Dan Berrett, writing for The Chronicle of Higher Education:
The circumstances of Tucker’s death, to the extent that they’re known, evoke broader tensions that confound many universities, national fraternities, parents, and their children: how to promote a culture of responsibility while reducing risk, how to encourage a basic desire to belong while guarding against coercion. The Hipps’s claims also paint a picture of a toxic mix of forces — self-governance, secrecy, and the lure of tradition — that allow dangerous behavior to persist at fraternities and draw undergraduates like Tucker to them in the first place.
Self-governance, a bedrock notion for fraternities, has long been credited with endowing the experience with its developmental power. It gives young men the space to assert their independence and, crucially, to hold one another accountable. No pledge would say self-governance is what attracted him to fraternity life, but it is that concept that grants these organizations their unusually wide latitude on campus and, ultimately, their ability to sell themselves as hives for alcohol, parties, and sex.
Beyond tragic. Even more so considering this month it will likely be someone else.