T

he fraternity is an institution 
almost 
as 
long-standing 
as American universities 
themselves. The very first can be 
traced back to 1776 when the Phi 
Beta Kappa society was founded at 
the College of William & Mary in 
Williamsburg, Va. Since then, Greek 
life has grown astronomically, with 
over 9 million members nationally. 
Many politically and financially 
successful individuals often publicly 
reminisce 
about 
their 
college 
days spent in Greek life, and those 
currently involved in such institutions 
will defend their chapters with fierce 
loyalty.
To their credit, sororities and 
fraternities have been known to 
provide a strong sense of community 
to emerging college students and to 
devote themselves to philanthropic 
endeavors. However, in recent years, 
it has become glaringly apparent that 
Greek life is getting out of hand with 
potentially dire consequences. With 
reports of deadly hazing, dangerous 
levels 
of 
alcohol 
consumption, 
increased instances of sexual assault 
and stories of racist incidents within 
chapters, Greek life is under intense 
scrutiny.
Major universities across the 
nation have taken steps to control 
this image, either by suspending, 
banning or regulating the activities of 
fraternities and sororities. However, 
as universities work to mitigate the 
criticisms of Greek life, it is reasonable 
to question the purpose of the 
Greek system as a whole. As colleges 
continue to increase non-Greek life 
related student organizations, as 
the internet develops new outlets 
to connect current students with 
alumni and as horrific stories of 
Greek life reality come to light, it is 
clear that the original purpose of such 
organizations is now obsolete.
There are abundant examples of 
Greek life gone wrong that illuminate 
how the disadvantages associated 
with such organizations far outweigh 
any potential benefits. Fraternities 
certainly bear the brunt of this image. 
While pop culture representation 
perpetuates an Animal House-type 
lifestyle of partying and drinking with 
reckless abandon, the true reality is 
much darker.
Take, for example, the February 
2017 death of 19-year-old Timothy 
Piazza. Piazza, a pledge at the Beta 
Theta Pi fraternity at Pennsylvania 
State University, fell down a flight 
of stairs after an evening of heavy 
drinking during a hazing event. He 
was carried, unconscious, to a couch 
by his fraternity brothers after the fall, 
clearly in need of medical attention. 
Instead, the other members slapped, 
punched and poured beer on him. He 
laid unconscious for 12 hours before 
emergency medical care was called, 
and Piazza died soon thereafter.

In response to Piazza’s death, 
his parents pressed charges against 
several members of the Penn State 
chapter of Beta Theta Pi, and the 
president of the university vowed to 
increase punishment for instances 
of hazing. Yet, it is not difficult to 
find instances of hazing with dire 
consequences. Matthew Carrington 
died of hypothermia and water 
intoxication in the basement of the 
Chi Tau fraternity house when he 
was doused with cold water while 
forced to drink five gallons of water 
as part of a hazing ritual at California 
State University in 2005. Four student 
pledges in total died as a result of 
hazing in 2017 alone.
Yet, on the campuses of fraternities 
where such tragedies have occurred, 
these names are barely remembered. 
When a young pledge dies at the 
hands of fraternity members, there 
is typically a period of fierce outrage, 
condemnation of the programs, 
suspension of the fraternity chapter, 
and then everyone involved begins to 
resume their typical lives — not even 
noticing that the same practices occur 
frequently after the fact.
Beyond 
the 
deaths 
resulting 
from hazing or excessive alcohol 
consumption, 
fraternities 
have 
frequently found themselves involved 
in scandals of another nature. 
Research shows that fraternity men 
are three times more likely to commit 
sexual assault than their non-Greek 
life 
affiliated 
peers. 
Conversely, 
membership in a sorority is considered 
a risk factor for sexual assault, with 
some reports demonstrating up to 
74 percent of college sexual assault 
victims are sorority members.
There have been several public 
instances of fraternities and their 
issues with sexual assault. In 2010, 
fraternity men at prestigious Yale 
University were recorded chanting 
the pro-rape phrase “No means yes, 
yes means anal” around campus. 
Matthew 
Peterson, 
a 
fraternity 
brother at Georgia Institute of 
Technology, circulated an email 
around his fraternity containing a 
manual titled “Luring your rapebait.” 
At many universities, young women 
are instructed on which fraternities 
are safe and which to avoid because of 
their reputations of sexual assault.
Sexual assault is just one of the 
many issues plaguing fraternities 
today. As most fraternities nationwide 
are almost entirely comprised of 
white members, fraternity culture 
has become deeply intertwined 
with racism. The University of 
Michigan made headlines in 2013 
when the Theta Xi fraternity 
planned a social event titled “Hood 
Ratchet Thursday,” capitalizing on 
racial stereotypes of Black people 
and appropriating them to a largely 
white audience. In 2015, University 
of Oklahoma Sigma Alpha Epsilon 

brothers were recorded singing 
a fraternity song including the 
following lyric: “There will never be 
a (expletive) in SAE.” This chant was 
allegedly taught across chapters of the 
fraternity. In April 2018, California 
Polytechnic University suspended all 
Greek life after photos circulated of 
white fraternity members appearing 
in blackface.
While 
the 
negative 
aspects 
of fraternity life have long been 
exposed, the practices of sororities 
are often equally problematic. Three 
George 
Washington 
University 
students were expelled from Alpha 
Phi after they posted a picture with 
a racist caption comparing African 
Americans to monkeys. Harley 
Barber, a former member of Alpha 
Phi was expelled from the University 
of Alabama in 2018 after posting two 
racist rant videos to her secondary 
Instagram account.
Compounding the racial issues, 
sororities have long had issues 
pertaining to image and what the 
ideal sorority girl should “look” 
like. This problem was once again 
highlighted this past September by 
the so-called “Beta Delta Letter,” 
published by an anonymous former 
sorority recruitment chair for the 
University of Michigan chapter. 
In this letter, the author details 
the methods by which the PNMs, 
or potential new members, of the 
sorority were rated on a scale from 
one to 10, largely based on whether or 
not their physical appearance fit the 
conventional beauty standards of a 
“top tier” sorority. Once deeper in the 
recruitment process, the recruitment 
chairs resorted to ranking their 
fellow sorority sisters on the same 
scale, determining who would be 
best apt to recruit the most desirable 
pledges. Once said pledges were 
officially recruited, a PowerPoint 
presentation was sent to fraternities 
with their names and faces only, with 
no other personal information.
If I were to include all or even most 
of the publicly known controversies 
associated with Greek life, this article 
would be nearly endless. The truth is, 
these are issues that arise constantly, 
and very few of us are surprised 
when we hear them. A tragedy or 
instance of egregious sexism or 
racism is uncovered, individuals 
are reprimanded or chapters are 
suspended, and similar circumstances 
occur again elsewhere. The steps 
taken in the past to remedy these 
affairs are not working. As important 
as Greek life is to social life on college 
campuses and to individuals involved, 
it is clear that it is now antiquated, 
resulting in senseless tragedies from 
which universities must disaffiliate.

Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Thursday, October 11, 2018

Emma Chang
Ben Charlson
Joel Danilewitz
Samantha Goldstein
Emily Huhman

Tara Jayaram
Jeremy Kaplan
Lucas Maiman
Magdalena Mihaylova
Ellery Rosenzweig
Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Alex Satola
Ali Safawi
Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger

DAYTON HARE
Managing Editor

420 Maynard St. 
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

ALEXA ST. JOHN
Editor in Chief
 ANU ROY-CHAUDHURY AND 
ASHLEY ZHANG
Editorial Page Editors

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board. 
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

KIANNA MARQUEZ | COLUMN

Water we doing?
T

he water filter in the 
Chemistry 
Building 
was 
still broken today, leaving its 
attached drinking fountain completely 
unusable. I think to myself, “For a city 
that has a knack for self-sustenance, 
isn’t that kind of disappointing?” 
Resources 
both 
tangible 
and 
intangible are plentiful here in Ann 
Arbor, so it’s always striking when I 
see it slacking. 
In 2014, the EPA required cities to 
test their water systems for a series of 
chemicals. Ann Arbor complied and 
found the high rates of PFAS. PFAS 
are essentially man-made chemicals 
that are difficult to break down in 
any setting. As expected, exposure to 
these chemicals has adverse health 
effects, such as damage to the immune 
system, cancer, birth defects and 
thyroid hormone disruption. Our 
health can be jeopardized by these 
chemicals and there’s no doubt that 
the quality of our grass, ponds, trees, 
hills and air is at stake as well.
It’s not in our control — nor should 
it necessarily be our responsibility — 
to maintain the prevalence of these 
chemicals in the environment around 
us. This type of professionalism and 
protection should come from the 
industries that use and contain these 
chemicals: 
manufacturing 
plants 
and landfills. The city of Ann Arbor 
discovered the chemicals due to runoff 
from these types of urban settings, 
and the reason we didn’t know they 
were there in the first place is because 
our local manufacturing plants and 
landfill maintenance teams do not 
prioritize informing the city about 
the risks that can result from the work 
they do, or even worse, they are not 
even aware of how their work can 
produce these threatening chemicals.
I understand that the information 

we 
collectively 
have 
regarding 
the hazards of PFAS is somewhat 
minimal because it’s a relatively new 
chemical that’s in the beginning stages 
of study. However, I don’t understand 
how industry has proceeded to use 
or produce it without considering 
its potential harmful consequences. 
We should have industrial centers 
that put quality of life at the forefront 
of their work. It’s not enough to find 
solutions to the issues we create for 
ourselves; those who have the ability 
to make decisions for household 
items production and for maintaining 
our infrastructure need to think 
about preventing an issue before it 
even happens. This is a worldwide 
phenomenon, 
one 
almost 
an 
impossible one to change at this point, 
I know that. Despite this, we deserve 
a healthy life for ourselves and the 
organisms in our ecosystems, and I am 
more than willing to come together in 
this step toward bringing attention to 
our society’s workings that threaten 
well-being.
 Ann Arbor officials have asked 
for $850,000 from the City Council 
to upgrade the filtration system of 
its water treatment plant to reduce 
the risk of contamination in its 
filtered drinking water. Using new 
technology to execute this goal, the 
water treatment plant staff will fully 
fund this attempt to restore the quality 
of the river, as it should. Currently, 
the city has resumed testing and 
has measured its drinking water at 
conditions that already exceed the 
standards of the EPA, Michigan 
Department 
of 
Environmental 
Quality,and several other centers for 
disease control.
However, 
water 
treatment 
manager Brian Steglitz predicts even 
better conditions after new filters 

are added, stating, “PFOS/PFOA 
levels in the drinking water will be 
reliably below 10-ppt.” He and the 
water treatment plant staff are urged 
the decision to be made this month 
about the amount of money that the 
city will allow for this restoration. It’s 
imperative that we use the resources 
we have to allow ourselves to perform 
the best we can. There are cities 
that are unable to concentrate their 
efforts into a particular sector that is 
struggling to maintain a consistent 
output, especially if its people have 
little to no actual care for it, because 
they are preoccupied with the issues 
of other more prominent sectors.
But I know that the city I just 
described is not Ann Arbor. I am 
proud to live in a city and attend a 
university that cares now more than 
ever before about the impact of its 
actions on the quality of our local 
environment. I valued being raised in 
a community that values quality and 
is mindful of making itself available 
and adaptable so that everything and 
everyone can coexist. People in this 
city don’t deserve to be scolded for its 
shortcomings that occur when other 
corporations or government bodies 
function with ignorance, so I am 
teeming with urgency for this city. I 
want it to do better in the ways that 
it can. I want people to take it upon 
themselves to fix the disparity we 
have in front us between abundant 
capability and subpar output. Be 
determined to fix what’s irreparable. 
Demand more from each other. Give 
us the clean water that should be easily 
accessible and treatable here out of all 
places. Invest in the water filter.

The plight of Greek life

The on-demand gig work of survival

ALANNA BERGER | COLUMN

Kianna Marquez can be reached at 

kmarquez@umich.edu.

A

mid all the news that 
dominated the media 
last week, Amazon also 
made the headlines. 
After 
months 
of 
pressure, it raised the 
minimum wage of its 
U.S. employees to $15 
an hour.
You would think 
this marked at least 
one 
happy 
ending 
following 
the 
amalgam of events 
occurring last week. 
Instead, 
Amazon’s 
decision only reveals the bubble 
of indifference in which big 
tech companies are wrapping 
themselves. 
While 
Amazon 
raised their hourly pay by $1, it 
also decided to cut their yearly 
bonuses, making its workers 
lose at least $1,400 dollars a 
year, as estimated by one of 
its workers. Still, this is only 
part of Amazon’s story, a story 
that conceals the struggles of a 
subset of its workers.
Part of my research at one 
of the labs in the Electrical 
Engineering 
and 
Computer 
Science 
Department 
is 
collecting data on how people 
perceive similarities between 
words. I was told to set up a 
task on Amazon’s Mechanical 
Turk, an online platform that 
researchers use to collect data 
from people which are later used 
in creating artificial intelligence 
models. Or, the way Amazon 
likes to put it, a “marketplace” 
that allows the use of “human 
intelligence” in solving tasks 
that computers are currently 
unable to do. This was my first 
time using anything remotely 
similar to MTurk. The process, 
though, 
was 
misleadingly 
easy. Selecting the number of 
cents to pay each respondent, 
getting 500 responses in less 
than 8 hours and immediately 
rejecting 200 respondents for 
unsatisfactory 
answers 
was 
strangely straightforward for 
something that affected 500 
people. After all, those cents 
were someone’s food for the 
day. After all, I had rejected 
200 people, who would never 
receive those cents.
While I was looking through 
the comments section filled 
by MTurkers (that’s how we 
call Amazon MTurk workers) 
I noticed how many of the 
comments 
were 
a 
simple 
“Thanks!” or “I really enjoyed 
taking this survey.” I started 
wondering about the people 

filling in the answers to my 
word similarity task. My eyes 
glided toward the answers they 
had 
provided 
on 
their demographics. 
The 
majority 
was 
middle 
class, 
educated 
people, 
known to use MTurk 
to 
supplement 
their earnings, but 
there was another 
predominant group. 
One 
filled 
with 
people who were part 
of the lower middle 
class or even living in poverty.
Still, I couldn’t stop there. 
Those few comments filled 
with human gratitude had built 
a small bridge between those 
MTurkers and me. “My job just 
fell through …” was among the 
first titles I saw on Reddit’s 
forum dedicated to discussions 
between MTurkers. It was 
written by a person who had 
just moved to a new city, had 
lost their job, had no degree 
and was suffering from anxiety, 
asking if working on MTurk 
could provide enough money 
to survive for the next three to 
four weeks. The first answer the 
person received said a couple 
of years ago MTurk provided 
users with enough money for 
minimum survival but that was 
no longer a possibility. The rest 
of the posts were of a similar 
nature: people desperate to 
earn enough money for survival 
through MTurk and responses 
from those saying that Amazon 
was no longer providing that 
possibility.
A 2016 Pew Research found 
5 percent of workers earning 
money from MTurk used the 
platform because there was no 
other available work in their 
area. Imagine having a full-time 
job where your performance is 
constantly monitored. Where 
there is a clock timing the 
amount of time you spend on 
each task that you have, a clock 
that stops whenever you go to 
the bathroom, take lunch or 
start daydreaming in front of 
your computer. At the end of the 
day, your pay is based not on the 
8 hours spent at the office, but 
rather the number of minutes 
completely focused on your 
work. Imagine on top of that, 
for every mistake you make on 
your tasks your manager takes 
away a certain percentage of 
your money. Imagining this 
doesn’t even fully encapsulate 
the life of an MTurker trying to 

survive the gig economy.
The reason why my survey 
was completed by the time I 
woke up on that next day? It’s 
because people who use MTurk 
to support themselves often 
wake up at 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. to 
fight for the highest-paying 
tasks. The reason why people 
are 
finding 
it 
increasingly 
hard to earn money through 
MTurk? 
It’s 
because 
the 
numbers 
of 
MTurkers 
is 
growing. It’s because, based 
on a Pew Research estimation 
by 2027 nearly one in three 
Americans 
might 
transition 
to online platforms to support 
themselves with on demand gig 
work.
MTurk is the perfect model 
for 
keeping 
the 
world 
of 
researchers 
separated 
from 
that of the workers. Broadly 
put, it is the perfect model for 
separating the educated and 
the uneducated, through the 
power of technology.
The bubble of indifference 
in which tech companies are 
wrapping themselves? It’s a 
bubble that helps them set 
their eyes on the future, to 
the detriment of the present. 
People 
working 
in 
the 
technology world are investing 
money into creating benevolent 
Artificial Intelligence, fearing 
that future AI might get out of 
hand. People working in the 
technology world are paying 
their employees so little that 
they are forcing them to rely 
on food stamps. They are 
scared about the possibility of a 
future where AI will take over 
our jobs, while forgetting that 
the way we are building these 
AI technologies is by taking 
advantage of people desperate 
to make a few cents.
As 
a 
student, 
I 
try 
to 
understand 
this 
world 
of 
competing 
needs. 
Where 
the 
clear 
negative 
impact 
big 
technology 
companies 
can have, and my carefully 
tailored résumé to these same 
companies have to coexist. In a 
similar manner, tech companies 
have to start caring about both 
building the future generation 
of benevolent AI technologies 
and their employees and gig-
workers. The answer to these 
two 
conundrums? 
That 
is 
something that neither Amazon 
or I have figured out yet.

Anamaria Cuza can be reached at 

anacuza@umich.edu.

ANAMARIA CRUZA | COLUMN

Alanna Berger can be reached at 

balanna@umich.edu.

JILLIAN LI | CONTACT JILLIAN AT UNIQUNAME@UMICH.EDU

ANAMARIA 
CRUZA

