Mike Moore, the chapter president who had investigated the sexual-assault allegation, told the crowd how Hallam changed his life. He never would have dreamed he could be speaking without notes in front of this crowd of two hundred. He struggled to check his emotions.
“You see him living his values every day,” Moore said. “I was lucky to be as close to Chris Hallam as I was. He was truly dedicated to improving every single person in this room. He had his own career, his own life. He didn’t have to dedicate this much time to us, to making sure all of us developed and grew into the men we are today. That’s admirable. You don’t find a lot of people like that. Over this past year, I’ve started to consider him a friend. I know he feels the same way. I can’t tell you how much it means to me. Phi Alpha, brother.”
Moore stepped down and gave Hallam a hug.
Hallam sat in the front row with his mother, Debbie, a retired medical secretary, and his brother, Scott, and a cousin, Rebecca, and her fiancé. His father, Paul, a retired special-education teacher and administrator, stood several rows behind, videotaping the proceedings.
Hallam usually favored notecards but he hadn’t prepared for this address—one of the most meaningful of his life. He spoke from the heart, his voice strong, breaking at times with raw emotion.
“Thank you for bringing SAE into my life,” he said. “When people talk about the negative side of fraternities, it hurts. They don’t understand us. We grow men. We educate men. We develop men. Yes, they make mistakes. But there’s a culture of growth and development and advancement. We can be better men.”
Hallam said he would never have imagined the bonds he had to the members of the chapter.
“I’ve asked three members to be pallbearers at my funeral,” he said. “That’s what this has meant to me.”
Hallam spoke of the power of symbol.
“Thank you for knowing what the lions meant to me. That is the culmination of my dedication to this chapter. Know there are always people before you. That is the legacy you are leaving. It is a brotherhood that does not end. The choices you make build on the choices made before you. The fraternity will continue after me. The lions will live on after me.”
Before the dedication ended, before the men scattered across the campus, they stood with arms around each other. They recited the words of their creed.
“The True Gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds from good will and an acute sense of propriety.…”
Its words were etched on the walls of the chapter room. But the brothers didn’t need to read them. They knew them by heart. They shouted them until the walls vibrated with the sounds of their voices.
CONCLUSION
Like America’s founders, the men who started the first college fraternities sparked a revolution. They helped breathe life into stodgy institutions obsessed with theology and Greek and Latin. Fraternities offered students a path to careers in courtrooms, boardrooms, and the corridors of political power. Young men found a place to make friends for life, develop social skills, and forge character. The brothers’ energy invigorated college life. But today, fraternities, once so forward-looking, seem hobbled by their own past. With their history of segregation, racial hostility, and misogyny, these distinctive organizations embody many of the unresolved conflicts still plaguing the United States.
WHEN I EMBARKED on my journey into the heart of fraternities, I suspected I would find a culture in its twilight. Women were ascendant on college campuses. The country had twice chosen a black president who, unlike most of his recent predecessors, had not belonged to a fraternity. Voters appeared ready to select the first female president. But the 2016 election of President Donald Trump reflected a backlash against the multicultural America that had been embraced on college campuses, in the military, and at many corporations. His followers’ disdain for “political correctness” echoed the language inside racially isolated chapter houses—places that sociologists have described as “nurseries for the sense of white victimization.” Like the conservative revival of the Reagan years, the age of Trump could mark the beginning of another fraternity boom based on retrenchment rather than reform.
But many fraternity members want to chart a different future. The Chris Hallams of this world see young men of all backgrounds desperately seeking community, guidance, and purpose. These male students often feel lost and alone. In an age of family fragmentation, of identity forged on social media, undergraduates are looking for authentic connections. They need role models and friends. They need to learn how to thrive in a diverse world, alongside workers of all backgrounds.
Some critics continue to find fraternities irredeemable and look to abolish them. It is a simple and elegant solution that has succeeded at a handful of private campuses with the commitment and wealth to offer genuine social alternatives. I’m not so sure it can work as broadly as many believe. Public universities—governed by the First Amendment—would no doubt be barred from restricting the right to freedom of association. Even more, fraternities are durable organizations for a reason and are likely to survive. It makes sense to ask: Could they change?
Public pressure can help. Consider the impact of Doug Fierberg, the lawyer who made his career by suing fraternities. The threat of financial extinction motivated Sigma Alpha Epsilon to eliminate pledging, a move that has halted the once-inevitable hazing-related deaths. The savviest leaders, such as Brad Cohen, can seize the spotlight to reform their own organizations. Even this change required constant vigilance. In July 2017, SAE was scheduled to consider a proposal to end its pledging ban, which had been in effect for more than three years. But the proposal was withdrawn at its biennial convention in Boston. The fraternity’s governing board, the Supreme Council, had offered compelling evidence of the ban’s success that reached beyond the most important goal of saving lives. SAE now averaged two insurance claims a year, down from thirteen when it still had pledging.
That SAE would consider reinstating an initiation period was especially surprising in light of a recent high-profile hazing death at another fraternity. In May 2017, a grand jury indicted eighteen Pennsylvania State University fraternity brothers after a nineteen-year-old pledge died from traumatic brain injuries sustained in a liquor-soaked Beta Theta Pi initiation. The death and its aftermath showed why fraternities must fight to preserve promising reforms if they want to survive. Penn State’s president demanded changes on fraternity row. Otherwise, he warned of chapter closings and, potentially, “the end of Greek life.”
Short of shutting down fraternities, colleges have another less dramatic tool at their disposal: information. In exchange for conferring recognition, they have the power to collect and publish data about alcohol-related hospitalizations, especially at fraternity houses and other sites of underage drinking. This information has the potential to point toward effective solutions, from banning hard liquor to requiring dry fraternity houses. Colleges also have a mechanism to increase the cost of drinking, assessing a per-student fee for fraternity houses and other organizations that host parties with alcohol. This money could be used either to step up enforcement or to fund other student activities without drinking. Colleges could advise fraternity parents to buy liability insurance policies if their sons host parties with alcohol. Economists and public-health scholars agree that raising the cost of a behavior can reduce its prevalence. Fraternities form the heart of the drinking problem on campus; these measures have the potential to reduce their members’ alcohol consumption, bringing it more in line with the average student’s drinking.
These approaches rely on making tangible the costs of behavior and providing consumers with accurate, up-to-date information. Imagine if colleges demanded that fraternities disclose their disciplinary histories, each chapter detailing specific infractions in a prominent, easy-to-read online format. Public colleges must already provide these data if confronted with public-records requests, as they did for me when I researched this book. But such disclosures are haphazard, infrequent, and out of da
te. Universities could also document the sites of all reported sexual assaults. This would provide an incentive to hold safe parties and warn women about the most dangerous spaces on campus.
This kind of openness could help heal fraternities’ complicated racial histories. Why not require individual chapters to publish a racial breakdown of their memberships? Universities, which often offer financial assistance to fraternities, have the leverage to do so. Some legal scholars have suggested that the federal government could threaten the tax exemptions of fraternities that discriminate—as it did successfully with Southern “segregation academies.”
In the current political environment, fraternities must make a choice. They can fight alcohol abuse and hazing, and fully welcome women and minorities as equals, even members—or they can double down on the familiar attitudes of a bygone era. If they want change, fraternity members themselves, with prodding from college administrators, must step up. The new leadership of the North-American Interfraternity Conference has committed to working with colleges.
Change won’t come easily. At the 2017 convention, SAE’s national leadership sought to amend its laws to declare that no chapter could discriminate against “a potential new member due to his race, his color, his religion, his sexual orientation, his national origin, his age or his physical ability.” On its website, SAE had already declared its support for diversity and inclusion. Still, at the convention, men queued up during a plenary session to speak against the antidiscrimination clause. Although opponents said they welcomed potential members of all backgrounds, they worried that the amendment would expose the fraternity to litigation for discrimination. Some even questioned the need for an explicit commitment. “Is this an issue?” asked Ronald Doleac, a Mississippi judge and SAE national president in the 1990s. “Is this really a problem we’re having in our fraternity?”
With the men evenly split, the motion failed. The next morning, members reintroduced the antidiscrimination clause. At the microphone, Ga-Lhiel Dillard introduced himself as a “small town Catholic boy from Birmingham, Alabama.” Now a junior at California State University, Fresno, he said he was the first African American SAE chapter president. “All of us are going to have experiences with brothers who may be homosexual, Muslim, African American, Hispanic, etc.,” he said. “We are going to love those brothers either way. But now we make history.”
Steven Churchill, the national president and Brad Cohen’s successor, gave the final push. Like Cohen, Churchill embodied change. Cohen was the first Jewish SAE president; Churchill, the former Republican state legislator from Iowa, was the first who was openly gay. He appealed to undergraduates’ ambition, saying the aspiring Fortune 500 CEOs in the room will need to promote diversity to attract talent. “It seems to me, honestly, that this should be a no-brainer,” he said. “This is what being a True Gentleman is. This is who we are.” Members took another voice vote. The motion passed, and supporters broke into applause.
This rejection of the past is only a first step. Individual fraternities could experiment with new approaches, bringing the kind of fresh energy that animated the movement at the beginning. Some could decide to raise their academic standards and become scholarship organizations like Phi Beta Kappa. Others could admit female students as members, righting one of the original wrongs of the movement—the treatment of women as second-class students. Fraternities are already considering the admission of transgender students, as the brothers of Ohio State told me during my visit. Why not women? Why couldn’t black and white fraternities form partnerships? Fraternities should also consider abandoning their history of advantaging the advantaged. They could abolish legacy preference and instead offer social and academic support to first-generation college students. Or following the model of Alpha Phi Omega, they could decide to get out of the housing business and focus entirely on philanthropy to become true service organizations.
None of these changes will happen by relying entirely on the collective wisdom of adolescents. Fraternities need adult supervision. Most members enjoy their four years and move on. If they care about the organizations, they need to make membership a lifelong commitment. Wealthy fraternity alumni need to donate money that could be designated for scholarships, as well as for staff to oversee chapters—including live-in advisers. Fraternity members may ask: Why are they being singled out? Are they responsible for all the ills of the modern college experience? Of course not. But the evidence shows that they account for more than their share. Just as important, their creeds explicitly hold them to a higher standard.
In this book, I have chronicled the ways in which fraternities have failed to live up to their words. Many members have chanted noble pledges out of obligation. They have even forced teenagers to memorize them under penalty of paddle or worse. But I have also met leaders who believe that the brotherhood must stand for more than Fireball shots. They can imagine a reinvention of the fraternity, a disentangling of the best strands of the past from the worst. Displaying a characteristic kind of American optimism, they ask themselves: What if a man’s deed really did follow his word, and brothers, in fact, lived as True Gentlemen?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I AM GRATEFUL to the generations of Sigma Alpha Epsilon members who welcomed me into their world. From the beginning, Brad Cohen, then the national president, embraced the idea of a book, inviting me both to SAE’s convention and leadership school. Cohen showed uncommon openness and belief in the essential strength of the organization and encouraged others to share their views with me. I am also indebted to Cohen’s successor, Steven Churchill, and the fraternity’s hardworking headquarters staff, especially Blaine Ayers, Brandon Weghorst, Clark Brown, and Ashlee Canty. Undergraduate chapter members Mike Moore, Carter Goodwyn, Jack Counts III, and Andrew Cowie were especially helpful in explaining the cultures of their particular outposts and introducing me to other members. Alumni Jack Counts Jr., Ian Gove, Michael Scarborough, and, of course, Chris Hallam gave me a sense of their passionate commitment to fraternity life. I appreciate their assistance and good humor during the years I worked on True Gentlemen.
The victims of fraternity behavior rarely have a voice. Doug Fierberg, who devoted much of his legal career to representing those hurt at Greek houses, helped me understand these tragedies and what can be done to prevent them. To protect other students, Justin Stuart broke the code of silence around hazing and came forward to expose its horrors. The attorneys Trey Parker and Matthew Fraling offered their experience in navigating the complexities of a sexual-assault trial. Gabriela Lopez, most of all, showed uncommon bravery, both on the stand and in agreeing to talk with me. Despite my initial uneasiness, she insisted on using her name as her contribution toward helping other assault survivors.
This book would never have happened without my colleagues at Bloomberg News. David Glovin, a dogged investigative reporter and former prosecutor, came up with the idea of looking at fraternity deaths and exploring the little-understood world of insurance and liability. David had already written several first-rate stories when he invited me in as his partner for the articles that would increasingly focus on SAE. David was unable to join me in writing the book because of a well-deserved promotion as editor, but he offered tremendous support from conception to research to his careful reading of the draft. Dan Golden and Jonathan Kaufman, my longtime mentors and friends, provided their characteristically brilliant insights as editors on the original series and, afterward, in helping me with the manuscript. Matt Winkler, the founding editor of Bloomberg News, and his top deputy, Laurie Hays, championed the series and all investigative reporting on education. Bloomberg editor in chief John Micklethwait and his deputies, Reto Gregori and Laura Zelenko, generously supported my book leave. My current editors, David Gillen and David Papadopoulos, were unfailingly patient and flexible as I finished the manuscript.
Ben Adams, my editor at PublicAffairs, shared my vision of a book about fraternities and then took a risk on a first-time author. Ben offered great wisdom in h
ow to structure a nonfiction narrative and followed up with wise and careful revisions. Clive Priddle, publisher of PublicAffairs, and Peter Osnos, its founder, showed great enthusiasm for the subject. The rest of the team at PublicAffairs—Melissa Veronesi, Melissa Raymond, Katherine Haigler, Michele Wynn, Jaime Leifer, Lindsay Fradkoff, Josie Urwin, and others—expertly guided True Gentlemen from manuscript to bookstores.
I wouldn’t have found PublicAffairs without my tireless agent, Lynn Johnston, who introduced me to Ben and then educated me in the ways of New York publishing. She contributed vital suggestions in the early stages of the manuscript and championed the book’s promotion.
Early readers of the book offered great insight. Along with my colleagues at Bloomberg, I owe much, in this and all other endeavors, to my brother Paul Hechinger, a veteran journalist who offered moral support and editing suggestions. My good friend Jeff Frieden somehow managed to read chapters almost overnight and offer sharp critiques while teaching college government courses and traveling the world.
My parents, Fred and Grace Hechinger, set an example for me to follow. As education journalists, they understood the central role of schools and colleges in America. My father, in particular, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, helped me understand how colleges must be held to their promise of welcoming newcomers to the United States. My daughter, Rachel Hechinger, offered the invaluable perspective of a young woman in college. For as long as I can remember, she has asked me when I was going to write a book. She inspired me with her fierce determination and her sense of social justice.
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