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Last we checked on my nephew Evan, president of his fraternity at Arizona State University, he’d acquired eight lasers, synced them to pulsating dance music, and was throwing parties of some renown. At the end of September, Evan gamely brought his music, rigging, lights, and lasers to a small house at the end of a Tempe cul-de-sac. We know this because he just returned home for a long weekend and showed us an episode of Peacock’s On Patrol: Live. Of course I’m talking about Season 5, Episode 20: Fraternity Party Stopped.
If you’re not familiar with On Patrol: Live or OPL, it’s an updated version of Cops (camera rides along with police) with a twist: it’s happening in real time. And because the typical cruiser shift isn’t exactly action-packed, OPL has multiple crews riding along and a panel of pundits flipping from one to the next and commenting on the action, like NFL RedZone or Peacock’s Olympic Gold Zone.
Here’s a transcript of the segment where Tempe police shut down Evan’s fraternity party:
Commentator: We go to a frat party in Tempe, Arizona where an Uber driver says that someone hit his car. This is Officer Makenzie Gleave responding.
Officer Gleave walks up cul-de-sac. There are 5 people in front of the house, but a LOT of noise from behind.
Officer Gleave: You guys waiting for an Uber? Do you know who lives here? [Rings bell] Hi do you live here?
Student: Uh, no, but.
Shirtless dude comes up and points at student: This is the resident
Officer Gleave [to student]: Why did you lie to me? You’re starting out on the back foot.
Friend comes and joins shirtless guy, both preening for camera.
Officer Gleave: We’re here because of the large party. They’re blocking all the driveways.
OPL then switches to a stabbing across town, returning to the party a few minutes later.
Host: All right. Let’s stay in Tempe and go over to Officer Gleave again at that frat party where an Uber driver initially called into complain but apparently there were some other issues there.
Video shows dozens of students streaming out of backyard through a narrow gate, few wearing much clothing, many posing for camera as they walk by the police.
Host: But it’s always amazing to see these parties and people just start streaming out. How did all these people fit in there?
Officer Gleave: But then a couple of these houses just have families.
Officer #2: This one doesn’t.
Officer Gleave: Looks like a frat house.
Hundreds of students have already exited through the gate. Some caught on audio saying things like where’s my purse?
Officer #2: What can we do?
Officer Gleave: Just get everyone out. Make sure they’re not leaving with alcohol.
Some students wave at the police as they leave. Most of the male students are shirtless. Many fan themselves in the September heat.
Host: It’s like ladies night there. Five women for every guy at this party. Um, anyway.
Commentator #1: It’s a never-ending line.
Commentator #2: Like a clown car.
Commentator #3: It’s crazy. It keeps going.
Host: You’ve got to give them credit.
Commentator #3: There’s more! There’s more!
OPL cuts to the stabbing, then back to Evan’s party.
Host: All right, let’s go back to the very successful fraternity party in Tempe.
Students are talking as they pass camera
Student #1: At least it’s a cul-de-sac
Student #2: Welcome to ASU!
Student #3: My outfit’s really cute, right?
Students continue to stream out. OPL runs a snarky caption over the video:
Tempe, AZ: ONLY 3,000 MORE PEOPLE TO EXIT
Police are now laughing as students continue to emerge from backyard.
Host: I’m surprised they didn’t call the fire marshal.
Commentator #1: Yeah, I’m waiting for a parent to get back and say: I don’t remember giving permission for a party.
Commentator #2: Yeah, that house looks familiar
Commentator #1: How many people were in there?
Commentator #3: I mean, what, it’s oh. They’re still coming?
Host: We’ll be right back. And I bet when we come back, there’ll still be people streaming out of that party.
After a break, OPL returns to show hundreds more students walking out.
Host: In Tempe, they’re still breaking up the party of the year. I don’t know how else to explain how all these people… I would assume there’s a backyard, right?
Commentator #2: Yeah, a backyard the size of a stadium.
Host: It does seem you need a wristband, a purple band to get into the party.
Commentator #1: And boots.
Commentator #3: And not a lot of clothes.
Commentator #2: Yeah, not a lot of clothes.
Host: It seems that those were the basic requirements of this party that is now being broken up. All right. Well, they’re still coming out.
Although no one was hurt and Evan’s proud of his party-of-the-year credit, he’d be the first to tell you that fall 2026 is not a good time to be a fraternity president. In attempting to chart an acceptable path for both his hard-partying fraternity brothers and the university, Evan has developed some transferable skills. But tensions couldn’t be higher and he’s happy his term ends next month. Meanwhile, across the country, a clown car of university administrators are attempting to respond to the many problems caused by fraternities and their parties.
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While the October 2024 event in Cornell’s Chi Phi house may be the most shocking, over the years thousands of other fraternity incidents have jeopardized the health and well-being of students and the reputation of their institutions. Many college and university leaders would like to extinguish Greek life – see last week’s Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed It’s Time to Ban Fraternities – or at least ban parties as Cornell has done for the rest of this year. But as former UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp recently told the Chronicle of Higher Education, if they try to do that:
You’ll hear from [alumni]… You’ll hear from them in so many different ways, you can’t imagine them all. They’ll bombard you with email. They’ll go to different people in the university that they give money to. They’ll go to their political friends, and you’ll hear from them there.
They’ll even lobby the state legislature to pass an Old School-inspired law that says regardless of what the town or university might say, frats are authorized by the state to operate frat houses. That’s what happened in North Carolina.
The Solomonic solution proposed by Wesleyan’s president is that fraternities “should be permitted to remain open but not to remain single-sex. Fraternities would have to admit women or become off limits to Wesleyan students.” But according to Anthony Bradley of the Acton Institute, that would defeat the purpose. The point is male mentorship and character development – ostensibly teaching young men to be good men – with a healthy (or unhealthy) dose of traditions and rites of passage.
As such, fraternities fill a market need. Students don’t get this from academic programs. Nor do they get it from the fastest growing extracurriculars on campus: consulting, banking, and investing clubs. (Although preparing for case study interviews may be a rite of passage, pre-professional extracurricular activities aren’t focused on character development and have never been accused of being fun.) While other activities like varsity sports, performing arts, and publications provide varying levels of mentorship and character development, at most institutions they’re not accessible to the average student. So fraternities are the best bet to benefit from structured exposure to and guidance from older male students and alumni replete with hierarchy, traditions, and rites of passage.
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Evan says running a frat is like running a small business. Dues need to be collected from members, fees paid to the fraternity and university, and remaining funds reserved for parties, libations, and in Evan’s case lasers. So the problem is purpose. As currently constructed, fraternities do mentorship and character development, but in the context of a principal goal of throwing parties and facilitating the drinking that defines these events as frat parties. Sure, many fraternities have service requirements. But one project a semester is drowned out by weekly drinking, drums, and lasers. So the small businesses we call fraternities are in the business of throwing parties.
But what if these small businesses were required to be actual businesses? Businesses that develop and deliver products or services to the community. And no, parties don’t count. In fact, I can think of a thousand other products and services more valuable for the community – and for members and universities, less risky.
Last year I wrote about how AI and the widening experience gap mean that student-run businesses have never been more important. Here’s my laundry list of student businesses, all of which currently exist on at least one college or university campus:
I also came up with other businesses students could launch:
That’s a lot of options. So why can’t universities make frats choose a purpose other than parties? They could mandate that fraternities operate as student-run businesses, let them choose the product/service and market, and require the businesses to operate if they wish to remain in good standing. They don’t need to make a profit, but every brother needs to work a minimum number of hours each semester. Then frats can layer on their traditions and rites of passage to the hierarchy and mentoring inherent in companies.
There are many potential benefits. Students would gain critical work experience in all aspects of the business. Juniors and seniors would rise to C-suite positions and gain further experience with tracking operating metrics, financial reporting, and managing their boards. More important, the community would be safer as 100% of frat energy isn’t directed into parties and alcohol. And as they’re gaining mentorship and character development in a more productive context, brothers may be more likely to steer clear of risky behavior. Plus they’d have better things to do with their time.
For universities, it would be a quick way to expand work-based learning, which they must do to avoid an AI surge in new graduate unemployment and underemployment. Institutions could assign faculty to advise and serve on the boards of these nascent businesses, thereby building relationships with frat leaders outside the disciplinary realm. Finally, as former UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Thorp noted, “the more the administration is bogged down doing this kind of [fraternity] stuff, the less they’re able to do those real things.” Making fraternities do real things could free up university bandwidth to focus on real things like building on this new base of student-run businesses to reorient programs of study around work-based learning. (Relatedly, universities struggling with Trump II’s latest salvo against international students – prohibiting curricular practical training (CPT) aka internships — and facing a steep decline in international enrollment should keep in mind one major loophole: CPT is still allowed if similar work is required for all students pursuing that program.)
Concerning fraternities, Chancellor Thorp told the Chronicle: “What do they have to do with education? Nothing.” That’s not quite true. Just ask Evan, who learned to throw Tempe’s party of the year. But if universities could think creatively about Greek life and channel frat energy to more productive purposes, he’d have learned a lot more.