Today, I write to condemn an overlooked but nonetheless barbaric tradition that lies beneath the surface of fraternities on campus. If you have been a diligent reader of the Cornell Sun as I have been, you will be well-acquainted with the typical sources of enmity and ire wrought against the frats: patterns of sexual predation and even conspiracy with members of our Student Assembly to undermine campus democracy have been the subject of this paper’s outspoken guest and staff columnists. Until now, I have been content to stay in silent agreement with these letters and editorials, because I thought it better to let those most affected and most acquainted with these issues speak for themselves. However, with the issue at hand, I am morally compelled to break that silence, not just for what I believe to be an inhumane and cruel practice, but because those victimized by it are without a voice or the means to seek recourse.
Today, I speak for the animals in fraternity pledging rituals. Hamsters, gerbils and fish; small animals whom pledges are charged with by their recruiters to take care of as part of their initiation, the explicit understanding being “take it and keep it alive for a couple weeks, or we will drop you from consideration.” If you have a roommate who has suddenly brought in a hamster cage to the dorm late at night, this is why. However, I would forgive anyone for not understanding or seeing the problem, most of all the pledges who have been thrust into owning these creatures and sincerely see it as a harmless way to shore up their chances. It is not my belief, nor the belief of any serious person, that this ritual is intended by its practitioners to be cruel to the animals most of the time. However, the practice, as I intend to make clear, is still extremely unfair to the small animals involved through a disregard for these animals’ mental welfare and physical well-being.
These rituals create incentive structures that pressure pledges into the premature abandonment of the fraternity pet, which can severely harm the development of an animal. For many pledges, they were not originally interested in having or taking care of these animals to begin with and, after completing the challenge, they no longer have a reason to take care of these creatures. Simultaneously, since many of these pledges are freshman confined to dorms, they are put into a bind by fire inspections that would fine or evict them if the pets remained in the case of most dorms excluding the Ecology House. This is a common thread in animal surrender stories familiar to animal welfare advocates. Animal companions that are bought for temporary, instrumental reasons like pet bunnies for children’s birthdays and the Easter holiday find themselves quickly returned once the novelty has worn off and the real responsibilities of animal caretaking have set in. For an animal that lives for only a couple of years at the high-end, growing familiar and attached to their environment can be extremely disruptive and stressful if they are doomed to end up returning to the overcrowded, inhumane conditions most commercial exotic pet stores keep their small rodents or alternatively central holding at the fraternity house by one overworked brother. For a pledge, it could be a matter of days, but to a hamster, fish or other small animals it means a significant portion of their life and their sense of stability. Thrusting the duties of having a pet onto unsuspecting pledges through peer pressure sets these innocent animals up for failure in service of allowing fraternity brothers to haze their new fodder with arbitrary challenges.
Likewise, with minimal preparation and training, pledges-turned-owners are forced to grapple with animals that are deceivingly high maintenance; even hamsters have a wide range of needs that are challenging for even previous owners of other more common domestic animals like cats or dogs, especially in terms of sociability, cleaning their container or crate, food and sleep cycle. Hamsters are problematic for fraternity brothers to manage specifically as since they are crepuscular, they are extremely incompatible with the lifestyle of a frat brother who cannot be attentive to his behavior during its waking times enough to tell if they are sick due to conflicts with other pledge activities, let alone other club or professional responsibilities. Quality of life is hardly a consideration too, if one recalls; merely keeping the ritual animal alive is sufficient for the challenge, though one could go so far to say as life itself being technically optional if pledges are determined enough to find a passable replacement if their original pet dies.
These rituals deny these small beings the planned, individualized, long-term care arrangements they need to be truly happy. To treat these complex creatures as nothing more than the butt of a silly future anecdote is monstrous. The only thing gained by this archaic and bygone tradition is that small men can use smaller animals, capable of happiness, sadness and cognition, to make themselves feel bigger than their pledges. I call on pledges to critically evaluate whether they believe they actually can take care of these creatures this recruitment cycle and for the ritual to be abandoned altogether.
James Pittman is a senior in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations minoring in Law and Society. He can be reached at jrp345@cornell.edu.
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