The Drinking Is Killing, and Fraternities Should Be Banned

The Drinking Is Killing, and Fraternities Should Be Banned

Mike Gallagher
Thursday, Feb. 1, 2001

Another kid dies from alcohol poisoning, an 18-year-old who apparently downed a pint of whiskey. It happened last week in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, just the latest in an ever-growing list of senseless deaths of young people who think they’re doing the adult thing by drinking like, well, only a child would.

But what’s most infuriating about these deaths is that they occur at fraternity houses all over colleges and universities in America. And we still resist endorsing a nationwide ban of fraternities.

The only people who would challenge my belief that it’s time to ban college fraternities are those who are proud, glorious alumni of Tappa Kegga Brew or some other goofy frat. They’ll try and argue that fraternities really do a lot of good in the community, that they’re social groups that encourage membership in the local Big Brothers chapter or the American Red Cross.

But we all know what fraternities REALLY are: places where underage kids are encouraged to drink heavily. Animal houses that thrive on wild keg parties and strange, homoerotic activities that are conducted under the guise of "pledging" ("Thank you, sir, may I have another?"). They are just generally lousy environments for impressionable young kids who are supposedly trying to get an expensive college education.

Our culture has a strange double standard when it comes to alcohol. We have numerous activist groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving who want a "zero tolerance" policy toward the deadly combination of drinking and driving. And yet thousands of parents cheerfully and willingly watch their 18-year-old sons pledge to a fraternity, a group that will encourage binge drinking by way of never-ending keg parties and beer bashes, any kind of excuse to get a bunch of 18-, 19-, 20- and 21-year-olds together to get drunk.

There’s a family in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, this week faced with the unthinkable task of burying their terrific 18-year-old kid. A young man who figured he was supposed to guzzle a pint of whiskey while watching a basketball game on a Saturday night in a frat house because that’s what 18-year-old kids in frat houses do.

It’s time we wake up and realize what fraternities are all about. Shame on any college or university that allows them on campus. And maybe it’s not too much to hope that the death of this 18-year-old boy will get the attention of other parents who are faced with the prospect of allowing their son to join a fraternity. They need to just say no.

Mike Gallagher’s talk show is now heard on nearly 200 radio stations.