The Law and the Right Thing

I remember in grad school my law professor, the legal counsel for the university, taught us that there is a difference between the right thing, and the legal thing. As a class of idealistic future practitioners we applauded the conversations about when our institution made a decision it knew could get them in court, but they did it because it was the right thing to do.

Then what happened us? We graduated, we all got focused on the law… our legal counsels, and risk management advisors… and we, and this entire industry, started worrying more about avoiding liability than doing the right thing. Lately some of the issues in Greek Life and college campuses got me thinking…

When we talk about issues on campus and in our fraternities and sororities… we don’t often talk about eliminating those issues, we talk about mitigating our risk. It isn’t about what the right thing to do is, it is more about how do we avoid being culpable, and more importantly, avoid organizational liability for the negative behavior.

This year as people discussed campus sexual assault… all the talk was about things like did the fraternity have a scheduled party, or I can’t believe the campus didn’t have this policy, or blah blah. Then the story turned, and all of a sudden everyone acted like sexual assault on campuses isn’t an issue any more. What? Just because you aren’t being sued anymore, doesn’t mean we don’t have work to do.

It is the same thing on hazing issues. Fraternities continue to create policies to distance themselves from hazing. Come on, groups that “banned” hazing had to know it wasn’t going to make it stop. It was just another way to say, “well we didn’t approve of what happened, so don’t sue us”. So in reality what they taught their undergrads was, that they could continue to do it, but just not to tell any higher leadership about it. Good lesson.

Now lets talk about alcohol. We led the pack early in this race to not solving problems with how we handle alcohol policies. Banning kegs, really, that was supposed to solve issues? It clearly didn’t work, but we still follow it. We still chase our tales on how many six packs, beer check, safe ride, beer and wine only, how many members equals a party, etc…. and we do little education on responsible ways to consume alcohol or manage an event

Let’s admit where we take the cake on horrible training and education… race. Posters in September telling chapters that Culture is not a Costume aren’t teaching cultural understanding. They are telling them not to be outwardly racist on Halloween. So the lesson is, being racist is okay, just don’t demonstrate it publicly at your chapter costume party.

We have shown our students that liability is what we care about, not how they think or how they act, but how you act when it is reflecting on our chapter and if we can liable.

Many of these thoughts came together when I was doing research for a presentation. I was working on the one for Albion College, and I uncovered the history of when a national sorority suspended their chapter for taking an African American member in the 60s. Then the college forced the national org off their campus permanently for being racist. The campus didn’t worry if what they were doing was legal, if they were violating freedom of association, or if it would cost them donations. I was proud to read that; and then sad that I know those types of decisions in this country have come few and far between.

So do we care about making the world a better place? Keeping students safe from hazing? About ending sexual assault? About creating better intercultural campus relations?

Or do we care more about our exposure to liability? Our priorities show in our actions, and our actions tell people our intentions. Let’s all check ourselves, and remember that the world will be made better by those who challenge the status quo and take bold and deliberate action.

If we are only trying to avoid bad things from happening to us, that is exactly why they will continue to happen… So let’s change the conversation, we are bigger than this, and we can help make the world a better place. I will admit that I don’t have a solution, but I know that we need to look at what decisions we are making and think; how is this impacting behavior? Or after a couple years of a policy, is it working? And lets worry a little less what our lawyers say, and think more like parents, and brothers and sisters when making policy decisions.

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