Belmont Forcing Fraternities To Give Bids To 100 Percent Of Dudes That Show Up To Rush

Dan Regester8 years ago

For those of you who have never done a quick Google search before writing off the Bruins in the first round of an NCAA March Madness bracket, Belmont is a small, private liberal arts university of a little under 8,000 students in the center of Nashville, Tennessee. It’s best known for serving as the incubator of inspiration to noted human ear terrorists Brad Paisley, Chris Young, and Josh Turner, in addition to being the school that fired their lesbian soccer coach in 2010 for her pro-box munching stance not aligning with their Christian values. So excuse me as I choke on the irony that this very same institution of higher learning is now ordering their fraternities to become completely inclusive to any leftward hanging piece that wishes to join their organizations.

Yes, if you rush and meet academic requirements, Belmont has mandated that you get extended a bid to join at least one of the four fraternities recognized on campus.

From USA Today:

Belmont Provost Thomas Burns said fraternities had been operating outside the rule for years, apparently unknowingly. When administrators found out earlier this academic year, they told the fraternities to start complying.

“We’re asking them to be as inclusive as any other student organization,” Burns said. “We just want to make sure that nobody’s being excluded for reasons that don’t make sense.”

Phi Kappa Tau, which was the only fraternity that was allowed to add new members this spring, refused to comply with the policy. As a result, the group couldn’t recruit new members.

Here’s the thing about other student organizations: they get funded by the university. You want to tell us how to run our private societies and hold us to the same standards as those inclusive clubs? Fine. Open up the checkbook and grant us the same financial resources that you give to those groups. Until then, there’s really nothing to discuss at the negotiation table.

Fraternities are exclusive by design. That’s kind of the entire point of joining one. We can spew all that b.s. about service and tradition, but, at the end of the day, it’s a group of dudes you click with and enjoy being around. Almost like they’re your buddies or something. Weird, I know.

As human beings we generally gravitate towards likeminded people that share common interests. No one’s forcing friendships between a random group of non-affiliated, juiced to the tits gym rats and nerdy gamers jacking it in their dorm rooms to anime tentacle porn. They very rarely cross paths out in the wild let alone grab beers together after a round of 18. Why should it suddenly be different when you add Greek letters into the equation?

If a kid couldn’t secure a bid and find a home on campus, there’s probably a very good reason why it panned out that way. And what happens if one of these sketchballs that you push on to a fraternity sexual assaults a girl or physical harms another student during his pledgeship? No one’s looking at his GPA then.

If you want us to solve the real issues facing our Greek community we needed to be a hell of a lot more selective with who we let into our world based on the merits of their character, not recklessly water bidding any goon with a pulse..

Belmont Greeks started a petition to put the kibosh on this mandate. Click below to sign.

[via USA Today]

Image via Youtube