Washington and Lee v Kenyon v Hamilton

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to W&L on a full academic schorlarship. I was literally the "son of a CEO" (as a PP so grossly phrased it) and from the south, and I hated it. I pledged a fraternity, went through initiation and never set foot in the place again after being initiated.

Too much drinking, too much racism, too little critical thinking. Just all around gross.

For kids who need college paid for, it might make sense, but it's an uphill slog for any thinking kid.

Someone should let the brilliant kids there know that you don’t approve. Sorry you weren’t capable of taking advantage. Sounds like a you problem. My 2014 grad is in a fully-funded PhD program and her entire friend group is bright and absurdly accomplished.

OP, dopes like this won’t help you. Visit the three schools and see what you think. The student profiles are very similar and there are very few kids at any school in this category who aren’t smart and capable and ambitious. See where they send graduates. Look at outcomes.

The Good Old Boys Club drives much of the "outcomes" and those "outcomes" are reserved for the right type of person. I will leave it to the OP to decide if they would be a beneficiary or even want to be a beneficiary of that arrangement. For most, it is a bait and switch.

All 3 schools are fine institutions but only 1 has the pictures of 2 slaveholders (Washington and Lee) on the diploma. And as recently as earlier this year, doubled down on keeping them there.

https://www.wlu.edu/the-w-l-story/leadership/office-of-the-president/messages-to-the-community/2019-20-academic-year/response-to-diploma-petition/

I think issues like pictures on a diploma are beside the point. If you go to a school named after Lee, you know what you're getting into. It's also going to be tough to find a historical figure that's pure as the driven snow.

My concern when I was at W&L was what I perceived as very thinly veiled racism and the lack of diversity. The diversity of my freshman dorm hall consisted of one white catholic kid and a Jewish kid from Charleston SC. Everybody else was a WASP. I didn't know any Black kids at all.

My first week on campus, I went to a KA rush event (I didn't know anything about KA -- whose foundng documents celebrate the confederacy --- or I would not have gone). The event involved guns, binge drinking, causal, overt homophobia and a LOT of implied dislike for Black and Jewish people (phrased as celebration of W&L, the confederacy and the south generally in contrast to northern, urban environments and the kind of people who live in those places, or annecdoes in which every Black or Jewish person is identified by race/ethnicity, no matter how irrelevant to the story --- e.g "that Black security guard"). During my freshman year, I also saw a flier for a "discrete Klan rally", which I remember thinking had to be a joke or something posted to make the school look bad because it seemed so absurd. I ended up pledging the second most liberal fraternity on campus, but the misogyny even at my fraternity was mind boggling and not something I was not at all prepared for based on my older brother's fraternity experience at a large, southern state flagship.

I was at W&L quite a while ago, and I think the university has been making an enormous effort to change which I welcome since my family still has deep ties to the area. But W&L is not somewhere I'd ever in a million years consider for my kids.

The diploma was a perfect test case as it showed the university's inflexibility when it came to basic requests from their customers (a subset of students) to have an option without the images. Some students like the education they get but not the association with The Generals.
The college said no because it would have offended big $ donors as they embark on a new campaign. It is hard to see significant reform when the trivial is brushed aside.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to W&L on a full academic schorlarship. I was literally the "son of a CEO" (as a PP so grossly phrased it) and from the south, and I hated it. I pledged a fraternity, went through initiation and never set foot in the place again after being initiated.

Too much drinking, too much racism, too little critical thinking. Just all around gross.

For kids who need college paid for, it might make sense, but it's an uphill slog for any thinking kid.

Someone should let the brilliant kids there know that you don’t approve. Sorry you weren’t capable of taking advantage. Sounds like a you problem. My 2014 grad is in a fully-funded PhD program and her entire friend group is bright and absurdly accomplished.

OP, dopes like this won’t help you. Visit the three schools and see what you think. The student profiles are very similar and there are very few kids at any school in this category who aren’t smart and capable and ambitious. See where they send graduates. Look at outcomes.

The Good Old Boys Club drives much of the "outcomes" and those "outcomes" are reserved for the right type of person. I will leave it to the OP to decide if they would be a beneficiary or even want to be a beneficiary of that arrangement. For most, it is a bait and switch.

All 3 schools are fine institutions but only 1 has the pictures of 2 slaveholders (Washington and Lee) on the diploma. And as recently as earlier this year, doubled down on keeping them there.

https://www.wlu.edu/the-w-l-story/leadership/office-of-the-president/messages-to-the-community/2019-20-academic-year/response-to-diploma-petition/

I think issues like pictures on a diploma are beside the point. If you go to a school named after Lee, you know what you're getting into. It's also going to be tough to find a historical figure that's pure as the driven snow.

My concern when I was at W&L was what I perceived as very thinly veiled racism and the lack of diversity. The diversity of my freshman dorm hall consisted of one white catholic kid and a Jewish kid from Charleston SC. Everybody else was a WASP. I didn't know any Black kids at all.

My first week on campus, I went to a KA rush event (I didn't know anything about KA -- whose foundng documents celebrate the confederacy --- or I would not have gone). The event involved guns, binge drinking, causal, overt homophobia and a LOT of implied dislike for Black and Jewish people (phrased as celebration of W&L, the confederacy and the south generally in contrast to northern, urban environments and the kind of people who live in those places, or annecdoes in which every Black or Jewish person is identified by race/ethnicity, no matter how irrelevant to the story --- e.g "that Black security guard"). During my freshman year, I also saw a flier for a "discrete Klan rally", which I remember thinking had to be a joke or something posted to make the school look bad because it seemed so absurd. I ended up pledging the second most liberal fraternity on campus, but the misogyny even at my fraternity was mind boggling and not something I was not at all prepared for based on my older brother's fraternity experience at a large, southern state flagship.

I was at W&L quite a while ago, and I think the university has been making an enormous effort to change which I welcome since my family still has deep ties to the area. But W&L is not somewhere I'd ever in a million years consider for my kids.

Yep, sounds like an ancient and largely irrelevant experience. You consider schools for your kids? Weird.

Fraternity culture isn’t very different anywhere. My Penn State fraternity experience was, in hindsight, almost entirely disgusting. Also a million years ago but if what I read is true it doesn’t sound like much has changed.

[Anonymous]

People trashing Lexington as far right and blaming W&L- a cult named Generals Redoubters is attempting to buy up Lexington real estate, hang confederate flags and far right propaganda out to intimidate students and University officials, and bleed donations from the University. It is made up of a few very old far right alumni and Southern extremists like the last head of Wachovia Bank- who is an honorary faculty member at William and Mary and has no such distinction at W&L. The University has been buying up real estate in town in order to outcompete this far right cult.

KA was the Klan. Don’t go to parties there. They do hard drugs- every college campus in America has druggies. Don’t judge an excellent school on the basis of these two hostile groups. Administrators have been trying to smoke them out for 20 years. They still are. Why do you think the former banker is honored by William and Mary and not his own alma mater?

[Anonymous]

Is there a source for this? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there a source for this? Thanks.

Public records, universities websites, the general Redoubter website

[Anonymous]

People with kids need to stop threatening to blow off W&L for your own students in some hypothetical future. They gave us a chance and your lack of gratitude just shows how spoiled you are. It’s not W&L’s fault that you chose to pledge a fraternity that you didn’t like. Make your choices, grow up, and stop whining.

I have two kids in high school. W&L could be right for one of them but not the other based on individual needs. I am NOT pushing my own agenda on to my 16 or 17 year old. I can only hope that those of you threatening to do so have toddlers or no children at all and so lack the life experience to see how spoiled, overbearing, and controlling you sound.

[Anonymous]

Fraternities won't change as long as universities put dollars over honor/principles/integrity. AND, as long as kids who like binge drinking, hazing and misogyny sign up for their ranks. How would kids drawn to that culture ever change it??

I would NEVER EVER pay a penny for my child to attend such a school. They should not exist in 2021. That is not because I am controlling. It is because I am a socially conscious citizen. This is not a case of "to each his own." If you are perpetuating that type of institution, you are not sitting on the sidelines, you are prolonging the worst of America's misdeeds. History is not a spectator sport.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fraternities won't change as long as universities put dollars over honor/principles/integrity. AND, as long as kids who like binge drinking, hazing and misogyny sign up for their ranks. How would kids drawn to that culture ever change it??

I would NEVER EVER pay a penny for my child to attend such a school. They should not exist in 2021. That is not because I am controlling. It is because I am a socially conscious citizen. This is not a case of "to each his own." If you are perpetuating that type of institution, you are not sitting on the sidelines, you are prolonging the worst of America's misdeeds. History is not a spectator sport.

So University of Maryland and UVA should not exist, pp?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fraternities won't change as long as universities put dollars over honor/principles/integrity. AND, as long as kids who like binge drinking, hazing and misogyny sign up for their ranks. How would kids drawn to that culture ever change it??

I would NEVER EVER pay a penny for my child to attend such a school. They should not exist in 2021. That is not because I am controlling. It is because I am a socially conscious citizen. This is not a case of "to each his own." If you are perpetuating that type of institution, you are not sitting on the sidelines, you are prolonging the worst of America's misdeeds. History is not a spectator sport.

Then residential college in general should be avoided. Tons of bad behavior at every college. Tons. All.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fraternities won't change as long as universities put dollars over honor/principles/integrity. AND, as long as kids who like binge drinking, hazing and misogyny sign up for their ranks. How would kids drawn to that culture ever change it??

I would NEVER EVER pay a penny for my child to attend such a school. They should not exist in 2021. That is not because I am controlling. It is because I am a socially conscious citizen. This is not a case of "to each his own." If you are perpetuating that type of institution, you are not sitting on the sidelines, you are prolonging the worst of America's misdeeds. History is not a spectator sport.

Then residential college in general should be avoided. Tons of bad behavior at every college. Tons. All.

Yes, W&L, a college with fewer than 2k undergraduates, is somehow singlehandedly responsible for the personal decisions of every college age student in America. How powerful they have become, this little liberal arts college in the Blue Ridge!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fraternities won't change as long as universities put dollars over honor/principles/integrity. AND, as long as kids who like binge drinking, hazing and misogyny sign up for their ranks. How would kids drawn to that culture ever change it??

I would NEVER EVER pay a penny for my child to attend such a school. They should not exist in 2021. That is not because I am controlling. It is because I am a socially conscious citizen. This is not a case of "to each his own." If you are perpetuating that type of institution, you are not sitting on the sidelines, you are prolonging the worst of America's misdeeds. History is not a spectator sport.

Then residential college in general should be avoided. Tons of bad behavior at every college. Tons. All.

This is a swing and a miss.

The notion that some schools are not worse than others in terms of racism and sexism is absurd. It has a lot to do with what schools tolerate. Schools that agressively close chapters of greek organizations (or other student organizations) for hazing, racism or sexual assault will have less of that behavior than those that look the other way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fraternities won't change as long as universities put dollars over honor/principles/integrity. AND, as long as kids who like binge drinking, hazing and misogyny sign up for their ranks. How would kids drawn to that culture ever change it??

I would NEVER EVER pay a penny for my child to attend such a school. They should not exist in 2021. That is not because I am controlling. It is because I am a socially conscious citizen. This is not a case of "to each his own." If you are perpetuating that type of institution, you are not sitting on the sidelines, you are prolonging the worst of America's misdeeds. History is not a spectator sport.

Then residential college in general should be avoided. Tons of bad behavior at every college. Tons. All.

This is a swing and a miss.

The notion that some schools are not worse than others in terms of racism and sexism is absurd. It has a lot to do with what schools tolerate. Schools that agressively close chapters of greek organizations (or other student organizations) for hazing, racism or sexual assault will have less of that behavior than those that look the other way.

So some level of binge-drinking and misogyny is cool. Got it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fraternities won't change as long as universities put dollars over honor/principles/integrity. AND, as long as kids who like binge drinking, hazing and misogyny sign up for their ranks. How would kids drawn to that culture ever change it??

I would NEVER EVER pay a penny for my child to attend such a school. They should not exist in 2021. That is not because I am controlling. It is because I am a socially conscious citizen. This is not a case of "to each his own." If you are perpetuating that type of institution, you are not sitting on the sidelines, you are prolonging the worst of America's misdeeds. History is not a spectator sport.

Then residential college in general should be avoided. Tons of bad behavior at every college. Tons. All.

This is a swing and a miss.

The notion that some schools are not worse than others in terms of racism and sexism is absurd. It has a lot to do with what schools tolerate. Schools that aggressively close chapters of greek organizations (or other student organizations) for hazing, racism or sexual assault will have less of that behavior than those that look the other way.

THIS.

W&L has been closing fraternities and promoting more inclusive and diverse interest themed clubs for over a decade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the OP, these are some of the organizations that associate themselves with W&L. The first 2 are alumni groups and the last students. All proud alums or current students. To the school's credit, they don't recognize them.

https://www.thegeneralsredoubt.us/

https://www.facebook.com/WandLPRE1985

www.wluspectator.com

Aims of the General's Redoubt include:

Restore public prayer at ceremonial functions and underscore that prayer for participants is optional.

Western Civilization is at the core of the Washington and Lee student journey, particularly as relates to the humanities

I ended up on the General's Redoubt list somehow (definitely didn't subscribe) as did a bunch of my friends.

I started getting e-mails from this group and couldn't figure out why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to W&L on a full academic schorlarship. I was literally the "son of a CEO" (as a PP so grossly phrased it) and from the south, and I hated it. I pledged a fraternity, went through initiation and never set foot in the place again after being initiated.

Too much drinking, too much racism, too little critical thinking. Just all around gross.

For kids who need college paid for, it might make sense, but it's an uphill slog for any thinking kid.

Rolled my eyes a bit at this post despite agreeing with the bolded description. Maybe it's just your class privilege, but the environment you described doesn't really make it a slog for "any thinking kid," at least relative to comparable schools. W&L doesn't have a ton of the best inputs (i.e., very brightest students), but they attract enough through the Johnson Program, and it's not any better at peer schools. It's also representative of life after college, which some might argue is a benefit.