"Too Damn Much Dirty Rushing" Men's rush week is over and 147 men pledged fraternities. The consensus of opinion among fraternity men seemed to he that rushing rules were not followed well during last fall term *md, to a somewhat lesser extent, during rush week. One house president said: There was too damn much dirty rushing. We (the fraternities) all promised each other at the start of the year that we were going to play it clean. It kind of gets you to hear about constant violations.” A house officer said: “I definitely know there was a lot of illegal rushing going on fall term, and many violations during rush week. I know of numerous houses that did it. I think the problem will get worse next year if something isn’t done. The competition is really getting cut-throat, and each year there are fewer freshmen going through because they appar ently are not encouraged in the dorms to do so.” Fraternity member: “I think just about every house on campus did it (illegal rushing) last term, and I don’t know how you could stop it.” And so it goes. You can talk to almost anyone in the fra ternity system and find out they are not happy with the way things went. Why should this be? Why can’t fraternities abide by the “limited contact” rules prior to rush week and play strictly by the rules during rush week itself? Possible reasons seem to be these: (1) Houses that violate the rules don't have confidence in their ability to get the men they want through legal rushing. (2) Penalties are too light; ofen they consist of a $25 fine and loss of the right to pledge the man involved for a year. “And what does that do to stop fraternities?” one house president said, “I know last year we (his house) went over board on a boy and got fined. He’s living in our house now.” (3) Houses that know of violations by other houses don’t turn them in as they should. They reason this way: “We don't want to stick our neck out. They may catch us sometime and we’ll just save this to throw back at them if we have to.” And so dorm counselors turned in most of the violations that were reported fall term. Naturally counselors are not in the best position to see violations, because freshmen involved are going to keep quiet about them. (4) There haven’t been enough men going through rush week to go around—147 men pledged last week divided by 21 fraternities is an average of seven pledges per house. Why didn’t houses relax and wait for open rushing and a shot at the large number of men they knew wouldn’t go through rush week? They probably reasoned like this: “Most of the “names,” the well-known men who will do us the most good are going through rush week. We want these men, we have to have them as drawing cards for the other good men who didn’t go through rush week.” What can be done about illegal rushing? The alternatives: (1) Levy stiffer fines, such as reducing house quotas when violations are reported. Here again you have the problem of enforcement. If fraternities wouldn’t turn in violators for light penalties, would there be any more desire to do so under heavy, punitive penalties? (2) There could be more mutual trust and sweetness and light between fraternities. This, of course, is the ideal. But it has been aimed at for three years now, and little apparent progress has been made. (3) Hold rush week early fall term, as sororities do. The disadvantages to this are: Fraternities would have no CPA’s to consider. They would pledge mo;e men who would flunk out of school. Dormitory ojganiaztion would perhaps be less effective because of divided loyalties. We believe the advantages of fall term rushing outweigh the disadvantages. If fraternities can’t live honestly under the present system, why should they keep kidding them selves? Why should they go on under rules they apparently have no desire to obey? As to grades, fraternities could do more thorough investiga tion into high school records, which after all are a pretty good criterion for predicting college success. Not so good, we admit, as a college CPA, but fraternities apparently aren’t willing, or able, to wait until these are available before going to work on rushing. And we don’t think there is any reason why dorm organ izations can’t function just as well with pledges from the start of the year. They already have to do this for two terms out of three, so we can’t see anything impossible about start ing out that way. Also, smaller houses would get a better break. They could pledge more and better men because they would not have the obstacle of a term’s publicity for “big name” houses. There is certainly no relation between how happy any given individual will be in a house and the number of campus “wheels” or ath letes who live there. Thus the whole fraternity system would be kept strong; we think this is important to the University. . Report to your local board. | The Social Side ‘May we introduce ourselves? My frut brothers and I couldn’t help but notice you’re wearing our pin.” Oregon W Emerald JS k n? published Monday through Friday during the college year SuonsCrd’noL9^? an<1 Mar- 13 through 30; June 1. 2 and 3 by the Student TuMi Fugene Orelnf y.°f <2rcegon' Ir'lt««l as second class matter at the post office, r.ugene, Oregon. Subscription rates: $5 per school year; $2 per term rcDrcsent°thefV^Aenr,"31 *W are those, of the writer and do not pretend to editorial staff members ^ the U?iv<:rsit-V- Initialed editorials are written by eaitorial statt members. Unsigned editorials are written by the editor. Larry Hobart, Editor Sally Thurston, Business Manager