The immature actions and hateful speech of the last few months have cast a negative spotlight on the greek community and fraternities in particular.
While discrimination of any kind is unacceptable, we feel a disproportionate lens of judgement has been focused on fraternities and fraternity men.
Roughly 70 percent of DePauw students are involved in greek life. That common thread is not responsible for university students' intolerance. We often surround ourselves with like-minded individuals. But one can certainly not say that affiliation always denotes character.
The poor decisions of the few should not reflect so negatively on the many.
That 70 percent is, at times, condescended by administrators, professors and students in and out of the system. Often, we only recognize a very small component of fraternity life, problems which all college students face.
Fraternities are not the only places where hate speech occurs, alcohol is abused or poor decisions are made. It's is far off the mark to say they stem from greek culture. But fraternities are a place where associations, rather than just individuals, are held most accountable.
Every member of a greek organization is a DePauw student, regardless of what house they're in.
We should not ignore the bad, but we should also lend consideration to the good. The community at large often overlooks the greek system's many positive qualities. Philanthropy and community engagement abound in the theory and practice of DePauw's fraternities and sororities.
This is where we can come in. Now, our policy is usually to cover a greek philanthropy with a big picture and a short paragraph. It's in some ways ironic — good service is so common at DePauw that we assume readers aren't interested in knowning much more about it.
So we ask you, our readers, to be active consumers of news on this campus. If you want more stories about philanthropies, whether that means barbecues, community service projects or something else, we need to know. Send editor@thedepauw.com an email.
Market yourself, your greek organization or your cause.
We'll be glad to cover it.