In their WSJ article regarding Fraternities at Cornell University and school management teams’ efforts to “reign them in,” the news writers had this remark:

…fraternities that are both a disproportionate source of trouble and a fixture of campus life.

Neither of those need to be. Schools have no intrinsic obligation to host fraternities or sororities, and neither fraternities nor sororities have any intrinsic right to a presence on campus. It’s completely straightforward, if requiring more courage than school managers seem to possess, to ban these organizations altogether and thereby eliminate that particular disproportionate source of trouble.

Of course, that would move the misbehavers that so heavily populate and take advantage of those fundamentally insular organizations into the school’s dormitories or to off campus locations, including to fraternity and sorority houses that might set up off campus. Frat and srat houses, after all, collect a fair amount of dollars in the form of dues and donations, so they’re likely to hang around nearby, never minding the troublemakers in their membership.

Dormitories, though, are much easier to monitor, inspect, and control, than are these houses. Off campus, on the other hand, gives the city and State police direct access and better ability to deal with the criminal behavior that’s all too common in frat and srat houses. The authorities possessed by campus police are severely limited by those too timid school…administrators.

If a fraternity or sorority wants onto a school’s campus, let it demonstrate its worthiness first with several years of trouble free operation off campus and on other schools’ campuses.