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Show Student Apathy Noted As Cause Of Waning Fraternity Influence "As the burden of academic vork grows, as the competitive iressures for grades mount, and is sentiment against discrimina-ion discrimina-ion rises on the nation's cam- puses, more students and school administrators tend to view fraternities fra-ternities as anachronisms." This is the picture of the Greek system sys-tem on American campuses in an article signed Frederick C. Klein appearing in the "Wall Street Journal" on Sept. 16. MR. KLEIN quoted a faculty committee study of undergraduate undergrad-uate life conducted at Amherst College as saying that the Greek groups there had exhausted their possibilities for reform and "stood directly in the way of exciting new possibilities for student life." The above study also noted that "too often the responsibility (of fraternities members) is confined con-fined to housekeeping, perpetuating perpetu-ating the institution through rushing, arranging for parties, and defending the fraternity against attack in the student paper." ACCORDING TO Mr. Klein, lack of student interest has been a major cause for the waning influence of the Greek system on campuses throughout the nation. na-tion. To counter the problem, some chapters have "gone local," severing ties with their national chapters. But the main problem has been religious and racial discrimination discrimina-tion issues. LAST APRIL the Sigma Chi chapter at Stanford University was suspended by its national chapter, allegedly for pledging a Negro. After the incident, Francis Fran-cis Keppel, U.S. Commisioner of Education, warned that schools which would allow fraternities to discriminate on the basis of race, faced cut off of federal funds under the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Mr. Klein wrote that this was unlikely and still has to stand a test in court. However, since then half a dozen schools have announced they were going to investigate Sigma Chi. Columbia University has barred its Sigma Chi chapter because "it couldn't comply with that school's no discrimination policies." ANOTHER STUDY quoted by Mr. Klein, made by the National Interfraternity Conference stated that only, two (Sigma Nu and Sigma Chi) out of 61 chapters still had formal restrictions written writ-ten in their constitutions. |