February
5, 2006
Goodbye,
Animal House:
Fraternity
drinking has to stop, say colleges
By Philip Sherwells in
Washington
Celebrated
in film in Animal House and in person by George W Bush, the
drink-fuelled excesses of life in fraternity houses have long been
regarded as a rite of passage for young American men.
In
his days at Yale, the drinking prowess and social skills of the future
leader of the Western world helped him to become a president for the
first time when he was elected to head Delta Kappa Epsilon, a frat house
renowned for its raucousness.
However,
college authorities are cracking down on the traditional American ritual
of campus drinking binges after a series of alcohol-related deaths,
accidents and fights.
They
are introducing tough curbs on drinking as the results of such alcoholic
over-indulgence by inexperienced young drinkers are often no joke. At
Coastal Carolina University in South Carolina, officials last week
suspended the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity after two students ended up in
comas with alcohol poisoning after a weekend party.
When
spring term began on Tuesday, students at the University of
Massachusetts (UMass) in the genteel New England town of Amherst were
greeted with a raft of restrictions on alcohol consumption in its halls
of residence. The university has been alarmed by the popularity of
drinking games as it tries to shake off the stigma of a 2003 riot by
several hundred drunken students who turned over cars, lit fires and
threw bottles at police after a baseball game.
"Alcohol
abuse is an enduring problem," said UMass spokesman Ed Blaguszewski.
"It turns up in different ways and drinking games seem to have
taken on a greater prevalence in recent years."
The
new rules prohibit gatherings of more than 10 students in a room where
alcohol is present and ban all drinking games - particularly the popular
"beer pong" in which players attempt to knock over each
other's cups with table tennis balls and losers must knock back drinks
as a penalty.
The
wild world of fraternities was lampooned in the 1978 film Animal House
with its toga parties, road trips and food fights. The chant "We
can do anything we want. We're college students" was the war cry of
a drunk and disorderly bunch led by Bluto Blutarsky (played by the late
John Belushi). Such antics were also a feature of campus life for Mr.
Bush, according to fellow Yale alumni, one of whom claimed that the
future president "majored in beer drinking". Mr. Bush is now
teetotal.
However,
the private setting and secretive culture in which such drinking thrives
can also make it lethal when it goes wrong.
In
one notorious case, the family of Daniel Reardon reached an undisclosed
settlement with the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity after suing it over his
son's death after a drinking ritual. Other fraternity members had put
the unconscious 19-year-old University of Maryland student in a closed
room and said they would look after him, but called an ambulance only
when he stopped breathing.
When
Lynn Gordon Bailey, an 18-year-old University of Colorado freshman, died
from an alcohol overdose in late 2004, it prompted the state legislature
to give immunity to anybody drinking illegally who calls the emergency
services to help a drunken friend. He was found in the Chi Psi
fraternity house with obscene sexual comments scrawled across his face
after a party.
National
fraternity leaders have now stepped in and urged students to call for
help if a drinking sessions spirals out of control. "One of the
biggest problems out there is students are afraid to call for
help," said Geoff Brown, who runs alcohol-education projects for
the North America Interfraternity Conference. "Our groups are
taking a more pro-active posture these days."
Mr.
Bush turned teetotal at 40. But it may well have been his memories of
his hell-raising student days that prompted him to reveal last year that
he was enjoying reading I Am Charlotte Simmons, by the best-selling
American author Tom Wolfe. The novel is the racy chronicle of a country
girl at an Ivy League university, where excessive drinking and frequent
sexual encounters are a way of life.
Wolfe,
one of the sharpest literary observers of contemporary America, clearly
doubts that the new restrictions will curb campus drinking. "I pass
along one historical note," he told the Sunday Telegraph in an
e-mail. "It was WORSE in the US in the 19th century."
Binge
drinking is rife throughout many British universities whose bars and
student unions continue to offer low-price alcoholic drinks.
Excessive
drinking is also glamorized by several student societies, including
Oxford University's Piers Gaveston Society, which is notorious for its
secret, debauched parties.
Jamal
El-Shayyal, a member of the National Union of Students executive
committee, supported the introduction of similar drinking restrictions
at British universities.
"Introducing
some kind of alcohol threshold would be a very positive move," he
said.
"The
binge drinking culture, especially among students, is getting out of
hand and some kind of limitations would be a good way to address
that."
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