As I’ve mentioned in the past, I was a member of a fraternity while I was in college. This article from the National Review Online, titled “Are Frat Brothers Natural Conservatives?”, came across my radar and immediately piqued my interest.
I’ve seen a handful of responses to this article, but so far I haven’t read anything from anyone that was actually a member of a fraternity. So, I thought I’d chime in with my own view of conservatism in the Greek system.
Let’s make something clear: there are more conservatives per capita in the Greek system than in any organization that’s not the College Republicans. However, assuming that every fraternity man is a Republican voter waiting to happen would be a mistake.
Before I get to why conservatives graduate toward the Greek system, I need to thoroughly destroy this article so that everyone that googles it can see just how stupid it is.
As college students head back to school for spring semester, most will enter largely anti-conservative atmospheres. But for many, the Greek system may offer a respite from the typical environment of academia — or at least a safe and non-judgmental place to believe in limited government and free enterprise.
Bullshit. In four years, the closest I ever came to hearing one of my conservative fraternity brothers talk about “limited government and free enterprise” is complaining about the drug war or state liquor laws, where they had almost unanimous agreement from anyone that happened to be walking by or within earshot.
“It’s become so generic and typical for college students to be liberal,” [Madison Wickham, founder of TotalFratMove.com] says, that the definition of “cool” has almost reversed. “It’s cool to be conservative because everybody’s liberal.”
Perhaps things have changed since I graduated, but when I was a student I can’t say I ever heard of anyone picking a political orientation because it was “cool”. That being said, I graduated before hipsters were a thing, so it’s entirely possible.
He says part of the reason members of the Greek system tend to be more conservative than their independent peers is that the organizations celebrate tradition and history.
I love the tradition and history of both my national fraternity and my university chapter; neither of those things have anything to do with why there are a lot (relatively speaking) of conservatives in the Greek system.
Mike Cunningham, from Purdue University’s class of ’12, was the president of his fraternity and also of the university’s College Republicans. He says he noticed that, while members of Purdue’s large Greek system certainly span the ideological spectrum, they seemed more likely to identify as fiscally conservative and to gravitate toward College Republicans than did the general student population.
Purdue is a concrete and steel wasteland set in a mid-size decaying post-industrial midwestern city. It is literally the ugliest campus I have ever seen. Fuck Purdue.
“Conservatives on college campuses are a silent majority,” he adds, arguing that the Greek system can bring together students who otherwise wouldn’t find much sympathy for their ideals.
“Conservatives on college campuses are a silent majority,” is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. In my experience, conservatives on college campuses tended to be rather vocal about their views, whether you want them to or not. Also, a lack of sympathy for said ideals generally has more to do with the people spouting them, rather than the ideals themselves.
[Evan Burns, founder of the Odyssey, a Greek- focused newspaper] says Greeks tend to be more interested in professional degrees such as finance, law, medicine, and economics — instead of, say, women’s studies.
This is true. I know a lot of budding lawyers, doctors, consultants, finance guys, etc. from my days in the frat. I also know soldiers, entrepreneurs, salesmen, and a variety of other occupations as well, also from my day in the frat. Ironically enough, I know more than a few of them took at least one women’s studies class.
Several students say a challenge for the Greek system is negative press from predominantly liberal campus newspapers.
Because nothing says “Conservative!” like blaming the media.
Christopher Warren, who graduated from the University of Georgia in 2012, said his fraternity consistently struggled with unfair coverage.
“The real thing we faced, even more than the bureaucracy of the university, was the on-campus media,” he says. “It was something we were constantly combating, having negative stories surrounding our fraternity or other fraternities on campus being the highlight in the school newspaper.”
In my experience, the fraternities made the campus newspaper for two reasons: a big philanthropic event, or an investigation/expulsion by the university due to drinking, drugs, hazing, etc. One of those is obviously good press, and the other is entirely self-created bad press.
So, having now suffered through that, our question remains unanswered. Why are there more conservatives in the Greek system than in the university population at large?
One word: demographics.
Picture, if you will, the average “frat boy”. White male, raised in the suburbs, age 18-23, upper middle class background. Sound like anyone else? Oh yes, it sounds like a younger version of everyone that runs the Republican party.
Frats are expensive, significantly more so than either on or off-campus housing in all but the nicest apartments. Even though I had brothers that came from relatively poor families and relied on loans, the vast majority of us didn’t. In fact, there were always rumors of some of the more upper-crusty houses on campus asking for the joint income of your parents as part of the bid process, and if it was under six figures you were dropped from the house.
However, when I think back to my college days, three particular conservative brothers stand out.
The first was the son of a wealthy Chicago contractor. For those of you in or familiar with Chicago, if I told you his last name you’d immediately recognize it. Without going into too much detail, he used a seemingly never ending supply of cocaine to bribe half the house into making him President. Then he ran it into the ground. He barely went to class, got mediocre to bad grades, and spent the entire second semester of his senior year trading stocks online. Also, he smelled terrible and had a Roomba for his 10′ x 10′ room. Just really not a pleasant person.
The second was the son of an Old Money Southern family. And by Old Money, I mean OLD MONEY. He drove a Corvette as a student. He now lives and works in DC, doing God knows what.
The third and final was Karl. Karl was from Texas. Plano, if you have to know. Karl is one of the most unintentionally funny people I have ever met. Karl had a tendency to get very drunk and talk about whatever was on his mind to anyone that had ears. It didn’t matter if you didn’t want to listen; Karl didn’t care. He would talk about anything, at length, for what seemed like the longest period of time in your life. In fact, Karl’s pontificating skills were so well honed, it became a short-lived fraternity tradition to buy Karl a fifth of whiskey and lock him in a room with the pledges, and no one could leave until Karl finished his whiskey. After two pledge classes we discontinued the process, as it was deemed “cruel and unusual”. Karl, for all his faults, is still one of the smartest guys I’ve met.
The simple truth is that fraternities are more conservative than the general college population because they’re significantly more expensive and consequently cater to a demographic group that tends to be significantly more conservative than the general college population. For as much as you can call a group a “natural demographic”, fraternities and sororities are a natural conservative demographic.
Image via Wikipedia.
