This past week, a petition was sent out by an anonymous person with the purpose of getting rid of wristbands at UMD's on-campus Interfraternity Council tailgate.
Background
According to representatives from the Department of Fraternity and Sorority Life (DFSL), the City of College Park and the University struck a deal in 2013. City officials wanted tailgates in Old Town to stop for rightful reasons that include destruction of property and disorderliness by students on game days. The on-campus tailgate costs roughly $26,000. Most of this money came from the city with the promise from the University that they would get the students out of Old Town. The only problem: the students didn’t know!
This issue seems to be three-fold.
Fold 1
The first move that DFSL made was to require every fraternity that had a tent to have a certain percentage of attendance on campus. Because DFSL failed to inform the members of its community about the deal that was made, students did not understand the actual reason behind the IFC tailgate. So, since all the guys had to go show face on President Loh’s front lawn, students started having kegs and eggs. Chapters would pair up and it would be like a social, just in the morning. Most games are around noon, so the IFC tailgate would begin at 8 a.m. Naturally, it only made sense for kegs and eggs participants to wake up at 5:45 a.m. (men probably woke up at 6:30) to start the party at 7 a.m. or earlier. This way, students could still have their tailgate and IFC would still have a strong attendance — seemed like a win-win…
Fold 2
It is now two years later and UMD has yet to hold up its end of the bargain. This year, DFSL made it a point to enforce its ‘no kegs and eggs’ rule. The entire community was full of rage as DFSL threatened Social Moratorium to any chapter that was caught having any sort of gathering (either several members of one chapter all together or a display of a single fraternity and sorority gathering together, regardless of the numbers in attendance). Instead of waking up at 5:45 a.m. for kegs and eggs, students are now getting out of bed at 4:30 a.m. to rush to the bars at 5:30 a.m. where chapters host pre-tailgate gatherings with bar tabs. This creates a clear hazard of its own by elongating the drinking day.
Fold 3
The tailgate, DFSL is encouraging students to go to, is NOT a Greek tailgate. It is hosted by IFC, and the space can only hold a certain number of people. Being that it is essentially the men’s party, they reserve the right to invite, or not invite, whomever they want. Behold … the wristbands. Each fraternity gets 1.5 times its population in wristbands to distribute to brothers and friends.
Let’s circle back to the petition. It mentions sexism as the main reason for why the system is flawed. In reality, that is probably the only part of the whole thing that actually makes sense. It’s their party, the women (or men not in IFC) are just guests. Of course it is a huge inconvenience to have to scrounge for a wristband, but it's not sexist. If PHA were also paying for the event and women still had to rely on the men, that would be another story.
We have all mourned the loss of kegs and eggs and will continue to look for things to complain about, but sexism shouldn’t be one of them. A petition for DFSL to provide those of us who don’t get wristbands with other tailgating options would be valid, considering they are threatening Greeks without offering up any alternatives.
View the petition here.
