Yale University’s old campus is a genteel assortment of Gothic, Gothic-revival and Georgian architecture circling a graceful lawn, with a flash of Tiffany stained glass. It was also here, in the black chill of an early autumn night this academic year, that the quiet was punctuated by a single line of young men in white blindfolds marching in the dark, each with his hand on the shoulder of the one in front.
“No means yes,” they chanted loudly and in unison. “Yes means anal.” Then: “My name is Jack, I’m a necrophiliac.” And more along the same lines, at the direction of older members of the fraternity they were hoping would accept them as new members.
The sudden, loud intrusion interrupted not only the peace of the Old Campus. It ended a brief detente during which there had been few such highly publicised scandals, and has reignited the recurring debate about whether American universities’ fraternities and sororities should finally be banned for good after repeatedly running afoul of administrators and plaintiffs’ lawyers over sexism, alcohol abuse, ‘hazing’ (humiliating or abusive initiation rituals) and worse.
To many foreign observers, one question is clear: why do US universities tolerate these groups? “The number of instances of high-profile nefarious behaviour by fraternities really hasn’t gone away,” says James Arnold, dean of math and sciences at the College of Marin in California, whose doctoral dissertation in higher education administration was about fraternities.
Arnold sometimes serves as an expert witness in lawsuits brought against fraternities. “They may have ratcheted up their public relations, but they really haven’t changed their behaviour. Everything has just gone more and more underground, until something like this happens,” he says.
Following the recent Yale incident, the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed proposing that fraternities be banned. Meanwhile, women at Yale were so incensed by the incident that they complained to the federal government about an environment they called sexually hostile, and said the university failed to respond promptly to incidents of sexual harassment.
If the resulting investigation by the US department of education finds this to be true, Yale stands to lose some $500 million (Rs.2,250 crore) a year in federal funds. But fraternities have the backing of powerful alumni on whom universities depend for contributions. The Yale fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE), for instance, counts among its members both presidents Bush.
It was only after the government confirmed its investigation that the university announced it would suspend the fraternity chapter from on-campus recruiting or holding activities there for five years. The announcement in May came more than six months after the Old Campus incident. Several members of DKE were also disciplined.
But some in American higher education have come to the fraternities’ defence. Maravene Loeschke, president of Mansfield University, in Pennsylvania, is trying to add fraternities, something she admits seems counterintuitive “at a time when many university presidents wish, secretly or otherwise”, they could get rid of theirs.
She believes that fraternity members on her campus are serious about community service. “They have come full circle, back to what Greek life is supposed to be,” says Loeschke. At Mansfield, the newest fraternity admits gay members and there are fraternities planned for black men and a sorority for black women.
Public school budget cuts
In 1783 Noah Webster, a school teacher, published the first edition of his American spelling book. It would become a standard text in classrooms across the country, selling 60 million copies over the next century. Webster’s view was that the new country deserved its own approach to English, more accessible than the version it had inherited. For Webster and his followers, literacy was a democratic goal as much as a pedagogical one.
That vision of public education is a compelling one, although America has often fallen short in its pursuit of the ideal. This makes it troubling that many cities and states, struggling to make up budget shortfalls, have put schools on the chopping block. In Texas, for example, legislators expect $4 billion (Rs.18,000 crore) in cuts for schools over the next two years, a 6 percent decrease from the state’s projected funding formulas for 2012.
The cuts are also meeting resistance from pupils, teachers and, in some cases, the courts. In Los Angeles the teachers’ union voted in favour of salary cuts in an effort to save jobs. Republicans in Michigan have complained they are getting emotional letters from kindergarteners. In May a New Jersey judge issued a report declaring that 36 percent of the state’s schools are inadequately funded.
Some schools are now charging fees for certain classes or activities, a startling trend that violates some basic ideas about what public schools are supposed to do. The idea of asking people to chip in for schools is not unprecedented, but it is usually a bit more subtle. Elementary school teachers ask their pupils to buy school supplies; high-school students sell cupcakes and wash cars to raise money for the prom. Parents may supplement a child’s education with extra services such as a tutor, a week at lacrosse camp, or a second-hand car. Asking pupils to pay fees for core activities or classes seems much worse. These services may be for individual students, but public schools are a public good.
Projected cuts around the country also raise deeper questions about school finance. As it is, Americans already pay for public schools by virtue of where they live; schools are partly funded by property taxes. The richer the parents, better the schools, or at least better resourced. That is a fundamental inequity of the American system, not a new one.
A broader question is whether money is the best way to improve schools. A 2008 study by the Centre on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington found spending on schools, adjusted for inflation, increased by 29 percent between 1990-2005, without a commensurate gain in pupil achievement. Better strategies may not be more expensive. The cuts may force states to think creatively. That would be some consolation.
(Excerpted and adapted from The Economist & Times Higher Education)