If you are pro college frats, what is the point of a banned frat?

[Anonymous]

Anyone is "allowed" to get together in groups and hang out. Sororities can hang out with anyone they choose. At our school, what they couldn't with a banned chapter was advertise on any official channels so typically only girls that ran in certain social circles would attend those events as opposed to the whole chapter being invited. And banned chapters can't do anything official on campus.

Banned chapters are not university sponsored or acknowledged and they aren't nationally affiliated either. If nationals wanted to go after them for still using their name, I guess that could happen, but these are college students so good luck with that.

I am 99.9% sure they aren't doing volunteer projects, etc. They're likely just partying.

I went to a LAC so banned chapters tended to fizzle out as students graduated, and without the backfill of new members, until they were allowed to re-charter (usually an effort driven by alums). But I can see a scenario at a big school with lots of legacies and a strong national chapter (brand recognition) if a really popular frat got kicked off they could survive off campus.

[Anonymous]

Do you mean "suspended"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you mean "suspended"?

I assume he is talking about fraternities that get their National charter revoked for an incident at the house. Happens occasionally due to alcohol related death, illegal drugs in the house, sexual assault, racial incident, etc. The one thing that I think is safe to assume is those dudes are not scholars and are there to party.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chicks dig the banned frat guys.

Here goes the idiot who still calls women “chicks.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not looking to start a fight about Greek life. So for those of you that are okay with college fraternities. I'm not knowledgeable about the actual workings of Greek life, so...

if you see positives & benefits to belonging to a fraternity, do those same benefits apply to a fraternity that's been totally stripped from a campus. Is being banned from campus that big of a deal, do they really care? Does that chapter's fraternity still exist on the national level. Do they still have to meet national level things (not even sure what those might be) Would being an officer something to put on a resume? Are network connections more limited to those specifically associated w/that chapter. Would you encourage your son to join one or only ones in good standing.

I'll say it is a North Carolina or Virginia college. Legit Greek life is under 25%..

fully appreciate the fact that this is not my world. Also it's not my kids so you won't hurt my feelings.

You seem pretty knowledgeable.

[Anonymous]

At my college there are multiple levels of banning. The softest was a suspension by the college. Those chapters continued to exist but could not take new members or hold events during the suspension. This usually did not implicate their national charter, if they were national. My college also has many local fraternities and sororities. After the suspension everything resumed as normal.

Then there was a full ban by the college. This could either be for a certain amount of time or permanent. The certain time ones were basically to allow all the current members to graduate and leave and give a buffer so current students would never know what that house was like. This may or may not implicate a national charter, if applicable. I’ve seen many that were banned for some number of terms eventually come back and their alumni come to campus and help get the house going again. This is most common for frats where the alumni corp owns the house. If the college owns the house and the guys are banned, that’s basically the end of the house because it’s unlikely they would be able to get a new space years latter.

Permanent bans are supposed to mean the house can never ever ever come to campus. Immediate cessation of operations. Again, may or may not implicate the national charter, if applicable. However, I’ve seen one frat that was banned permanently and stripped of its charter by its National be allowed to come back after roughly 15 years due to a very influential alum. They did not regain their national charter so they came back as a local house. Their alumni corporation never ceased to exist and retained a valuable house on frat row as an asset that they rented for the duration until they were able to come back. Their alumni remained involved and very interested in bringing the house back in whatever from they could as soon as possible.

Houses were also put on probation for one or more terms, during which time they couldn’t host events but could participate in recruitment if it was a recruitment term.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not looking to start a fight about Greek life. So for those of you that are okay with college fraternities. I'm not knowledgeable about the actual workings of Greek life, so...

if you see positives & benefits to belonging to a fraternity, do those same benefits apply to a fraternity that's been totally stripped from a campus. Is being banned from campus that big of a deal, do they really care? Does that chapter's fraternity still exist on the national level. Do they still have to meet national level things (not even sure what those might be) Would being an officer something to put on a resume? Are network connections more limited to those specifically associated w/that chapter. Would you encourage your son to join one or only ones in good standing.

I'll say it is a North Carolina or Virginia college. Legit Greek life is under 25%..

fully appreciate the fact that this is not my world. Also it's not my kids so you won't hurt my feelings.

I went to a slac in california. One of three frats were banned and house closed after two deaths related to drunk driving during hazing. A good action on the part of the college in my opinion

[Anonymous]

There is a banned frat on my kids campus, but their house is independently owned so they are just basically acting like a n off campus club. I don't know how rush will happen, but I assume they will do some amount of unofficial rush.I would not suggest my kid pledge somewhere that has those limitations. The reason for their banning was pretty minor - nothing like terrible hazing, death or anything.

[Anonymous]

As pp have pointed out, if the house is off-campus, the guys can exist and recruit new members, just without using the formal rush.

There's nothing that says roommates in a house can't have parties and events.

The kids whose dads/brothers were in the frat will join regardless of the frat's status with the school because of "tradition."

[Anonymous]

I am pro-Greek life and a sorority alum. If my kids are interested, I’ll support them. I would discourage a banned Frat - they were banned for a reason.

If they are not part of the campus Greek life system, they probably don’t participate in campus events - both social and service. Without a national organization and campus Greek council overnight it’s just a group house - well worse. It’s a group house with a bad reputation.