Here is the part people might not like: Boys Bid Night needed to change.

Don't get me wrong; Boys Bid Night has always been one of my favorite weekends of the year. Between the first year boys thrown in the air, the insane number of parties, and the neon fanny packs, some of my best college memories are from Boys Bid Night.

And yet, it needed to change. For way too many students, "UVA Frat-mas" is a much more traumatic experience. Anyone who has been to Boys Bid Night knows how insane it is: party hopping down Rugby Road, almost any kind of alcohol readily available, and a ton of inexperienced first year students thrown into the biggest fraternity parties of the year with brothers or sisters they only just met. It is also a night where the number of sexual assaults and hospital visits at UVA skyrockets. Boys Bid Night can be a lot of fun, but it can also be extremely dangerous, which is why it just couldn't continue the way it always has. Something needed to change.

In a lot of ways, the argument in the National Panhellenic Conference's (NPC) now-infamous letter that women should not participate in men's recruitment events makes a lot of sense. Men are not allowed to participate in sorority bid days; it is a day for sorority women to get to know their new members without the distraction of boys or alcohol. It makes sense for men to adopt a similar policy and to delay celebrating with people outside of their organization. At the same time, such a policy would eliminate a high-risk — albeit popular — night and help change the UVA culture to one that does not allow sexual assault to occur.

The NPC's policy, however, does not succeed in doing that. The intent was good, but instead the policy violates the rights of sorority women and created a temporary policy that will have no impact on the long-term culture at UVA.

First of all, a Boys Bid Night policy should not be coming from the sorority international offices. Changes for this event need to come from the University community or, at the very least, the fraternities.

Because it is true; the NPC can only control sorority women. Which leads to a policy such as this, one that is outdated, exclusive, and sexist, rather than actually solving the problem.

Instead, the NPC could have taken a very different approach, closer to what it originally seemed like they were doing. They could have simply said: We do not condone the activities of that night, and we want the men to stand up and change it. Until they do, we suggest that sorority women refrain from participating as an act of protest, an act that insists that we all raise our standards.

That would have done exactly what it needed to — call for real change aimed at the UVA culture as a whole, without infringing on rights.

Instead, the NPC tried to do some "PR damage control," and treated its members as children, girls incapable of making their own decisions and who need to be locked away to stay safe.

Change does need to happen, and that's what some people don't seem to realize. The NPC has tried to mandate that change from the top down — as if that would ever work on UVA students — and they did so by going about it in the wrong way.

We may be upset, and we deserve to be. Our rights and sovereignty have been violated in an unproductive way. But let's not forget that change does need to occur. Let's stand up, as the mature, autonomous adults that we are, and make that change ourselves. Change the culture. Change Boys Bid Night. Change UVA for the better.