. I by no means am saying all of these assaults were because of Greek organizations, but we are adding to the problem when we should be improving it.
Harvard’s solution to the problem is not a real solution — we cannot discriminate against groups based on the sexual orientation of their members. What Harvard and other Greek life directors should be doing is not enabling these cultures to sexually assault women and haze members.
If we as Greek students want to stick around, there needs to be a culture change. We must allow Greek life directors to look deeply into our organizations and allow them to change some of our very outdated practices.
Delta Zeta’s creed states “to crusade for justice, to seek the truth and defend it always.” I know many other organizations hold values similar to this. We cannot be offended by the truth if we strive to seek it.
Sometimes the truth hurts. When Idaho’s Greek community hazes members and post about it online, we can’t shy away from that.
Instead, we should be working with those organizations to create a better environment that doesn’t allow for this.
Being Greek means we hold ourselves to higher standards. That doesn’t mean higher sexual assault statistics.
Next time you post about how we should be “Standing up to Harvard,” think about how you can stand up for your own chapter.
Alex Brizee can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @alex_brizee