Greek Life at Penn State: Plus Ça Change

It was back to business as usual among the Woo people last weekend, which meant very loud outdoor parties, very many shirtless young males and very many young females wearing very skimpy outfits. 

If you’re just joining us, the Woo people are denizens of the Highlands, an enclave of oversized lodgings where the aforementioned young males live communally while they obtain certificates that attest to their readiness to perform complex tasks that will soon be performed by artificial intelligence.

I went among them on Saturday to learn how they feel about the recent arrest of 13 of their peers or former peers on a variety of charges relating to the sale and possession of cocaine. 

My first contact with fraternity members was icy. As I walked up the path, the shirtless young males gazed unsmilingly at me. (The females had yet to arrive, apparently.) When I told them why I had come, their headman told me they had no comment. This did not surprise me.

I had better luck one block over. Two friendly lads, one tall, one stocky, defended Greek life without sounding defensive. Neither wanted to be named.

“I met my best friends here,” the stocky one said, “my brothers for life.”

“Everyone says it’s about brotherhood,” the tall one said, “but it’s more than that.”

Yes, I thought, as I looked around. It’s about the giant screen TV on the lawn showing a preseason football game. It’s about the cornhole game in progress behind us. It’s about the blow-up kiddie pool. It’s about the two empty bottles of Parrot Bay rum at our feet.

Am I saying that on a beautiful late-summer Saturday afternoon at the end of the first week of the semester, these young men should have been hitting the books? Not at all.

But after the cocaine arrests, after the deaths of Tim Piazza (2017) and Joey Dado (2009), after the Facebook page with the photos of unconscious and undressed women (2015), after all we have learned about dangerous and humiliating hazing rituals, the defenses of Greek life are sounding hollower and hollower. 

Ten Penn State fraternities are suspended, currently. Another eight have gone rogue, meaning they’ve lost their affiliation to Penn State but continue to operate independently. Thirty-four remain in good standing with the university.

If you look at the roster of recognized fraternities, again and again you see words like character, honor, integrity, leadership, service, brotherhood, scholarship, philanthropy. If you look at the list of fraternities that have been suspended, you see phrases like “hazing violations,” “alcohol and/or drug violations,” “endangering others,” “risk management violations.”

One example leaps out from the Penn State Campus Hazing Transparency Report, covering the years 2021-2026: 

“Video of individuals face-down with their hands behind their back with their face in food or vomit, and an individual in a wire dog kennel having unknown substances poured over him.” 

That happened at Sigma Chi – the same fraternity that was allegedly at the center of the cocaine trade. 

Caitlin Flanagan has written about Tim Piazza’s death and about Greek life in general for The Atlantic. When she spoke here in 2015, she called the Greek system a racist, sexist anachronism, and wondered whether it had any place at a 21st^t century university. 

Good luck dislodging them, though. As Mark Huncik, president of the Highlands Civic Association told me – yes, there are adults living among the Woo people — a lot of money flows into the university from alumni of the Greek system. “It’s a backbone that’s hard to break.”

I lived among the Woo people for 16 years. There were loud, alcohol-soaked parties then (1995-2012) and judging from what I saw this past Saturday, there are large, alcohol-soaked parties now. And that’s just what can be seen and heard from the street. Are fraternities any safer now – for pledges, for women – than they were before any of the terrible incidents of the 2010s? I doubt it. 

The guys I spoke to on Saturday expect there to be some fallout from the cocaine arrests, just as there was from previous incidents that cast Greek life in a bad light. “Rush is going to be a little harder this year,” the stocky one said. “Parents are nervous.” 

“I feel like we have a target on our heads even if we haven’t done anything,” the tall one said. 

It’s probably true that they – these two guys, most fraternity guys – haven’t done anything. But I’m with Caitlin Flanagan. Put a bunch of not-yet-mature males in a house together without adult supervision and bad things can and do happen. 

Again and again. 

Mark Huncik is by no means an enemy of the Woo people. He seems more frustrated with Penn State’s failure to rein the kids in than with the kids themselves. 

“Is there accountability,” he asks of the cocaine investigation, “or is it just another news article?”