USC officials unveiled a plan to eliminate pledging periods for all fraternities and sororities across campus.
The majority of Greek organizations have been either suspended or placed on probation within the last three school years, and most violations are alcohol, drug or hazing related. A student died of alcohol poisoning in March 2015 while pledging a fraternity. Taking into account the high rate of violations, USC held a summit in the spring with national fraternity and sorority leaders and proposed the plan to end pledging.
University spokesman Wes Hickman says that the elimination of pledging could be a "game changer" for Greek life and, in a broader sense, student life.
"We all recognize that pledgeship has some negative activities associated with it, whether it’s overt hazing or servitude — one senior member asking a pledge to do something and expecting him to do it," Hickman told The Chronicle of Higher Education. "Those are all hazing behaviors, and they all inhibit a student’s ability to fully participate in the educational experience."
According to Jerry Brewer, the associate vice president of Student Life and Development, cutting the pledging periods short would give pledges an opportunity to opt out of following orders or, in other words, getting hazed.
“We want the University of South Carolina to be the non-pledging university,” Brewer told the Free Times. “If you associate pledging with abusive behavior, with servitude and all that, people are going to come here and they’re going to say, ‘Hey, let’s go to South Carolina. They’ve got a great Greek system. They’ve got no servitude.’"
University President Harris Pastides has expressed his discontent with the rate at which fraternities are getting into trouble and has said that the Greek organizations have the next school year to address the issue if they hope to avoid the pledging ban.
“I would love nothing more than if we got to a point where we had a pact with the organizations that said, ‘Trust us. Let us continue. We heard you. We’re going to have a good clean bill of health this year,’” Pastides said to the Free Times. “And maybe we won’t need to be that radical about pledging.”