Going Greek - History, 1980-2000

In the early 1980s, the question of hazing became a hot issue for not only fraternities and sororities, but for many student organizations with initiation rituals. Hazing was nothing new at this time, with issues dating back to at least the 1950s, but reports of injuries and deaths due to organizational hazing and their subsequent lawsuits gained much publicity in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In response, the State of Ohio made ORC 2903.31 effective on March 3, 1983 defining "hazing" and making it a fourth degree misdemeanor to haze another person or for adminstrators, employees or faculty members of educational institutions to permit hazing of any person. The State broadly defined "hazing" as an act or coercion of an act that would cause mental or physical harm to a person. UC tightened up that definition with its own policy (3361: 40-3-12), also made effective on March 3, 1983. According to the rule, hazing included but was not limited to paddling, beating, or hitting, wearing anything to degrade, depriving individuals of sleep, meals, or body maintenance, use of drugs, eating or drinking foreign or unusual substances (including alcohol), throwing or attaching something to a person, ridicule and humiliation, kidnapping, interrogations, and any illegal activity. The U.C. policy also stated that the willingness of the person to be hazed was not a defense for hazing.

Response from the UC community was mixed. Most vocal were the black fraternities, whose pledging traditions were considered more openly militant than others, and included public marches, voluntary branding, and head shaving. Black fraternity members defended their pledging practices, sometimes likening them to ROTC marches and other initiation rituals connected to the military and similar member-based societies. While outsiders observing these rituals questioned whether they constituted hazing, members and leaders of participating groups cited years of tradition supporting their practices. A July 1986 article in the News Record studied UC's progress in anti-hazing efforts since the 1983 legislation. Representatives of Student Affairs and Greek Affairs agreed that in predominately white organizations hazing was nearly nonexistent, but that in black fraternities pledging "may fringe near hazing." UC's Association of Black Greek Letter Organizations' coordinator Antonio Brown countered, stating, "It's not a question of making pledges march because we enjoy seeing them do it. It's tradition. It has been part of a 75 year tradition." He goes on to stress that national offices did not consider the marches hazing and that branding and head shaving were strictly optional. Clifton Magazine included an intriguing feature about black fraternity pledging in their Autumn, 1981, edition, titled "Rites of Passage." The article is presented here for research purposes, with the understanding that traditions evolve and change and may not be represented in the same way today.

On March 7, 1983, the Interfraternity Council banned alcohol from all UC fraternity rush functions with a vote of 26-11. An impetus to the change may have been the State of Ohio's decision to raise the drinking age from 18 to 19 in October 1982, effectively restricting most freshmen from partaking in drink.

The 1986-1987 academic year challenged UC's Greeks with a conflict between them and the Clifton Heights-University Heights-Fairview Community Council (CUF). The original issue was a rezoning proposal in the Fall of 1986 for the area where the Greek houses sat, lowering the occupancy limits for properties upon transfer of ownership. While the rezoning would not force existing property owners to lower their residency numbers, it would effectively prevent Greek organizations from purchasing a new property for the purpose of establishing a fraternity or sorority house, limiting expansion of the Greek system. The Greeks had support from the University administration and community, the Clifton Heights-University Heights Business Association, and from a surprisingly strong ally, Vice Mayor J. Kenneth Blackwell. The Cincinnati City Planning Commission recommended that the area keep the zoning status that it currently had.

The zoning battle led to what the Greeks saw as a wider issue between them and CUF - the right to be represented in the organization through CUF membership and voting rights. The Greeks charged CUF with discrimination against them, claiming that more than 100 applications from Greek members were being ignored. Additionally, while Greeks were allotted one vote per residence, they felt that each resident of the house should have a vote. This is where Blackwell came in. Blackwell, who was also chair of the Cincinnati City Council, accused CUF of several violations and scheduled a hearing to be held on February 9, 1987 where CUF and students to discuss the accusations. CUF termed it a "witch-hunt." A second hearing was held on March 9, at which City Council's Finance and Labor Committee passed a motion 4-0 to issue an ordinance stating that anyone residing within the boundaries of a council could vote if they produced a voter registration card or other record documenting proof of residency. On March 11, City Council approved the ordinance by a vote of 7-1. While the ordinance, which applied not only to CUF, but to all 47 community councils in Cincinnati, would not require CUF to give students voting rights, their refusal to adhere to it would make them forfeit funding from the Neighborhood Support Program. The final result of the battle was the resignation of the entire CUF executive board in May, 1987. The Greeks had won.

Finally, Peace

After the issues of the 1960s and the 1970s and the turmoil of the 1980s, the Greek system finally found a sort of peace in the 1990s. No longer the controlling force on campus life, they nonetheless were important contributors to the campus community and displayed confidence in their way of life. The number of fraternities has grown from 18 in 1980 to 25 (the highest it has ever been) in 2011, although the number of sororities decreased from 14 to 12 in the same time period. The year 1992 marked the 100th anniversary of Sigma Chi's charter, representing a century of Greek life at the University of Cincinnati.

Today UC's Greek system is managed by the office of Fraternity and Sorority Life, a division of Student Activities and Leadership Development. Four councils have been established as governing and/or advising boards for individual chapters. The Interfraternity Council, established in the early twentieth century as the Bowling League, was eventually revived and is still going strong, and governs chapters that belong to the national North-American Fraternity Conference. The Panhellenic Council dropped "Women's" from their name, but continue to govern sororities under the National Panhellenic Conference. The National Pan-Hellenic Council is the governing board for UC's historically African-American fraternities and sororities, and is affiliated with the national organization of the same name. Finally, the Inter-Greek Council brings representatives of all of these groups plus non-affiliated groups together quarterly. As of Spring quarter 2011, twelve sororities and 25 fraternities operate on campus and UC’s Greek system continues to grow. In May 2011, UC accepted Gamma Phi Beta sorority’s bid for colonization in the fall of 2011. Phi Mu sorority, which had a chapter here from 1931-1950, was invited to colonize beginning in the fall of 2013.