Pledged

by Alexandra Robbins

  These drug and alcohol assertions are supported by my own observations. It was clear that just about every State U Greek activity involved drinking: all Date Parties, Crush Parties, Date Dashes, and Formals were expected to have alcohol, and when the sisters got together for virtually any Greek event, they made a point of pre-gaming. During the 2002–2003 academic year, several sorority sisters at State U had to be rushed by ambulance to the hospital for treatment for alcohol poisoning. Other girls across the country told me of similar experiences with alcohol and drugs, particularly during the pledge period, when forced alcohol consumption is a common hazing activity. Brooke’s Texas pledge class, for example, was taken to a bar where every girl was required to down an entire pint of Jack Daniel’s. If the pledge next to you passed out or vomited before she could finish her glass, you had to finish it for her. Brooke, perhaps wisely, passed out. At other schools, ID-swapping is a long-standing tradition in which older girls hand down their IDs—real or fake—to younger girls with similar hair and eye colors. In 1985, a Kappa Alpha Theta pledge at the University of Colorado fell to her death at a sorority party after drinking so much that her blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit. (It is important to note that many sororities prohibit pledges from drinking; instead, pledges at several schools must serve as the sisters’ designated drivers.)

  Fraternities frequently run contests for sororities, such as relay races in which each girl on a sorority team must finish a pitcher of beer in less than five minutes. They also have parties at which they set up several stations around the house that serve different specialty drinks. A partygoer is expected to stop at each station. “You were cooler and more fun the more you drank,” one girl told me. “The day after any event, conversations were always about who had the funniest drinking story the next morning. A lot of the girls wet the bed.” On Bid Night at some schools, fraternities hold parties and hand each sister her own full bottle of champagne as she walks in the door. It is expected that she will finish the bottle quickly.

  Sororities’ pressure to conform can also lead otherwise straight-arrow girls to experiment with drugs. In one house I visited, the “house dealer”—the daughter of a clergyman—provided her sisters with drugs including cocaine and the prescription drug Adderall, a form of speed. Shannon, the Delta Zeta from a West Coast school, confessed that one of the reasons her sorority was considered “the fun girls” was because they were heavy drug users. She remembers pressuring younger girls to smoke marijuana and to do mushrooms and acid. “It wasn’t part of a formal event, but if a fraternity we were tight with had a party, most of the sorority would go upstairs and do bong hits with the guys. I really liked it and I thought it was cool. I was definitely guilty of encouraging the other girls to smoke,” she said.

  In a review of twelve hundred claims against fraternities between 1987 and 1995, an insurance company discovered that “alcohol was involved in 90% of all claims, whether they be falls from roofs, sexual abuse, or automobile accidents.” National Greek organizations and universities, swayed in part by their increased liability, have considered alcoholism such a problem that many have taken strong measures to combat it. All sorority houses are now supposedly “dry houses,” with alcohol banned from the premises. (Each of the girls I followed broke the dry house rule on numerous occasions.)

  Fraternities and sororities at several schools agreed in the 1990s to ban alcohol from their parties. Many followed policies similar to those set by the University of Missouri in 1989: fraternities were required to hire off-duty police officers to check IDs, close the house bar at 1:30 a.m., limit each guest to one beer per trip to the bar, and participate with the sororities in a mandatory alcohol-education program. (Other schools also prohibited beer kegs and required a guest list registered with the university’s Greek office to prevent open parties.) Violation of the policies resulted in a fine for the first offense and, for future offenses, the risk of losing university recognition as a chapter.

  The catch? At Missouri, the policies were supposed to be enforced by “student members of the Greek Community Board.” At many of the schools I visited, the role of the “Greek police” and the responsibility of enforcing strict antialcohol rules on the Greek community lay on the shoulders of the Greeks themselves. At one university in Virginia, I chatted with a sorority sister who had considered becoming an “AGC” or Assistant Greek Coordinator.

  “Why would you want to be part of the Greek police?” I asked her.

  “Because it’s a paid job,” she said. “You get paid to patrol all of the parties one night each weekend. I decided not to do it because I didn’t want to lose a weekend night every week.”

  “Wouldn’t your sisters dislike you for getting them in trouble?” I wondered.

  “Oh, no,” she laughed. “Everyone knows that an AGC tends to ‘overlook’ when her own sorority commits an offense.”

  From what I saw over the course of a year, it appears that these policies simply aren’t working. While it is true that the sorority houses themselves were mostly party-free, that didn’t stop girls like Vicki and her sisters from drinking alcohol in their rooms. The sisters who attended fraternity parties that followed the party registration rules brought their own extra thermoses of rum or vodka. When they found those parties too limiting, they drank (or pre-gamed) at off-campus satellite houses. And when, as happened during Beta Pi’s Chug-Off, they were faced with the threat of answering to the Greek police, they simply drove away, still wildly inebriated.

  Warming Up

  NOVEMBER 16: GREEK OLYMPICS

  AMY’S IM AWAY MESSAGE

  let’s go Alpha Rho and Delta Lambda!

  IT WAS A CRISP SATURDAY AFTERNOON, AND A FEW GREEKS managed to tumble out of bed by twelve-thirty. Two sororities were warming up on the field in the middle of Sorority Row. Across the street, a group of fraternity boys stretched. Leftover jack-o’-lanterns carved with Greek letters, still sitting on the stoops of the sorority houses two and a half weeks after Halloween, had started to turn. Uniformed landscapers diligently pulled up the beds of summer annuals in front of the Alpha Rho house to plant pansies in their place. They muttered about how the sorority’s last-minute request for the late planting would result in smaller flowers.

  “Anyone who doesn’t have a T-shirt, come get one now!” Greek Olympics were slated to start at one, but much of Alpha Rho wasn’t moving. Amy and some of the other Alpha Rhos were growing anxious. Most of the sisters sat bleary-eyed in the dining room, trying to remember why they were eating breakfast so early in the day. Some were reluctantly responding to the sister with the cardboard box of bright yellow Homecoming shirts and matching bandannas.

  “I look like a retard in this shirt,” one girl grumbled. Amy checked her Gucci watch. “Y’all, everyone else is already heading over. Why aren’t we moving?”

  Charlotte, the Alpha Rho president, came downstairs in her pearls with an armload of posters. “Everybody take one!” The posters varied between the competitive (“We’ll Raid Your Tomb”), the punned (“Cry for Mummy”), and the uninventive (“Pyramid Power”). Most of the girls chose double entendre signs that joked about rubbing a genie bottle.

  “Now we have to come up with a fight song!” Charlotte tried to rouse the yawning crowd. A few girls tried chanting different permutations of “Alpha Rho, Delts,” but the others, convinced they could come up with nothing clever, only leaned against the walls of the entry hall and attempted to wake up.

  By 1 p.m., all of the girls were crowding into the entry hall—a swarm of yellow and ponytails. An excited sister pushed to the door and cleared her throat. “Come on, once before we go!” Then she made a sound that to the uninitiated could be described as a backward Doppler effect, and pumped her fist in a circle. The sisters joined in, building to a crescendo, and when the noise reached a feverish pitch, the house broke into the secret Alpha Rho rally cheer. Now fully awake and enthusiastic, they burst out of their house at once, cheering and laughing when one s
ister screamed, “Let’s go kick some sorority ass!”

  On their way out of the house, a few girls suddenly remembered that they had to compete alongside Delta Lambda. “I hate the Delts,” one said. Another sister nodded emphatically; some sisters were boycotting several events that week to protest September’s serenade fiasco. “Oh well”—she found a bright side—“at least I won’t want to hook up with our team.”

  Amy and Caitlin reached the Row a few minutes ahead of the rest—and stopped short. A few Mu Zeta Nu brothers were standing at a car next to the field. “Oh no, it’s Nathan!” Amy whispered. Caitlin spotted Amy’s date rapist staring at them. “Why is he always wherever I want to go?”

  A Beta Pi sister parked a Mercedes nearby and stumbled over to the MuNu brothers. “Look at me, I am the epitome of a drunk driver!” she cackled, swinging a large white plastic cup full of vodka as she hopped onto the trunk of the MuNu car and babbled. With Nathan distracted, Amy and Caitlin linked back up with the rest of their sorority.

  As the teams arrived, the colorful field on the Row looked increasingly as if the Greeks were trying to put on a stadium show. Hundreds of sisters and brothers wore their assigned T-shirts and bandannas and huddled together—crimson with crimson, lavender with lavender. Rarely did the colors mix, except for an occasional bound across the field for a liplock. Many Greek couples had less time to spend together this week because their groups weren’t matched for Greek Week; this was known to put a strain on relationships.

  By the time the final team arrived, the field pulsated with energy (helped along by the Greeks’ good friend Absolut). The groups yelled their cheers at each other, at themselves, at nobody in particular, and waved their signs in competitive fury. The judges, in head-to-toe khaki (an effort to be true neutrals), wove around the crowds, stopping to talk to friends. It was clear that no one was really in charge, even after the events started. The event lineup, consisting of water balloon tosses, Slip-’n’-Slide bowling, wheelbarrow races, tricycle races, and a Twinkie-eating contest, rendered the Olympics something of a drunken camp color war. The chants and cheers continued throughout the afternoon, getting louder whenever a judge stopped to count the posters the teams held up and to gauge a team’s spirit. “Get your hands up! Here come the poster refs!” Alpha Rho and Beta Pi, both loud groups, stood next to each other and tried to outdo each other’s several-minute-long screams of “Wooooo.” Some of the Alpha Rho cheerleaders attempted to add kicky rhythm bits to the standard Alpha Rho cheer. The Delta Lambdas, not having practiced the cheers in the Alpha Rho house with the sisters, were busy shouting pretty much anything that came to mind, relevant or not, such as “Somebody grabbed my balls!” Members of one team raced around the entire inside of the circle yelling and waving their posters. Ten minutes later, not to be outdone, one lone representative of another team did the same, tripping drunkenly around the field as he galloped solo with his poster held high and his expression gleeful.

  Amy milled around the yellow section, too short to see the Twinkie-eating contest over the Delts’ heads. “Hey baby, what’s your sign?” a Delt yelled and then belly-laughed, pointing to Amy’s poster. Amy laughed demurely as he high-fived the surrounding brothers. The sisters who couldn’t see the events looked at each other helplessly.

  “Why are we here again?” one asked. The others shrugged. An Alpha Rho–Delta Lambda cheer began, and even the indifferent sisters yelled and clapped boisterously. When the cheer ended, their faces fell back into expressions of boredom. A few of the brothers in the back attempted to rap a few lines of Eminem’s latest, getting the lyric order backward.

  Snap back to reality, Oh there goes gravity . . .

  His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy,

  There’s vomit on his sweater already.

  The girls nearby tuned in only to hear the last line and, not realizing the brothers were emulating Eminem, glared around disgustedly as if to avoid the dude who had puked on himself. It wouldn’t have been a sight out of place here—except none of the brothers were wearing sweaters.

  Priorities

  NOVEMBER 19: GREEK WEEK SOCIALS

  SABRINA’S IM AWAY MESSAGE

  Wow.

  ALPHA RHO’S SOCIAL CHAIR HAD WORKED HARD TO SET UP social events for Greek Week. All of the sororities participated, but each house had to commit a certain number of attendees by purchasing tickets. Tonight the social chair had enlisted several sisters to go clubbing in the city, but by the time the group had to leave, only four girls were gathered in the entry hall. She stormed upstairs to the Penthouse. “Come on, we’re going to the club now!” The girls in the Penthouse looked at her blankly. Most of them were studying for midterms. At first the social chair tried yelling. When that didn’t elicit a reaction, she tried to guilt-trip her sisters. “Why aren’t you guys going?” She tried to look the girls in the eyes. “I put out a lot of money for tickets and only four sisters are going! You’re not representing the house well.” That pressured another girl to agree to go. Sabrina didn’t budge. Not only was she scheduled to waitress tonight, but it was also the tail end of midterm season and a Tuesday night. Who went out on a Tuesday night? Sabrina understood that the social chair had fronted a sizeable sum of her chapter budget, but she hadn’t actually asked the sisters if they wanted to go before signing up Alpha Rho for the event. The sisters had other priorities, too, and clubbing on a Tuesday night wasn’t always at or near the top of the list.

  Sabrina’s computer dinged to let her know she had new mail. Professor Stone! Her heart raced. She abandoned midterm studying while she tried to decipher the meaning behind the e-mail:

  “Sabrina, I would like to talk with you on Friday, so let’s meet at 6:30. I have a few things that I want to speak with you about. Good things. Mike Stone.” Sabrina wondered what “good things” meant. She hadn’t turned in her paper rewrite yet, so he couldn’t have been referring to that. Maybe he had heard of a job opening that he could help her with. But she didn’t really think it was that, either.

  Sorority Gigolo

  NOVEMBER 20: FLOAT DECORATING

  VICKI’S IM AWAY MESSAGE

  too sick to care

  VICKI DIDN’T MUCH CARE WHO WON GREEK WEEK, BUT SHE skipped her Wednesday classes to help the Beta Pis with the Float Decorating competition. The teams had a trailer and twelve hours to construct a float representing their theme. By noon, four hours into the competition, few of the teams had started; many of the Greeks were still in class or in bed. Vicki could see, however, that next door the Alpha Rhos had already erected on their trailer massive pyramids which some sisters were painting gold. An hour later, Sorority Row, packed with Greeks in their Greek Week tees and bandannas, echoed with the sounds of hammering, sawing, shrieking, and accompaniments blasting from various stereos. Vicki walked around the Row surveying the floats.

  Two Beta Pi sisters in front of Vicki’s house looked confused as they perused an instruction manual. “Umm, it says here we need a screwdriver?” pondered one. It would be a while before they built trees for their koalas. Vicki moved on. The England team worked diligently on a castle façade, Brazil constructed a rain forest, and Spain designed a bullfighting ring. The sorority and fraternity representing Holland were attempting to attach a line of pinwheels to a tall pole on their trailer. After an hour of work on precarious ladders to get the string fastened properly, a gust of wind blew the pinwheels to the ground.

  “Ohhh myyy Gawwwd,” a Holland sister groaned in an accent shared by most of her sisters.

  “There goes that idea,” said a fraternity brother on the ground. From the top of a ladder another brother muttered, “I quit.”

  Vicki passed the Iota house but she didn’t go in to greet William. As much as Vicki liked him, she wasn’t interested in having a boyfriend. She saw him every few days—usually to smoke marijuana in his room—and had taken him to the Beta Pi Date Party. But to make sure she didn’t invest too much in him, she was also regularly spending time with
Dan, the bronzed Theta Theta brother from Los Angeles. Vicki’s closest sisters in Beta Pi were thrilled. They thought Dan was a nicer person than William, who had a reputation among the Greeks as a sorority gigolo—someone who cavorted with girls in several different sororities at once.

  That afternoon, Vicki fell ill. She could do nothing all day but sleep and whisper on the phone to her friends in California. She had been sleeping for twelve hours straight when blond frizz poked through her bed curtain as Olivia slid her a tray with water, orange juice, and toast.

  “Hi, I brought food. You have to eat,” Olivia said. “And I brought a visitor!” Olivia pushed aside the curtain as Vicki blew her bangs out of her eyes to see Dan holding a bouquet of roses. Vicki brightened.

  Later that night, when William stopped by with a care package, Vicki felt like royalty. But William had more on his mind than the chicken soup he offered her. “So just be my girlfriend already,” he said, half smiling.

  Vicki laughed, which led to banter that she later realized was half serious.

  “Please, just be my girlfriend!” William begged, tickling her cheek with his goatee.

  “No!”

  “I’m going to call you that anyway.”

  “No!”

  “Come home with me for Thanksgiving, then.”

  “No!”

  Vicki didn’t want her relationship with William to escalate into something serious, but her conscience was bothering her because neither he nor Dan knew about the other. The prospect of having a boyfriend again so soon scared Vicki. She now knew, however, that William wasn’t interested in dating anyone else.

  The next morning she called Dan and told him she couldn’t see him so often anymore. “Um, I’ve started talking to my ex-boyfriend again, the one I broke up with in September?” she lied. “So you and I should probably take it easy for a while.” Again, Vicki was struck by how graciously Dan handled her brush-off.