For Caitlyn

Last month, a 19-year-old sophomore at Rutgers University named Caitlyn Kovacs was taken from a fraternity party to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, where she was pronounced dead due to alcohol poisoning. I knew Caitlyn—at least enough for her story to be constantly in the back of my mind. For the few weeks since her death, I’ve recalled the scattered encounters I’ve had with her: our grade school English class, my trips to the local Rita’s where she worked during the summer, her warm smile and wave when she passed my locker, 203D, to get to hers, 217D.

I’ve stopped myself from writing about Caitlyn for a few weeks, and I do so now at the risk of memorializing her as a victim rather than as a girl with whom I shared these memories, a girl more meaningful than the cause of her death. But as much as Caitlyn should be remembered as an animal-lover who spent her weekends finding homes for stray cats or as a budding social entrepreneur poised to start a pet adoption agency after college, she should also be remembered as a girl who fell prey to a perverted frat-party culture that dominates collegiate social life.

For brothers and guests alike, heavy drinking is pivotal to the fraternity experience. 79% of college students, according to a survey sponsored by the Century Council, identify drinking as a central part of fraternity social life. Those who choose to join fraternities, apparently do so with this characterization of fraternity life in mind: 88% of Greek-involved students identify drinking as central to fraternity social life. Perhaps most tellingly, a study conducted by professors from Virginia Tech reveals that students who attend fraternity parties consume alcohol significantly more heavily than those who drink elsewhere. Service, brotherhood, and any other positives with which fraternities furnish the world often pale in comparison to what statistics show dominates the frat ethos: alcohol. Lots of it. Served to people they don’t know. In red solo cups that they keep drinking from because this is a frat party and everyone is going hard.

It is unwise to ignore the million other venues other than the beer-caked halls of America’s frat houses where students can and do binge drink. But it is equally unwise to claim tragedies like Caitlyn’s could have happened anywhere. The image of the beer-bellied frat-boy in a crassly captioned tank and neon wayfarers, chugging his 10th drink to the chorus of some combination of animal sounds and expletives—regardless of the truth behind it—characterizes frat-party culture to the literally uninitiated. The effect of this is an expectation among partygoers to engage in this contrived culture of the frat party, to accept the drink Mr. Crassly Captioned Tank just handed you even though he doesn’t know you, to party to drink instead of drinking to party.

Whereas Harvard’s social scene is not dominated by frat parties, final clubs provide all the fratty elements that contribute to this culture, disguised under the pretense of sophistication: Invitees are generally girls who members do not know, many of whom are younger and less versed in alcohol consumption; the open bar is indeed very open; parties happen in clubhouses on property not owned by the University.

If we are to continue to live in a collegiate social scene ideologically centered around the frat—or in the case of Harvard, the final club—party, then fraternities need to bear responsibility for creating an environment for their events that prevents unsafe drinking. Much of this can be done institutionally: greater alumni and university involvement, serious responses to incidents by universities and fraternity administrators, stricter alcohol service. But the most effective way to foster safe and smart social life comes down to a decision that can only be made by brothers themselves: Do they want to be remembered for what the name “fraternity” promises—brotherhood, solidarity, community—or do they want to be remembered for sanctioning tragedies like what happened to the girl down the road who went to the frat party?

Shubhankar Chhokra ’18, a Crimson editorial comper, lives in Apley Court.