Lobbying groups for fraternities and sororities fought against various pieces of legislation that attempted to address hazing and sexual assault on campuses, according to an article by Bloomberg's David Glovin.
The article, which goes through several tragic stories of hazing-related deaths and the ensuing efforts to mitigate the practice, is worth a read in its entirety. But the most shocking takeaway is how Greek advocacy lobbyists have worked to stop governmental efforts to ostensibly make college safer.
Although the Fraternity and Sorority PAC — known as FratPAC — states on a partner website that it "supports candidates who promote legislation that encourages hazing mitigation," Glovin argues that the lobbying group works behind the scenes to make sure these bills never make it to the floor.
"Traditional college fraternities" claim that national hazing legislation "would infringe on student rights and that existing state criminal laws are sufficient," Glovin reports.
One prominent FratPAC supporter told Bloomberg that "since fraternities and universities have strong anti-hazing policies, federal legislation isn’t needed."
Bloomberg's article also states that FratPAC lobbied against the U.S. Education Department when they tried to broaden the limits for investigating sexual assault.
"[When] the Education Department told colleges to require less evidence before responding to allegations of sexual assault, fraternity leaders were among those who met with department officials to complain that the new policy threatened student rights," Bloomberg reports.
We reached out to FratPAC for comment but have not heard back.
The graph below shows which fraternities and sororities most of FratPAC's funding comes from:
Read the full article at Bloomberg >
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