Comment & Debate
Jeffrey DeSimone. “The Role of Drinking.” The New York Times. May 6th, 2011: “although fraternities should not be protected from societal, campus or their own rules, eliminating fraternities altogether would reduce negative consequences of drinking by a substantially smaller amount than proponents might hope, and would potentially be harmful in some respects.”
Jeffrey DeSimone. “The Role of Drinking.” The New York Times. May 6th, 2011: “My research shows that fraternity membership does indeed contribute to increased binge and frequent drinking and intoxication, including consequences such as hangovers, forgetting or regretting actions, missing classes and arguing with friends. […] However, for most types and effects of alcohol use, only a small fraction of the gap between fraternity members and non-members is actually caused by fraternity membership. Specifically, for most drinking behavior, only 10 to 20 percent of the difference between members and non-members is plausibly attributable to being in a fraternity. Most of these differences, therefore, would persist even in the absence of fraternities, to which many pledges are attracted precisely because members engage in alcohol-related behavior in which pledges already participate.”