NATION/WORLD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, August 29.1994
3B
Fraternities go underground to survive
The Associated Press
MIDDLEBURY, Vt. — The students meet surreptitiously — at a restaurant off campus or for a drive in the countryside. The arrangements, said one participant, would never be made on a campus phone.
They are outlaws. If they are found out, they face suspension.
They are fraternity brothers.
Single-sex social organizations have been banned at Middlebury College, so the brothers of Delta Kappa Epsilon have gone underground. No boisterous beer bashes for them — in fact, they're barred from using their own house.
They just have furtive meetings and a will to keep the Dekes alive.
"My fraternity brothers have been my closest friends," said Michael Cohen, Boca Raton, Fla., who graduated from Middlebury in May. "Most of my great times at Middlebury have been with Delta Kappa Epsilon and
not Middlebury (College). ... It's a tradition that shouldn't die."
But not everyone agrees. To some students and college administrators, traditional fraternities are outmoded institutions that promote sexism and inequality. And they have become associated with alcohol abuse and hazing episodes in which students have died.
Five of New England's elite private colleges, including Middlebury, have banned fraternities. At many of these schools, the fraternities led college social life for generations.
The official end of the fraternity system at Middlebury, a liberal arts college of about 2,000 students, began in 1989 when a student-life study concluded the all-male fraternities were incompatible with college life. Sororities disappeared on their own in the early 1960s.
The study coincided with a series of embarrassing incidents, including one in which a female mannequin was
suspended in efty from the front of a fraternity house during a party.
"We know men. We don't know women's issues," said David Easilick, executive director of the fraternity's national office in Grosse Point, Mich. "It would be a totally different experience."
College trustees voted unanimously in 1900 to ban single-sex social organizations. Some fraternities chose to admit women and became part of the college's new social house system, which replaced fraternities as the center of social life. Others dissolved. Delta Kappa Epsilon refused to do either.
The fraternity fought the ban in court and lost. Middlebury students have not been prohibited from belonging to fraternities, but they cannot participate in any fraternity activities, even off campus.
"I don't believe the conduct of every organization is defensible," said Don Wyatt, Middlebury's vice president
for undergraduate affairs. "I think (fraternity activity) is contrary to what our mission is."
Wyatt said anyone caught violating the rules would be suspended.
"It would be swift and severe," he said
This policy has not deterred the underground frats, although Wyatt insisted that their activities are "greatly exaggerated."
"It's a fairly natural thing in the death cycle of fraternies," said Jim Kolesar, representative for Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., where single-sex fraternities were banned in 1968, and underground fraternities flourished for years but have since died out.
"We expected there would be underground activity and there was," said William R. Cotter, president of Colby College in Waterville, Maine, which banned fraternities in 1984. He said the influence of the secret fraternities was waning.
THE NEWS in brief
Tornadoes kill four;
Four people were killed and 22 were injured as tornadoes tore across Wisconsin Saturday night, ripping up small communities and farms. Damage in Adams County was estimated to be $4.5 million.
The bodies of an elderly couple were found in the wreckage of their home near Big Flats, Wis. A 3-year-old girl was killed when a trailer home was blown into a ditch. And a woman was killed when her van was blown off the road.
SAN FRANCISCO
'Greasy Riders' end journey
The transcontinental trek ended late Saturday with the van rolling under a welcoming banner reading "The Lard Car."
The four women on board called themselves the "Greasy Riders", and they fueled their 1984 Chevy van with used french-fry oil from fast-food eateries for a trip of more than 3,000 miles. The journey began on Aug. 10.
It was part of a "Fat of the Land" project designed to prove the feasibility of using vegetable oil as a vehicle fuel.
BEIJING Prisoners provide organs
Executed prisoners are the source of most organ transplants in China, and sometimes the donors are still alive when their organs are removed, said Human Rights Watch-Asia.
Executions appear to be scheduled according to transplant needs, the human rights group said in a report scheduled for release today.
In some cases, kidneys have been removed before execution. Some executions have been deliberately botched to keep the bodies alive, improving chances of organ transplant success, the group said.
Officials try to secure troops
WASHINGTON
U. S. diplomatic and military officials hope to formalize promises next week from Caribbean nations for participation in an invasion of Haiti, the State Department said.
Barbados, Jamaica and Belize have agreed to dispatch troops, and Antigua and the Bahamas are expected to do so as well, administration officials said Friday. Most troops would come from the United States.
Ban might slow exit of Cubans
HAVANA, Cuba — Fidel Castro barred children and teenagers yesterday from leaving aboard rickety rafts and boats fleeing the communist island.
The report of the ban in a government newspaper was the first sign the Cuban leader could be cooperating with American efforts to stem the huge outflow of Cubans bound for U.S. shores.
Recent storms that slowed flight from Cuba subsided yesterday, and hundreds of people gathered on beaches with innertubes and rafts to prepare to leave the island. A total of 130 refugees were picked up Saturday and taken to the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Thousands have been intercepted in the past week.
"There is no work, no clothing, not even shoes. Every day things are getting worse," said Esteban Varela, 28, who was on the beach preparing to leave. He said his wife and child already have left Cuba.
Compiled from The Associated Press.
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