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at Snaps the Podcast. When I was eighteen years old, I became an
Alpha FI sister at the University of Maryland. Three years after disaffiliating from the
chapter and three days before graduating college, I released the first season of Snapped,
a tell all podcast series about my sorority experience. Since the release of
season one, I've interviewed forty current or former Greek Life members, including some
Greek Life adjacent individuals. These are their stories. I'm Lucy Taylor, your
host and favorite excommunicated sister. This is Snapped Snapped. Please note that all
the content presented in this episode is based on alleged information, but based on
the documents I've seen the research I've done and the people I've spoken to on
and off the record, these are my findings. My dus were so expensive.
They were thirteen hundred my freshman year chefs to like Long Peach State alone
life they've raised over a million dollars and jaws. It was like over a
thousand dollars for the year. But then there was like monthly fees and I
was like privilege enough to have parents who would like pay it for me.
It was two thousand a semester. A semester yeah, uh huh. They
could make fines out of nothing, like we would get like scolded at chapter
where they're like, ladies, don't make us find you for this. We
had new member fees, we had our regular membership fees. We had to
pay for our pin, which it is one hundred and sixty dollars just for
our pin. How much were your dues and how much was it to live
in the house. Ten thousand dollars would be like a very low ballpark.
Ten thousand a semester, yep. And that was to live in the house
plus our juice, plus all a bunch of like extra fees. Like there
was like every year we were build for a necklace that we got our freshman
year and we were built fifty dollars for it every year, and we were
like, are you sure we're still paying off this necklace? Like this necklace
that is like faded. In an article on msnbc dot com titled why Fraternity's
need to be abolished, Andrew Losh highlights some frightening statistics. Losh points out
that fraternities, which own and operate over three billion dollars worth of real estate,
take in more than one hundred and fifty million dollars in tax free revenue
each year. But the question remains, who exactly benefits from this massive sum
of money. Did they tell you about where the money was going. I
had no idea where the money was going towards. They would just say,
oh, it's going to the chapter. And it's like, what does that
mean, dude? Sorority house isn't improving, nothing's changing in our sorority chapter,
So what are you spending on that money on us? We have to
pay nationals dues which are like two hundred and fifty dollars, and we all
question where they go and what they actually do. And it's a bunch of
miscellaneous things. That we don't really see or no, and how many people
are in your chapter, it's sixty eight to about ninety. That's twenty thousand
dollars a semester to nationals. About yeah, uh huh, I mean all
in all, we had at times two hundred girls in my sorority. One
hundred fifty dollars times two hundred, that's a lot of money going straight to
nationals. Thirty thousand dollars going straight to nationals. Thirty thousand dollars just from
my chapter every semester. So that's sixty thousand a year going straight to nationals
from just just year chapter. I'm a smiling because I'm uncomfortable. I do
not know what you was going to. Every year, we had our LA
chapter's budget, and then we had money in this like vault. Every chapter
meeting our finance, so I would read out, this is how much money
we have in our checking and this is how much is in the vault,
and then the vault would like build and build and build, and then at
the end of the year, all that money that was in the vault,
which was like more than ten thousand dollars, was just going back to the
national organization. Every chapter, our finance VP would stand up and share how
much money was in our savings account and our checking account. We would have
hundreds of thousands of dollars in our savings and I never knew what that money
was used for. Hundreds of thousands. Yes, allegedly it was there in
case someone in the chapter got into legal trouble and needed legal representation for the
organization. Well, technically the legal representation isn't always for the members, more
so the organization itself, But more on that later, Snappers. As I
conducted these interviews, it became increasingly evident that these groups are financially exploiting their
members and they know that they can get away with it because they recruit middle
to upper class students whose parents foot the bill. While sorority and fraternity chapters
typically provide a breakdown of where their dues are allocated, it doesn't always reveal
the full picture of where the money is really going. Right, I'm actually
gonna pull up, like every brother in our house get to copy the budget.
Like it's not very specific. So nationals dues two fifty per person,
and they also have pledged dues which are four fifty per person and in addition,
for some reason, we just pay seventy five dollars to Nationals for a
national security fee. I don't understand why, but we just pay that.
My sorority's financial chair broke down dues for us, but at the top of
it it says initiated member fee ghost to Nationals. That's all I know.
To get a closer look at a breakdown of dues, I dug through my
archives to find the twenty seventeen Alpha Fee New Member Finance presentation. So this
is how the new member fees were broken down. Five hundred dollars to chapter
dues. It states that this goes to socials, shirts, sisterhood events,
recruitment, marketing events, dot dot dot, basically everything in our chapter.
Then there's the fifty five dollars new member fee unclear where this money goes,
seventy dollar badge fee for your badge, one hundred and seventy five dollars initiation
fee unclear where this money goes. One dollar and forty four cents for your
Founder's Day pennies. Based on another Alpha Fee financial contract, the Founder's Day
Pennies are an annual fee imposed on both new and exists members of Alpha fee.
The fee amounts to one cent for every year since the establishment of the
organization, And yeah, a dollar and forty four cents doesn't really sound like
a lot. But according to Alpha Fee's website, they currently have one hundred
and seventy three thriving collegiate chapters, and as I fact check, it now
says one hundred seventy five. I think there were like one hundred and forty
four members in my chapter. And yeah, Maryland is a big school.
So let's say every chapter has an average of one hundred members. So that's
one dollar and forty four cents times one hundred times one seventy three, that's
twenty four thousand, nine hundred and twelve dollars. Not sure where that money's
going. The presentation goes on to say that new members pay a two hundred
dollars parlor fee. This is for any sister who doesn't live in the house,
and it goes towards a general fund that's used to maintain the house on
a continuing basis. So this includes housekeeping services including paper products, minor decorating,
never saw decoration, utilities, chapters, snacks that you'll still get yelled
at for eating because you're not an in house sister. Last, but not
least, new members pay the five hundred dollar bond. The finance presentation states
that it is required by Alpha Fee that all sisters pay a house bond to
their initiating chapter. It goes on to say that the bond fee is used
for substantial and long term repairs slash renovation to the house. However, in
the financial agreement letter, it states that the bond fee goes towards the rental
of meeting space or the future acquisition of property. So no one's really sure
or where the five hundred dollar bond fee goes. Well, actually that's not
fully true, because the financial letter does state that housing related fees are collected
and sent to the House Corporation Board or Property Committee whoever or whatever. That
means. The total of these new member dues came out to be one thousand,
five hundred and ninety one dollars and forty three cents, So this means
that the sorority was getting seventy four thousand, seven hundred and ninety seven dollars
and twenty one cents in total from the forty seven new members they acquired during
recruitment. In twenty seventeen from just one chapter, mind you, and we
can't forget about the money from the general members. In another Alpha Fee document
that I found from twenty seventeen, it notes that there's a twelve thousand dollar
room and board fee charged to live in members. It states that this money
assists with the cost of maintaining the chapter facility and furniture replacement and expansion.
But I thought that's what the five hundred dollar bond fees for and the two
hundred dollar parlor fee, because the room and board money and the bond fee
and the parlor fee are all going to the Housing corporation. But why does
the housing corporation need all of this money? I notice a few noteworthy points
regarding the membership fees charged to regular members. Firstly, there's an annual due
of ninety five dollars that is paid to Alpha Fee International. Unclear with this
money. Additionally, if a member plans to study abroad, they're required to
pay a one hundred dollar fee to reserve their position in the chad knows no
one knows. Lastly, you pay seven hundred and ten dollars for your chapter
due, some of which is allocated to the local Panelinic Association. What's the
Panelinic Association? I know, it's also confusing, like there's so many terms,
it's hard to cook, Chuck. Lucky for us, we've got some
people who can explain. So there's a governing body of all the sororities called
the Pantelatic Association, and you can think of it like an SGA. Basically,
there's president and then there's all these vice presidents of different things, and
they are in charge of like implementing policy, planning events, working with all
the liaisons that are adults that run things, keeping people safe. Each school
has their own version of Panhellenic and it's who oversees all of the sororities and
it's members of each sorority. Fraternities have a version called IFC. The recruitment
budget at some of our large SEC schools for Panelinic is going to be over
three hundred four hundred thousand dollars and a lot of that money goes towards t
shirts, food, a golf cart so that our Panelinic exact can drive around
on a golf cart. You know what's safe for our recruitment counselors. Yeah,
some of these recruitment budgets are insane. Not only are we as collegian
women paying dues to our chapter, each of our chapters are paying dues to
our local Panelinic. So that'll depend on your campus, but I would say
it's probably pretty average for like a local Panelytic to charge dues at twenty dollars
per member. So if you have a chapter of three hundred women and your
Panelinic is charging you twenty dollars yearly dues, that's what six thousand dollars for
a chapter of just like their dues to your local Panelinic. So part of
those sorority dues go to your local Paneltic association and the Panelatic Association uses that
money for recruitment. But then why are they still charging PMMs fifty dollars to
sign up? Well, that's how much it was when I did it at
UMD. But like at the University of Alabama, they charged the pmm's three
hundred and seventy five dollars just to register for Rush who they must have a
lot of golf cards at BAMA. During last week's episode, I introduced you
to MICHAELA. I walk Away as Treasure and secretary of pan Hellena Exactly from
a like ten minute conversation. Michaela is a twenty twenty two graduate from Stetson
University in Florida. One of the things that made my ears perk up from
Michaela's intake form was her interest in discussing the allocation of funds because I needed
as much help as I could get to try and understand what the fuck is
happening with the money. During our interview, Michaela shared some concerns about what
she witnessed while serving as the treasurer on Panelinic Exact. So, for example,
recruitment comes around, we bought sweatshirts, swag, we have to buy
all of this stuff. And I go to the woman who holds our card,
the same woman who runs all of it, and I was like,
do we even have Like I'm the treasurer, I don't even know where the
card is. I don't know how much money we have in our account.
I don't know if we can even spend all of this money, Like I
have no clue what to do with Like, are we good? Can I
see the account? So she was like, oh, I already checked the
account. We're fine. The adult the adults, and I was like,
well, can I see it to make sure my spreadsheets correct? No,
you don't need to see that. Okay, okay. Why appoint a treasurer
if they're not allowed to access the budget? And you know, it's strange
because I literally heard of this happening before. The treasure was not allowed to
tell me what my planning committee's budgets were. My really good friend was the
treasurer, and I remember her getting so mad at me because I'd be like,
can you just give me a peek? Can you give me like a
ballpark of like a low estimate on the money that we had, And she
would get so mad at me. But I later found out that the reason
that I couldn't know is because they didn't know what the budgets were. That
was Kirston, who you all know by now. Kirston and Michaela were both
in Zeta, but Michaela was a sister in Florida at Stetson University and Kirston
at cal State Long Beach. Michaela goes on to say each sorority who's a
member of National pan Hellenic which is every big historically white sorority can think of,
they give money to National pan Hellenic to oversee everything nationally, and then
that is distributed to our individual schools. So something that National pan Hellenic was
they actually froze dues during COVID. Okay, so no one was paying dues
they weren't supposed to be. However, some chapters were still charging, and
I can say for a fact my chapter was one of them. So just
to make that clear, my chapter was still charging pan Hellenic dues after National
pan Hellenics had stopped charging. So to this day, I don't know where
that money went because I knew that money wasn't supposed to be getting charged,
but no one else knew. The rest of the chapter did not know,
and I started telling people. I told other people, and enough of us
were like, where is this money going? And still no one gave us
answers. I've asked the chapter secretary, I've asked the chapter advisor, I've
asked presidents president advisors. I asked the president who oversees all of Florida.
I asked her where that money is going? And I got no answers.
I started with emails and it bumped up to phone calls, so they would
pick up and they just be like, well, we need to do an
investigation, we need to figure this out. Then eventually Mikayla got ahold of
her chapter's treasurer advisor. I was on the phone with her and I was
like, why am I being charged this? They're not even accepting the money
right now, so where is this going? And she gave me an explanation
of oh, nationals must just be like hoarding it so that way they can
lower it later on, so that way it's not as expensive later so that
way one dudes tick back in. They can just get this hoard of money
and it'll cheapen your dues. Like it was constantly an excuse. And then
we have our philanthropic efforts, which how much good do those really do?
I know that a lot of money gets donated, I don't know where exactly
that I haven't seen the effects of that money. I should say ours was
breast cancer. The issue was our organization had started their own breast cancer awareness
and education nonprofit, So our philanthropy money was going to our own nonprofit and
what did the nonprofit do? That's where kind of my issue comes in.
I'm sure you've heard the same, think PAINK Yeah, that's trademarked by our
nonprofit. Okay, so what they were doing is we have the little ribbons
on everyone's backpack that we hand out, but it was focused on awareness and
education about breast cancer. It wasn't really focused on treatment. I mean we
went to the breast cancer walk and handed out food to survivors, Like that
was the extent of our philanthropy, Like where was the money for research?
Where was the money for anything. Kirsten also expressed some concern over Zeta's philanthropy.
I thought it was suspicious that other organizations like had a specific cause that
they gave it to, like a specific organization, right, this was just
the donald McDonald's right, right, right right, or like I'm Saint Jude.
Ours was just breast cancer Awareness or the ZTA Foundation. And again this
is just my suspicion, but like when we donate to the ZTA Foundation,
like I'm pretty sure that that money goes to buying the pink ribbons, yes,
organization letters on it, which, if I can be cynical, like
that's just self promotion, Like we're not promoting breast cancer like this, right,
I see people like around town wearing them because they got them in like
the NFL football games, that says Zeta Yes Think pangs Eta. According to
Zada's website, Zeta members have distributed almost twenty five million Zeta Think Pink ribbons.
Also in their biennial report, Zeta notes that between twenty eighteen and twenty
twenty they raised eight million dollars for the Zeta Alpha Foundation. And then we
would also host these breast cancer awareness events where we would bring like a health
professional I think in I think they were health professionals, and we would bring
like survivors, which was nice. But it was just like an educational event
about breast cancer to like the Greek community, which I guess is you know,
valuable information, of course, but it wasn't. We were not serving
the community like we weren't like funding hospital stays or like supporting survivors or doing
anything like that. It was like either self no, no, it was
all self promotion. I think it's important to note that the foundations that they
create are classified as five have A one C three nonprofit organizations. According to
the IRS A Section five A one C three organization must not be organized or
operated for the benefit of private interests. M. Kirsten goes on to say,
so, we had a budget for philanthropy, but we would like exceed
that because you don't know it's easy to exceed it when you don't know how
much has been it. And I remember because again my roommate was the treasurer.
She told me if that they spent like seven hundred dollars on materials,
decorations, shit like that, and they only ended up raising like a thousand
at the end of the day, Like you spend so much money like keeping
up appearances that like if you really cared about your philanthropy, like why don't
you just give that shit to like the charity. I was ashamed, Like
we would have events and like I wasn't even sure the money was going to
philand instead of giving to a real organization, we had like the Zta Foundation
and all the money was funneled through there. And I'm like, I love
the funk. That means it's snapped. So on, just another classic day
on the Snap discord. We're just you know, talking shit about Zeta,
and our discord moderator says, don't even get me started on Zeta's philanthropy.
They obviously don't keep track of the money that well, considering someone was able
to embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars from it embezzlement, my ears perked up.
After doing some research, I found multiple sources that confirmed that the financial
coordinator for the Zeta Foundation had stolen over four hundred and fifty thousand dollars from
Zeta. What's particularly interesting about this case is how the coordinator managed to carry
out the theft. She recorded all donations, including the ones she stole,
in the foundation's database, which meant that donors would still receive confirmation and thank
you cards as usual. It wasn't until six years after this stealing began that
a fraud investigator at the financial coordinator's bank notified Zeta officials about the fraud.
As a result, Zeta officials decided to terminate her employment. The failure of
the Zeta Foundation to detect the theft of almost half a million dollars raises questions
about the overall management and oversight of such foundations. If you listen to last
week's episode, you already know Tory the former a lum adviser for Alpha Delta
PI. Tory and I also talks philanthropy. It was always interesting to me
because philanthropies this huge like part of recruitment, and they always kind of pr
it that way, right, like that's what our group is for. We
always helped their community in such and such ways. Here's our philanthropy. And
at the end of the day, philanthropy is not even on exact board in
our sorority. It's a smaller position under an exact purse. It's at the
time was under recruitment and marketing. That's disturbed. That's disturbed. Yeah,
our philanthropy officer had to report to the recruitment and marketing director of vice president.
There were a couple of years before I got involved where our philanthropy actually
lost money. So our philanthropy event made no money whatsoever. It actually cost
the chapter to put on, so there was no money going anywhere. Later,
it's twofold, so you have to send your money to the Alpha Delta
Pi Foundation, and the Alpha Delta Pi Foundation takes a little off the top
and then sends the rest to whatever donation you are going to send it to,
which at that time was our national philanthropy. So every sorority makes a
foundation so that they can get away with certain codes and not having to pay
taxes on things and then they can be a little more secretive about where that
money's going. Right, But technically that money then goes to the national philanthropy
or international philanthropy, whatever organization they've chose to partner with, and where does
that money go. Alpha Delta Pie Foundation gives to Ronald McDonald House Charities.
That's the foundation our sorority has chosen to partner with internationally. So once we
give the money to them, then that's Ronald McDonald's House Charities to figure out
what they do with that money. Okay, so it's a portion based first
to nationals and then the rest to Ronald McDonald basically, right, and they
would they would quantify that as it's not going to Nationals, it's going to
the Alpha Delta Pie Foundation, which then goes to the sisters and forms of
scholarships and educational materials. That's their little mini philanthropy on the side or on
top, if that makes sense. To be honest, it still didn't really
make sense, so I did some more research. According to the Culonnaane Law
Group, fraternities can be recognized as tax exempt social clubs, which are five
O one C seven's. However, if a fraternity creates a foundation and can
establish that it is exclusively charitable or educational, it can qualify for another exemption
under IRC five O one C three and be eligible for tax deductible contributions.
Bertrand Harding, author of the Tax Law of Colleges and Universities, notes that
foundations are able to provide grants to cover things like the annual operating expenses for
study related areas of the house, or installing internet wiring if the university wires
its dorms, and according to the Zeta Foundation's website, foundations can also fund
scholarships, educational and leadership development programming, and encourage everyone to think pink with
breast cancer education and awareness efforts. So if they claim that their foundation does
these charitable or educational things, they're allowed to receive tax deductible contributions. However,
in twenty twelve, Inside Higher Ed published an article by Doug Letterman that
illustrates the case of a fraternity foundation whose tax exempt status was revoked. So
it all started because the Phi Gamma Delta frat at Bucknell University needed renovations to
their chapter house. I guess they've punched too many walls or something. They
knew that they have better luck getting donations if those donations could be tax deductible
contributions. So what they do Boom, They made a foundation that is allegedly
exclusively for charitable and educational purposes. Wink wink. However, after two successful
tax exempt approvals, the IRS audited the corporation and concluded that it did not
deserve a tax exemption based on its actual activities. The IRS ruled that a
foundation designed to support educational and charitable activities at a college fraternity must do more
than just help maintain and operate its housing facility. So apparently they can't use
the grants for the house unless they're using it to cover things like the expenses
for study related areas of the house, because that's considered educational. Also,
to the people who are donating to these organizations, know what these foundations use
their money for? Like, does this mean that when I went to Cappadilla's
Night, you know, Cappadelza's philanthropy event where there's self caseity as for charity,
you know Zata di zader TOAs Alpha feed is mac and fees, we
did those for charity. Are you telling me that when I went to Cappadilla's
night that five bucks could have gone towards some new chairs in their study room.
Snapped Is this all even legal? Like? Who came up with these
rules? And where do the dudes actually go? No one knows. I
have nothing to do with finance at all. Who trusted me with this?
Literally? No one knows? Like I would say that so many times in
interviews that I would just want it fucking written on my forehead or on a
hat, And so I made it happen. We have an exclusive No One
Knows hat that is part of our Snap season three merch collection. Check out
our merch on Snaps the podcast dot com and there you'll also find other ways
to donate to this podcast. As a reminder, we are an independent podcast
and so your support goes a long way. If Snapp has made you feel
seen or has impacted you in any way, please consider contributing to this work.
Again that Snaps the podcast dot com by Snapped. So there's the money
from the philanthropy that's going places. But what about all those dues. I
had a conversation with a sister from Penn State who had some thoughts about where
her sorority dues were being allocated. We're going to call her Lauren. So
after I listened to your podcast for the first time, cleaning my room on
the sorority floor. Very ironic, but I do believe that you actually mentioned
something, and it was like, just check where your money goes. And
I did some digging, and the dues that we owed every semester as an
initiated member for US came to be around like anywhere between four hundred five hundred
dollars a semester. Between one hundred and twenty and one hundred and fifty of
that went directly to the national's office. But I always wondered, Okay,
one hundred and fifty dollars I'm paying and it's being sent straight to nationals,
where is that money going? But I also do know that my sorority has
donated to a political action committee. It's called the Fraternity and Sorority Political Action
Committee called frat p A for short. In an article for jezebel dot com,
Callie Boosman states, in this age of special interest groups and untrustworthy politicians,
how can we be really sure that the most vulnerable groups are being protected
by the government who is advocating for the little guy. How can we be
certain that everyone's rights are truly being protected. It's okay, everybody, rest
easy. The Fraternity and Sorority Political Action Committee, affectionately referred to as the
Frat Pack, is here. In twenty thirteen, Frat Pack's executive director,
Kevin O'Neil told ABC News that frat Pack was established in two thousand and five
as a response to the changing political and demographic landscape. Kevin highlights that for
forty years, fraternity and sorority members made up the majority of Congressmen and senators.
Kevin explains that for that current time period, only twenty seven percent of
the members in the House and Senate were Greek, disgusted or disgusted. Give
breaks a chance, Give Greeks a chance. Thank you all so much for
coming to our Frat Pack charity event. I am so excited because we're going
to hear from some of the donors themselves who are donating to our lovely frat
Pack. I support the Fraternity Sorority Political Action Committee because I support Greek life.
I support the Fraternity and Sorority Political Action Committee because it's important to the
continuance of our Greek organizations. So by supporting the Political Action Committee go a
long way towards supporting the Greek system as a whole. I gave and I
continue to give because I had a great fraternity experience and I care about getting
more of our members elected to Congress. We need to be engaged and involved
because if we're not doing our part, then who's speaking for us? Another
pack is out there where you can donate, and you know that the money
is going to candidates who have shared a similar experience with you. We all
have this common bond, the fraternal experience, and I mean I feel confident
giving my money to the Fraternity and Sobrity Political Action Committee because I know what's
going to go on and to support my brothers and sisters, regardless of what
party they're affiliated, ways they're an immediate bond and whether they after a Democratic
Republican we know where brothers. We share that bond and we actually worked better
together as a results. Those lovely audio clips were pulled from two YouTube videos,
one titled Fraternity and Sorority Political Action Committee post it in twenty ten,
and the other one titled Fraternity and Sorority Pack Video two posted in twenty twelve.
As always, you can find all of our sources. In the episode
description, Lauren from Penn State goes on to say, you know, these
organizations claim that they are politically neutral, but you're not. You you are
funding politics in this country. A twenty twenty one Fordam Observer article reports that
frat Pack appears to show a strong preference for funding Republican candidates. The article
points out that during the twenty nineteen twenty twenty election cycle, frat Pack's largest
donation was given to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Lawrence says that in that
process of giving that money to politicians, they are also expecting that the politicians
will do things to work in their favor to push their agenda in office.
Not only do they try to keep members of Greek life in office, but
they are also trying to keep Greek organizations exempt from the repercussions of Title nine
offenses. That is one of the ideals that they have outwardly pronounced, Like
how do they twist that and make it sound like they're good people? Title
nine is supposed to be about gender equity, and I understand that, you
know, they they want these organizations to be cisgendered. Oh susion about sexual
assault? This is about this may be, it may not necessarily be intended
to be about sexual assault, but that is very, very very closely tied
into Title nine. So, from what I understand, like frat Pack is
trying to keep Greek organizations from being tied to Title nine, and that means
that they won't have to meet any sort of gender equity standards because they are
gendered organizations historically. So I think that that's sort of the reasoning that they
have publicly about the desire to not be involved in Title nine. But Title
nine has sort of become synonymous with sexual assault survivors, and anyone with a
brain or two eyes knows that sexual assault is abhorrently common in Greek life.
I have had my own experiences with that. I have a best friend who
had to leave school because of that. And Title nine is one of the
few advocacy groups on college campuses that sort of take charge for a lot of
specifically sorority women, And it's disturbing to me that this organization that my money
is going directly to is trying to fight against me. In twenty fifteen,
Inside Higher Ed reported that frat Pack was lobbying for the Safe Campus Act.
The act would mandate that sexual assault victims must report the incident to law enforcement
before the university could initiate an investigation. The stronger due process would also apply
to student groups, meaning it would be more difficult to push a fraternity off
campus if it's accused of sexual misconduct. The legislation would require a college to
conduct a full discipline hearing before a chapter could be banned from campus. Kevin
O'Neil, frat Pack's executive director, stated, we strongly believe that the Safe
Campus Act proposes sound and effective solutions to address the current system's flaws. It
ensures that each student and student organization involved in a sexual assault case is treated
fairly. In an article on slate dot com, Amanda Marcott points out that
underage drinking, drug dealing, burglary assault, all these actions break both school
rules and the law. But frat pack is not asking universities to wait for
the criminal court to adjudicate these crimes before punishing the students for breaking their corresponding
school rules. In the situation frat pack is proposing, a school could punish
a student for stealing from another student without waiting for the courts to adjudicate the
matter. But if a student rapes another student, the school couldn't act.
The Safe Campus Act was never passed, thank god, but this legislation is
still significant because it shows how frat pack often lobbies for greater protections for the
accused, but never the victims. So what else is on frat packs agenda?
Well, the first thing that's on frat packs Wikipedia page, for example,
is that they focus on issues related to freedom of association. I think
I've heard this term before, and add inn't like the ending. In the
season two of Recruitment, Special cultural historian Margaret Freeman introduced us to the term
freedom of association. By the nineteen forties, you see sororities of attorneys beginning
to argue for what they call quote unquote freedom of association. By that,
they mean they're freedom as private clubs, as private citizens to choose their own
members. In her book Women of Discriminating Taste, Margaret Freeman notes that the
Greek organizations would argue that the heart of discrimination is not racial, but an
effort to preserve deeply rooted American freedom. They argued that the right to choose
their friends is the most dynamic private right and our democracy. So this was
their way of saying, it's our right to not admit black students. Sorry.
Freedom of association. Margaret Freeman goes on to say, I find it
really interesting that Stroger's still focused on freedom association and they use that phrasing,
which originated in their mid twentieth century roiling cry to maintain themselves as racially segregated
social organizations, you know, for whites only. So, for example,
in twenty sixteen, when Harvard announced a policy that they planned to an act
that would limit leadership opportunities and scholarship eligibility for students who joined single sex organizations,
which included sororities, fraternities at Harvard, greek club organizations, and the
Fraternity and Sorority Political Action Committee, Pack reiterated that call for freedom association.
And at that time, to me, who knows the history, knows what
that originally signified, you know, I find that a little disturbing, and
they just want to bring it out again without any sort of context about the
past history of that, you know, And I want other people to know
that too, and to stop and think, you know, hold on a
second, we're just sort of transposing that meaning onto a different situation and recognize
that in these instances, this freedom that you are achieving, you know,
your freedom is predicated on someone else's restriction. So in each instance, it
seems like it's really just about not giving an inch on their ability to maintain
that secretive and discriminatory membership selection without any sort of interference from outsiders, like
anyone on campus or anyone you know, at the federal intervention. You know,
we've talked about discrimination not being only about race, but also class,
religion, or perceived physical attractiveness or potential members, and so, you know,
more recently we also have the issue of transgender members, which in PC
policies sort of blanket allows for whether you know, how that's actually carried out
at each national organization or at each chapter level, you know, that's clearly
not really known. But for non binary members at this time, there is
no in PC policy in place right now. And so again, these are
sort of issues and situations where there's decisions that can fall under freedom association.
If certain members are not certain organizations within the PC are not comfortable allowing a
certain group in their membership, they'll throw out the Freedom Association, and to
me, using that up phrasing really is just sort of the same color blind
language they've used to support wide supremacy over the years, just using it for
different types of discrimination. And you know, it's worked well enough since most
members would refute the claim that their national organizations are really major practitioners racism in
the US, even though we do know that's true. And again I'll always
stop here and note that I'm not saying that all sorority or all Jorney members
are racist, but that they are, you know, enclosing themselves in a
social group that has historically, you know, and clearly also in the contemporary
times, been guilty of racism and perpetuating white supremacy. And interestingly enough,
freedom, you know, quote in American freedoms particularly right are terms that are
again carrying a lot of political weight toward a certain political ideology in the US
today. And so I don't think it's really a big stretch here to say
that, Like in the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties when we were first this
was sort of sort of thrown out as their their sort of mantra sororities are
appealing with that language to conservative minded individuals, snapped, Okay, so so
far have that frat pack supports protections for those accused of sexual assault and the
right to discriminate? What else, frat pack, what else do you support?
In a Bloomberg article from twenty thirteen, written by David Glovin, it
was revealed that frat Pack played a pivotal role in obstructing the passage of a
federal law intended to address hazing. The Bloomberg article tells the tragic story of
Harrison Koyak, a nineteen year old who tragically lost his life to fraternity hazing
in two thousand and eight. Following her son's untimely death, Leanne Koeyak,
Harrison's mother, became a huge advocate against hazing. Leanne believes that US Representative
Fredrika Wilson appeared to be a good ally in this battle against hazing because Frederick
Wilson was a self proclaimed hazebuster. Leanne even accompanied Wilson to a press conference
held on Capitol Hill, during which Wilson pledged to withhold financial aid from students
involved in hazing, but ultimately nothing happened. Wilson's office literally ghosted leanne Kawayak,
and Wilson never introduced that legislation. So what happened? What caused Wilson
to shift from being this enthusiastic gung ho hazebuster to ultimately not doing anything about
this bill that would help combat hazing. Well, As the Bloomberg article states,
frat Pack was working behind the scenes to dissuade Wilson against filing the bill.
Frat Pack's executive director, Kevin o'neie, maintains significant communication with Wilson's office.
O'Neil insisted that Wilson's anti hazing proposal unfairly targeted students on financial aid.
Cindy Stellhorne, the president of frat Pack at the time, said, there's
already good laws in place, Cindy, there's student's dying. Not only was
miss Stellhorne the president of frat Pack at that time, but she was also
affiliated with an independent insurance agency called MJ Insurance, Inc. As stated on
their website, Cindy Stellhorn is currently the manager of the insurance agency's Sorority division.
Stellhorn even said in an interview that her industry has strong anti hazing programs
and that states should tackle hazing through stringent criminal laws. Fun fact, Miss
Cindy Stellhorne was actually one of the frat Pack downers that we heard from earlier
this episode. We need to be engaged and involved because if we're not doing
our part, then who's speaking for us? Yeah? If we don't stand
up against anti hazing legislation, then who will give Greeks a chance? In
amid twenty twelve memo, Frat Pack told their members, we have been aggressively
working with the congressional leader to develop a more favorable approach for the moment.
We believe that effort has been successful and federal hazing legislation is not likely to
be introduced in twenty twelve. God furbish and they were correct. Their effort
to prevent federal hazing legislation was indeed successful. Wilson pulled back on her anti
hazing proposal and instead became a co sponsor of a bill that would let fraternities
and sororities use charitable donations to renovate chapter houses. It's the worth noting that
Wilson, the representative that backed out of the anti hazing bill and then co
sponsored this one, received a one thousand dollars donation from frat Pack. There
are two key reasons that frat Pack might lobby against anti hazing laws, One
to keep insurance premiums low and two to avoid more bad press. We'll talk
more about why later. For now, let's keep following the money. Like
who is financially supporting frat Pack was one big question that came to my mind,
and according to a twenty twenty article in a Daily Mississippian, the primary
corporate donations to fs PACK come from the housing corporations. The housing corporations,
new members pay a two hundred dollar parlor fee. New members pay the five
hundred dollar bond. The finance presentation states that it is required by Alpha Fee
that all sisters pay a house bond to their initiating chapter. There is a
twelve thousand dollar room and board fee charged to live in members. The financial
letter does state that housing related fees are collected and sent to the house corporation
board or property committee. Although it may be true that no members dues go
directly to fs PACK, their dues do go directly to the housing corporations,
and, as it states in the Daily Mississippian, the prime Mary corporate donations
to fspack come from the housing corporations that are funded by members dues. Additionally,
according to the College of William and Mary's student newspaper, national officers whose
salaries are paid by national dues often donate to frat Pack, So your dues
could be funneled through channels that may ultimately fund candidates that you don't support.
So besides these housing corporations and national officers, who else is donating to frat
Pack? While according to a Bloomberg article by David Glauwin, Fratpack raised more
than five hundred k for the twenty eleven twenty twelve election cycle. Among its
donors were executives from companies that fraternities and sororities hire to raise money for them,
brokers from insurers that sell liability policies to Greek institutions, and lawyers who
defend the groups in negligence and wrongful death lawsuits. So basically, frat pack
should be called the everyone that profits off of Greek life political action committee?
Right? Is that what I'm seeing? Well, snappers, let's bring it
back to our overarching question of where the fuck is the money going? In
my conversation, with Tory, the former ADPI advisor. I was like,
what I'm really curious about is if there's anybody making major money from this.
It seems to be more about where can we push the money to push our
agenda. I don't think at least it goes to a certain person or any
one person's gaining from it, But it is a system that gives back to
people who are already very privileged. I think Tories right, because the biggest
beneficiaries of Greek Life's existence aren't even necessarily part of Greek Life. It seems.
They are the lawyers, lobbyists, and political campaign funds that rely on
the money that Greek Life provides. Your dues, my dues. They're all
used to sustain an entire industry that would cease to exist if Greek Life disappeared.
For example, did you know that fraternities and sororities actually ensure their reputations?
No? I mean literally, they buy insurance policies for their reputations.
Let's have rich youngmen from Holmes Murphy, a key player in Greek life insurance,
explain this phenomena. Take it away, rich. It does surprise people
that there's actually somebody that specializes in this and the first assumption is that we're
on college campuses hanging out with undergraduates having a good time, and you know
that's not the case. I'm Rich Young and I'm the fraternal practice leader with
Holm's Worth. We developed insurance and risk management programs for fraternal organizations and primarily
college fraternitys and sororities that age group eighteen to twenty two year olds to deal
with, especially on college campuses, you know, high risk behaviors hazing,
when we're going through pre initiation, alcohol and substance abuse, as well as
sexual misconduct, and then certainly other issues around premises where we have chapter houses
and things like that. There are some of the typical risk that you would
deal with, slipping falls and those things, but rarelier will refocuses on on
is the issue around you know, those key risks that you know seem to
be the difficulties in our client space. We work with the national fraternities,
so there are grown ups that are running the organizations that have professional staffs,
but that varies. Some are ran by volunteers and others. You know,
the larger groups have large professional staffs and that's where we engage and a lot
of the information that we provide or the resources that we provide are then distributed
down through those channels. The Fraternal Practices now part of Homes and Murphy has
been doing this since nineteen ninety one, and over that time period, we've
really built out a team that has a lot of specific expertise in this area.
We get a lot of referrals from universities and colleges, and so it
is something to where you know, we are viewed as the expert in this
area. You know, it's very satisfying for me because I had a fantastic
fraternity experience and when I look back in it, I owe a lot of
my success in my professionally, professional and personal life. So, you know,
just being able to be there to help our clients perpetuate this experience for
future generations is really satisfying. Then what gets me out of bed wanting to
do my best every day? There's no place like Holmes. Thanks rich what
would we do without you? The Holmes Murphy website says it best from a
slip and fall to the worst of the mall, our team handles any claim
that may arise quickly and efficiently while serving as your claim advocate, So snappers,
because I love you all so much, you can use code snapped at
checkout for twenty percent off your chapter's reputation insurance. That's snappe d Get the
fuck out and somebody help. Hashtag not sponsored. The Holmes Murphy Greek Life
Plan works to establish it so that the Greek organizations aren't held financially liable for
the actions of members once they break a chapter rule like no drinking rules.
For example, you know plenty of sororities and fraternities have no drinking policies,
and not really because underage drinking is illegal, rather so that they can pin
the blame on members if slash when something goes wrong. The Atlantic reporter Caitlin
Flanagan explains in her article death at a Penn State fraternity. Fraternity executives realized
that even if they couldn't change members behavior, they had to indemnify themselves against
it, which they did by creating an incredibly strict set of rules named for
a term of art in the insurance industry risk management policies. These management policies
forbid not just hazing and sexual assault, but also a range of other activities
that are ingrained in frat life. For example, these policies will say,
you can't play beer pong in a frat house, you can't have a sip
of alcohol if you're under twenty one. He broke the no drinking rule.
Your honor one young man's actions is not a reflection of the brothers of this
chapter. Once Nationals has proved that you violated one of their risk management policies,
such as underage drinking, you are cut off from the frats legal funds.
We would have hundreds of thousands of dollars in our savings. Allegedly,
it was there in case someone in the chapter got into legal trouble and needed
legal representation for the organization. Now we understand that yes, in theory that
legal fund money could be used to protect members from legal issues, right,
but in reality that fund that members dues are going towards won't be able to
reach the members. This risk management policy loophole ensures that the national organizations won't
be responsible for the violence perpetuated within their system. All of this nonsense to
prop up the Greek life insurance industry and to make sure frat members don't drink
injure or commit enough sexual assault to send their organization into a financial black hole.
Caitlin Flanagan spent a year investigating Greek life and wrote her chilling online expose
called The Dark Power of Fraternities. In twenty fourteen. Flanagan went on NPR
to discuss her finding. You write in your story that in the nineteen eighties,
fraternities were ranked the sixth worst insurance risk in America, not much safer
than toxic waste removal. And if they are so risky, how do fraternities
get insurance? They don't get insurance, They self insure. What that means
really is they needed to band together and create a vast sum of money.
The main one is called the Fraternity Risk Management Fund. No one knows how
much money is in that. The closest I could get to the amount was
that it is under a billion dollars. And when a kid is injured,
when somebody's killed, the check ultimately comes from their own pocket. Who ends
up paying the claims if there are civil lawsuits. The most expensive part of
joining a fraternity is the portion of your dues that go to fraternity insurance.
What will happen is if Johnny has made any kind of mistake the night that
there's a big incident. If he was downstairs in the fraternity having beers and
that upstairs someone is getting sexually assaulted, he if he's under twenty one one,
it's going to be a named defendant. He'll get dropped from his fraternity
insurance in a second, and his claim will be paid by his parents homeowners
insurance. College kids legal addresses, their home address, their liabilities covered under
the umbrella policy of their parents' homeowners insurance, and if the kid needs a
legal defense, if his parents are going to have to find the money for
that too. In a twenty thirteen article on Above the Law dot Com,
Joe Patrice acknowledges that fraternities in many ways have the perfect business model. Collect
millions for selling a lifestyle and deny all liability for that lifestyle, and to
go a step further. This business model also helps explain why some of frat
Pack's biggest donors are insurance brokers, because they want to keep profiting from their
Greek life clients not paying them. Think about flood insurance. For example,
you live somewhere that doesn't flood often, you won't have to pay a high
premium because the insurance company knows there's a small chance they'll actually have to pay
out. Now, think about frat insurance. If hazing is made federally illegal,
that increases the odds of an insurance company having to pay for the resulting
lawsuits. They'll be forced to raise Greek life premiums or worse, drop them
as clients entirely. So to mitigate this risk, insurance brokers donate to our
beloved frat pack who works hard to make sure hazing doesn't become federally illegal or
that those accused of sexual assault have more legal protections. That way, there's
less lawsuits for everyone and more money to go around. The answer to our
question about where the money is going appears to be less straightforward than I anticipated.
I was waiting for this big moment where I'd uncover some mega rich,
elderly sorority alum who's buying mansions and golf cards for panel and exact to ride
around in, but snappers, it seems like the answer to our question is
far more complex. This massive Greek life operation is a well oiled machine with
recruitment, philanthropy, housing corporations, insurance companies, lawyers, hazing, and
political action committees, all playing their part together, they orchestrate a money making
machine and exploit young people for profit, much like the US college system itself.
If you're feeling ready to listen to next week's episode, I got you,
join the Snapped Patreon at the dismantler level and you'll get exclusive access to
next week's episode through our dismantler only podcast, Speed Become a dismantler today at
Patreon dot com. Slash Snapped warning, we are now entering fraternity world.
What are you allowed to do? Then? In terms of like what again?
I can't get into too many specifics there. Snapped. This episode was
written, recorded, produced, and edited by myself, Lucy Taylor, story
editor and production supervisor, Megan Thompson, Copy editor Cameron Gore, researcher Alex
Tippett, Audio engineer Niel Gottlia. Special thank you to Margaret Freeman, whose
work you can find at Margaret Lfreeman dot com. Stay in the loop of
Snapped by following us on Instagram and TikTok at Snaps the Podcast. You can
also join our email list at Snaps thepodcast dot com. Thank you so much
for listening to this episode and I'll see you next Wednesday for another episode of Snapped.