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The North-American Interfraternity Conference has approved a new policy that will no longer allow hard liquor in chapter houses or at parties in most circumstances.
According to the North-American Interfraternity Conference, the national umbrella organization for fraternities, the decision to ban hard alcohol from chapter houses was reached “in a near-unanimous vote.”
The new resolution, which was announced on Tuesday, September 4, will affect more than 6,100 chapters on 800 campuses and must be adopted by September 2019. The resolution was approved at the NIC annual meeting last week.
The resolution states that all NIC fraternities must “adopt and implement a policy by September 1, 2019, that prohibits the presence of alcohol products above 15% ABV in any chapter facility or at any chapter event, except when served by a licensed third-party vendor.”
Alcohol such as beer, wine, and malt beverages typically fall below 15 percent ABC.
via The Chronicle of Higher Education:
The ban will apply to common areas in fraternity houses as well as students’ private living spaces, whether or not the students are over the legal drinking age of 21. The vast majority of students who live in fraternity houses are underage, according to the interfraternity conference.
A spokeswoman for the organization didn’t immediately respond when asked to clarify whether hard liquor would be allowed at fraternity parties as long as an outside vendor was serving the drinks.
The vote at the annual meeting was nearly unanimous. Over the years, reform-minded fraternities in the organization have clashed with fraternities that see problems in Greek life as merely a few bad apples.
Fraternity chapters largely govern themselves, but the national organization has a broad oversight role, setting standards for individual members’ conduct and requiring local chapters to abide by various risk-management policies, such as not serving alcohol to underage students.
This is the latest major fraternity or sorority overhaul in the last year, as schools such as Indiana University, the University of Michigan, Ohio State University, Texas State, Florida State, Ball State, Louisiana State and Penn State have all suspended fraternities in the wake of hazing and alcohol deaths.
These reports come amidst similar allegations that have been made against fraternities nationwide, including Sigma Alpha Epsilon at East Carolina University, who was shut down for hazing and the Lambda Chi Alpha chapter at the University of Arkansas which has been accused of taking sexually explicit photographs of women without their permission.
In response to incidents like these, fraternities such Phi Kappa Psi have made numerous changes to their code of conduct in an effort to address the issues that have arisen. In addition, schools such as Texas State, West Virginia University, and Penn State University have introduced new Greek Life rules to try and prevent these problems.
