Yesterday I received a letter rife with disingenuous doublespeak from Wesleyan’s Doug Bennet, directed at alumni of the remaining men’s fraternities. In the letter, signed with a gigantic imperial “D”, Bennet stated his intention to force “virtually all students” to live on campus and to exert further restrictions and control over students living on private properties, specifically fraternities, in this case.
When I attended Wesleyan (late 1960s-early ’70s), the dorms were mostly depersonalized, sterile, cinderblock, institutional monstrosities— depressing and dehumanizing living environment. Conversely, fraternities provided supportive fellowship, rooms with ‘character’ and warmth, eating clubs for members and non-members alike, and social activities, which enhanced enjoyment of the college experience.
In 1969, after Black Panther protests, the takeover of college buildings, and the firebombing of a white student’s dorm room, the Malcolm X house was hastily established, in the dorm where I was living. When I returned to school, white students were not welcome to live there. I thereupon moved into the Beta house.
Collectively, the Betas weren’t stereotypes and represented a broad spectrum of interests and backgrounds, in an environment of openness and mutual respect, for each other and house guests. Membership was multi-racial and multicultural.
Living in the Beta house was a good experience, albeit short-lived. The next year, the house was temporarily vacated, and Eclectic members moved in, under university supervision. Instead of a preferred Beta house room, I had nowhere to live upon returning for my senior year. The administration did nothing to help me find replacement housing. I slept on the floors of friends’ dorm rooms, tried to study where I could, and washed dishes to earn meals. Consequently, I took a leave of absence from Wesleyan—and never returned.
Over the years, I’ve worked in many capacities, and also served as Chairman of the Board of College Housing Northwest Inc., which is student-run housing for thousands of Oregon students.
College students should have the freedom to make their own choices about housing and personal association, all on-campus college housing policies should be administered with absolute fairness by a student panel, and off-campus housing on private property should never be subjected to the jurisdiction of any university’s administration.
Historically, American college housing derived from the traditional British university system, whereby students were required to live in dormitories, overseen by faculty residents and rigidly controlled by the administration.
Conversely, in the German system, students attending universities resided mostly in boarding houses and apartments. Fraternities arose from students banding together and founding student-run collectives, organizations that provided fellowship, as well as economical room and board.
Bennet’s push to handle students more like children in an archaic system of “in loco parentis” is reprehensible, in my opinion. If you’re old enough to vote, be charged as an adult in court, and serve in the military, then you’re adult enough to choose your housing, without obstruction by anyone.
Most U.S. college students don’t live in college housing.
Furthermore, Wesleyan’s track record on housing and other policies has been patently hypocritical, unbalanced, and devoid of integrity regarding fairplay. For example, how many whites have been welcome to live at the Malcolm X House, or men as residents at the Women of Color or Womanist houses? Does Wesleyan practice color-blind and gender-blind admissions, and in hiring? I recall Martin Luther King preaching for a color-blind society.
Since Wesleyan endorses single-gender dorm floors, gender-based and ethnic and race-based houses, clubs, studies, publications, sororities, gender-based sports, race-based and sexual orientation-based alumni groups/networking, and partnerships with Smith College (which discriminates against men), then it has no legitimacy to hypocritically force fraternities to go co-ed.
Given the oppressive Purity Crusaders and dogmatic P.C. policing under the ritualized mantra of divisive “diversity,” no wonder Wes grads made that satirical movie “PCU” about Wesleyan!
Hundreds of U.S. colleges have fraternities and sororities. Wesleyan’s misguided administration is systematically trying to impose a selectively unfair, biased agenda upon student life and academics, and in the process is violating students’ personal freedoms—alienating many people, including potential donors.
For decades, Wesleyan administrators have coveted fraternity properties; targeting fraternities and increasingly restrictive student policies are integral to this long-term campaign.
While I probably wouldn’t have joined a fraternity at a coeducational university, I support their right to exist without coercion.
Before pontificating to others, Mr. Bennet needs to pull his imperious head out of the sand.
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