Frat Row : At Middlebury College, Sexism Puts Traditional Greek Houses On the Ropes

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. —  There may be no more idyllic spot in all of higher education than Middlebury College. Students here boast, with little exaggeration, that they select their rooms based on whether they want to gaze upon the Green Mountains to the east or the Adirondacks in the west.

Filled with majestic, Colonial buildings of white marble and pale gray limestone, the campus is quintessentially New England--with the exception of its flashy sports facilities. The academically selective school has its own alpine ski slopes. A state-of-the-art indoor fitness center. An 18-hole golf course. And more.

But despite post card-perfect scenes of “Club Midd” students merrily shredding the ski runs and skating pond, winter has not been entirely cool at Middlebury. According to administrators, faculty and students, the school is in the midst of a red-hot debate over the imminent demise of a 149-year-old tradition.

On Jan. 13, the school’s board of trustees ordered Middlebury’s six fraternities to pledge women by the end of the year or cease existing at the college. (Middlebury has no sororities. They reportedly died out amid civil rights and Vietnam War protests of the ‘60s.)

The decree that women be integrated into fraternities--sparked by some misogynist high jinks at a Middlebury frat house in 1988--is considered a serious threat to the school’s unique, somewhat laissez-faire social structure.

It may also portend more trouble for fraternities nationwide. Most observers agree that the Greek system--inspiration for such films as “Animal House” and “Revenge of the Nerds”--has made a strong comeback from membership drop-offs of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. But fraternities, in particular, continue to be plagued by allegations of racism, concern over alcohol and drug abuse, and increasingly, suggestions that they condone sexist behavior and perpetuate, if not promote, sexual stereotypes.

Middlebury’s mandate is just the latest development from New England, seedbed of a small but growing movement to sexually integrate fraternities or abolish them completely. Already, Greek letter societies have been outlawed at such respected Northeastern liberal arts colleges as Amherst and Williams in Massachusetts and Colby in Maine.

But Middlebury appears to be spearheading a countertrend: an attempt to reform rather than eradicate its fraternities. Similar efforts are also under way at Maine’s Bowdoin College, which has given fraternities until September, 1991, to pledge female members. At Connecticut’s Wesleyan University, all-male organizations are being strongly encouraged to admit women but haven’t been threatened with sanctions.

Some co-ed fraternities exist on West Coast campuses, but integrating single-sex groups hasn’t been much of an issue here, reports Ken Taylor, director of residential and Greek life at the USC. “I’m not aware of discussions about it . . . ,” says Taylor, “or of a serious intent on the part of any (West Coast) school to do that.”

Ironically, Middlebury already has a progressive reputation with regard to Greek houses, and a precedent-setting history on integration issues.

Founded in 1800, it was the nation’s first institution of higher education to graduate a black student (1823). It was the first to award a black an honorary degree (1804). Back in the late 1940s, Middlebury fraternities challenged their national organizations and pledged both a black (Charles A. James, a former U.S ambassador to Niger) and a Jew (Felix Rohatyn, a nationally known New York financier).

In 1959, Middlebury’s Sigma Phi Epsilon chapter pledged Ron Brown, the black man who is now chairman of the Democratic National Committee. In so doing, the chapter lost its ties with its national organization and renamed itself Sigma Epsilon.

The latest move by the trustees--which has been called a “creative, innovative” solution by Middlebury president Olin Robison--charts middle ground between two opposing campus views: * The recent majority report of a Middlebury task force on student social life, which recommended fraternities be totally abolished so that a contemporary social structure could be created without ancient Greek baggage. “As society has changed, fraternities have not, and therefore have become an anachronism,” the report maintains. “A narrowly defined, fraternity-dominated social life on campus is incompatible with our vision of the future.”

* The students’ decidedly pro-Greek wishes. Though only 14% of Middlebury’s approximately 2,000 students are fraternity members, 68% of them favor keeping fraternities, according to a survey of the task force.

Blame it on the toga party that went too far. Though there have been other reports of sexist behavior at Middlebury, just about everybody at the school says the catalyst for the trustees’ decision was the 1988 toga party hosted by Delta Upsilon.

DU is the campus’ reigning jock frat and includes among its members the captains of the football, hockey, basketball, baseball, golf, lacrosse and track teams. At the annual toga party, the torso of a female mannequin was hung from a balcony of the fraternity house. The dummy was splattered with red paint, resembling blood. And the mannequin was labeled with a phrase that suggested its availability for sexual intercourse.

Women attending the party remained despite the dummy’s presence. Some say they didn’t even notice it. But the college’s admittedly small but vocal band of feminists did more than see it. They alerted television camera crews in Burlington, Vermont’s largest city, 45 minutes to the north. Public embarrassment continued with national newspaper coverage. In addition, the feminists and others who were outraged staged a protest demonstration in which an estimated 50 people participated.

DU members were barred from living in their house for a year, but continued to hold Thursday night meetings in a classroom.

Some members are now back in their frat house but they are forbidden to have parties while still on probation. Like other Middlebury fraternities, DU has until the end of March to state its intention or non-intention to comply with the order to pledge women. DU president Jim Boyle, who is also the captain of Middlebury’s football team, says the members still haven’t decided on their official response to the trustees’ decision.

One might expect Boyle and his brothers to welcome the notion of female members with a hearty, “bring on the babes” attitude. But DU, as part of its reparation and service to the college, has sponsored numerous “gender-awareness” programs since the party incident. Boyle’s words appear to be carefully chosen.

“There certainly was an incidence of abuse on our campus,” he acknowledges, sitting in a sparsely furnished, one-time party room at the DU house.

“But we feel strongly that fraternities have been wrongly construed to be the cause of this (sexism),” Boyle continues. “You’re just as likely to see sexist acts in residence halls as fraternities. We know a lot of things occur at the school and they’re non-issues. When they occur in a fraternity, they’re fraternity problems.

“I think the mandate is the product of an incorrect equation: the feminist movement equals the civil rights movement and integration is the way to step forward. I think there are differences between men and women and that (single-sex organizations) should be an option. We feel it’s completely natural and absolutely fine for one sex to want to live in a house together. . . . It will be extremely difficult to get the (DU international) to consider it (changing their constitution to admit women). Most nationals feel that the schools in the Northeast are out of step (in requiring that fraternities go co-ed).”

Boyle’s reference to the “extremely difficult” part is a comment on another portion of the Middlebury trustees’ mandate--that local houses not only pledge women members, but also get their nationals to approve the new policy.

The trustees have given campus frat houses until Dec. 31 to persuade their respective national or international organizations to change their policies prohibiting women members. If the locals fail to get their national/international constitutions altered, they must drop their Greek letters and drop their ties with the parent associations.

Many Greeks both on and off campus say that task is next to impossible. As any faithful alum will attest, fraternities and sororities are repositories of tradition rivaling churches, Elks Club lodges and the Boy Scouts. Changing constitutions and bylaws to sexually integrate a national fraternity--one of the last sanctioned male bastions in the United States--might be considered as probable as the Catholic church deciding to ordain women priests.

Already, one national fraternity says it plans to disenfranchise its Middlebury local for having pledged two women.

“Laws are laws,” insists Donald Stohl, executive director at Kappa Delta Rho’s national headquarters in Greensburg, Pa., referring to the fact that Middlebury’s KDR chapter pledged two women in 1988.

“They violated the law which states that we are a single-sex organization. They didn’t ask us. They just went ahead. Even though the school has taken this action, we have no choice. We’re going to go ahead and sever relations.”

In one breath, Boyle says he would like to see the DU international office file a class-action suit against Middlebury on the grounds that the college is restricting students’ freedom of association. Then, with less enthusiasm, he describes the most likely and immediate scenario: “We’re going to consider the (trustees’) proposal. I imagine we’ll lobby the national to allow women to join. We don’t feel it will radically alter the fraternity system.”

(Steven Gerber, executive director of DU international, says he cannot respond to the Middlebury mandate because he has yet to see anything in writing regarding its details. For the international fraternity to change its constitution, he adds, “we would have to go to our annual leadership conference in August, which is made up of undergraduates from all over. It would have to be a decision of all chapters.” Other national headquarters’ executives have also indicated they are still considering the Middlebury situation as well and have not yet arrived at a formal response.)

In the meantime, if Middlebury’s fraternity members fail to satisfy the trustees’ mandate, it appears they will have to abandon their houses as all but one are owned by the college. All but a few Middlebury students are required to live on campus and their annual $19,000 fees for tuition, room and board are the same whether they live in dorms or frat houses.

Actually, since 1980 Middlebury students have been been allowed to join any fraternity on campus--theoretically at least. The school’s “open rush” rules permit that any individual of any race, creed, sex, looks, income, upbringing, weight, wardrobe or social circle can pledge the fraternity of his or her choice.

But, in fact, this self-selection process has been largely a joke, working much like the traditional blackball system it was designed to replace. Students at Middlebury point out that they are sophisticated enough to read subtle (or blatant) signals and won’t join an organization in which they know they are not wanted.

What’s more, these students claim there are many incentives at Middlebury for not pledging. Non-Greeks are always welcome at fraternity parties, to which tickets are reportedly sold in a non-discriminatory fashion. And many independents here feel they have the best of both worlds. They can socialize at the frats but aren’t required to be at parties (as members usually are). They don’t have to work at the events or clean up after them the next day. And they don’t have to pay dues.

“There’s a lot of noise. And the houses smell like beer halls. I wouldn’t want to live there,” says Laura Rude, who, with Mimi Gottesfeld, nonetheless are the only current female members of a Middlebury fraternity. The two women, who enjoy being called “brothers,” pledged Kappa Delta Rho in 1988.

(Middlebury Sigma Epsilon president Lowrey Sullivan notes that in 1983 half of the members of his currently all-male fraternity were women, and there was a female president of the house in the late ‘70s.)

Like many members of frat houses with not enough room for all their members, Rude and Gottesfeld live in co-ed dormitories. Both are law school-bound seniors and say they joined Kappa Delta Rho because of so many pals there, friends who assured them there were only two or three KDR brothers against their pledging in a fraternity of 45 members.

The only other Middlebury fraternity that claims to have a thoroughly pro-women-members policy is previously integrated Sig Ep. Its members say they have sincerely encouraged women to join their ranks but haven’t succeeded recently.

And the other houses? None has an official policy yet. Some brothers are adamantly in favor of preserving the status quo and insist their all-male enclaves will continue--underground if necessary.

Others say they prefer remaining all-male but will attempt to comply with the trustees’ decision. And a few of the fraternity men claim to reluctantly favor the new rules.

Interfraternity Council President John DeMatte, for instance, says he is relieved by the trustees’ compromise position, but doubts its effectiveness against sexism and alcohol abuse: “You have no idea how close we (fraternities) came to being abolished. Fraternities are the most picked-on organizations on the campus. Fraternities are not the root of sexism. Abolishing the fraternities or making them admit women would be like attacking a weed with a weed eater. Its roots still remain and it will continue to live.”

“I was walking on campus one night about a year ago with another woman when we passed a group of men, some of whom were wearing fraternity insignia,” recalls Antonia de Vegh, co-president of Middlebury’s Women’s Union, a feminist organization.

“They yelled, ‘OK, girls, grasp your ankles and bend over.’ This is an attitude for which they had no remorse or embarrassment.”

De Vegh is telling her story at the weekly meeting of campus feminists held in an upstairs room of the same building that houses the student cafeteria. Five women are in attendance and the meeting has become a group interview.

Similar stories are repeated. Because of such incidents and others of a more subtle nature, the women all say that they and most other members of Middlebury’s feminist network favor complete abolition of fraternities.

Not that these women attend many of their functions. Most of those at the meeting visited fraternity parties as freshmen but didn’t care for the experience. De Vegh mainly remembers the event she attended as “boring--everybody was pop-eyed drunk.”

“The trustees’ decision in no way recognizes or addresses the racist, sexist and hetero-sexist history of the fraternity system,” she claims. “It is a concession, but it’s certainly not going to change the attitudes engendered at fraternities. I’m not saying that every member of a fraternity is a sexist, but if fraternities were abolished, the attitudes that exist there would no longer be institutionalized.”

Though she prefers getting rid of fraternities to reforming them, Lisa Van Buren, co-president of the Women’s Union, says she understands why some people think forcing sexual integration is a step toward ending sexism:

“If women lived there, the activities wouldn’t all be male dominated. Most students at Middlebury support keeping the fraternities because they don’t see a better alternative.”

Despite its lavish sporting facilities, the school does not have a student union. Construction on a planned student facility has been repeatedly delayed, with groundbreaking scheduled to begin in the spring. Even Middlebury president Robison concedes that if collegiate social life is defined narrowly in terms of large weekend parties, there would be little social life at Middlebury if fraternities were not there to organize it.

Rude and Gottesfeld, the women who have chosen not only to socialize at their favorite fraternity but also join it, say they haven’t experienced sexism at Kappa Delta Rho.

“Laura and I weren’t setting out to prove anything,” Gottesfeld insists. “It was a sincere gesture of friendship. I love that place. I love the people there. The women making the biggest hue and cry about this are the ones who never go (to fraternity parties). They’re generalizing because they have little knowledge of the situation. It’s not fair to the fraternities.”

Rude, who’s been enclosing press clips about pledging KDR with law school applications as a way to set herself apart from the crowd, adds that even her experience as a pledge was non-sexist.

“During pledging, you’re on call, 24 hours a day for six weeks,” she explains. “Brothers will call you at 2 in the morning saying, ‘We’re hungry. Go get us food.’ We had to do their laundry. But everyone did. It wasn’t like, ‘You’re a girl. Do this laundry.’ There were a few things that were questionable: ‘Everybody get into your boxer shorts, run around and do this.’ But they made allowances for us on that. There was nothing degrading to women. And now that I’m a brother, I have a pledge doing my laundry, too.”

Just about everybody at Middlebury has a fierce opinion about what to do with the Greeks. But one of the most measured views comes from a fraternity member who suspects the school would be better off without its fraternities.

Tall, blond, legally blind senior Ad Hardin is a member of Sigma Epsilon, the fraternity noted for its many skiers, soccer players and “Dead Heads” (Grateful Dead fans). A senior in an independent scholar program on Latin American studies, Hardin is also the editor of The Middlebury Campus, the college’s weekly newspaper.

“Middlebury is a small school that I don’t think needs organizations like fraternities,” he says. “Fraternities do promote sexism. When you get a bunch of guys by themselves, most of whom have been brought up to think it’s OK to make sexist remarks and to view women as somewhat one-dimensional, that tends to feed on itself. It lets that attitude insulate itself from other elements that would challenge it.”

So how did a Greek who personally prefers wiping out Middlebury frats respond on his paper’s editorial page?

Hardin, who has been critical of other policies at Middlebury, termed the trustees’ decision “productively conciliatory.” And he wrote that although “some brothers would argue that the decision does effectively abolish fraternities, the fact is that a group of friends can still organize themselves around a residence.”

In addition, Hardin observed that the ruling is hardly a final, comprehensive blueprint for social life at Middlebury College. “It is more along the lines of a rough outline, with many blanks to be filled in.”

Blanks indeed. Right now, no one at Middlebury knows precisely how a fraternity will be judged to have complied with the trustees’ wishes. Fifty percent women? As many as will pledge? A few to indicate sincerity and improvement?

According to several Middlebury administrators, about the only thing that’s agreed upon is that nobody wants to establish a quota system for female membership in fraternities.

Says Dean of the College Ann Craig Hanson, who spent much of the last year overseeing the task force on student social life, “Now the work really begins.”