Whether they notice it or not, being
a part of any societal group can have its implications on one’s personal rights
of expression, and failure to conform to a community’s particular standards
could lead to expulsion from the group. But to what degree are these
implications acceptable, and at what point should a person say no to these limitations?
Some of these hindrances are obvious and understandable, such as one’s physical
appearance at their workplace or monitoring of a student’s language in a
classroom setting. Others, however, are slightly less acceptable. One
particular example of imposition on one’s free expression can be seen through
Greek life communities at certain universities.
An article in the HuffingtonPost specifically examined the impact of fraternity membership on one’s freedom
of expression, and pointed out one particularly crude example of this. At Yale
University in 2010, the Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE) forced their pledge members
to walk around the campus while chanting the words “My name is Jack, I'm a
necrophiliac, I fuck dead women" and "No means yes, yes means anal.”
While it is obvious that pledges who
were strongly opposed to participating in this activity could drop out of DKE,
it is also acceptable to say that this group went too far in exercising their
power over the pledges and requiring them to express something that
(presumably) most of the men did not agree with. The university did become
angered by this action and DKE later apologized for their crude language, but
the overall point of the situation should not go overlooked: Greek life is one
societal group that can have an influence over its members’ freedoms of
expression.
To avoid the generalization of all
Greek life communities, it is important to note that this instance is not a
reflection on all sororities or fraternities and that some Greek life societies
are much more extreme than others. However, those that do impose upon their
members’ personal expressions should not go overlooked. The mere action of a
sorority prohibiting certain behaviors that could look badly upon the group, or
of a fraternity forcing members to act in a certain way and say certain things,
is an imposition upon those people and their freedoms and it expresses a
manipulated hierarchy of power. It is peer pressure that, yes, these people
could avoid by extracting themselves from that certain organization, but it is
also a pressure that should not be exerted in the first place.
As a member of the Greek community here at SLU, it always frustrates and saddens me to read or hear about a fraternity or sorority which engages in the lewd and/ disrespectful behavior like what the fraternity brothers at Yale University forced their pledges to do. It’s stories like these that make it impossible for the entire Greek system to shake the negative connotation that people associate with the organizations. However, this is incident at Yale University is more of a hazing violation rather than a free speech issue. It’s true that when a person accepts an invitation from a sorority or fraternity, and subsequently are initiated, they do pledge to uphold specific ideals and values, as well as maintain secret rituals of the group. However, besides maintaining secrecy concerning rituals, sorority and fraternity members are never forced or forbidden from practicing their freedom of speech. Obviously, there are things that the national or local chapters do not want their members, active or alumni, to be saying (crude, racist, sexist, explicit, terroristic words/ phrases, etc.) but in my personal experience, no one has ever censored my free speech. It’s the simple notion that with the great privilege of being a member of a fraternity or sorority comes great responsibility to uphold the values that go along with being a Greek.
ReplyDeleteTypically, I don't think fraternities or sororities limit their members’ freedom of speech, but I do think that there is a measure of expression that is sacrificed when someone joins. Being a member of the Greek system is definitely about conformity – if you want to be in a fraternity or sorority then you have to play by the rules of the house. This includes the literal rule system of upholding certain ideals or maintaining rituals, but there are also figurative rules such as dressing in a way that represents the fraternity or sorority outside of the house. If someone is not willing to meet these standards then they probably should not join the Greek system. There are no gothic girls in sororities and there are no heavy metal fans in fraternities.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, this implied conformity does create illegal activity, which is usually met with a suspension or punishment. One instance of illegal activity occurred at Kansas University, where members of a fraternity got suspended for abusing a turkey and killing it (kansascity.com). I would say that this relates to conformity in the sense that all members of the fraternity were present for the abuse, but each of them either agreed with the activity or did not say anything. Freedom of expression was not technically limited in this case, but the powers of conformity and group think still acted in the same way.
http://www.kansascity.com/2013/09/13/4479600/ku-fraternity-punished-for-abusing.html