There’s way too much death lately in American society. After the terrorism incident in New York, and then Sunday’s Texas church shooting, which appears to be motivated by a domestic family situation, it would be easy for a university administrator to let the noise of the day obscure a real problem on campus.
Thank goodness that didn’t happen at Florida State on Monday.
After the death of 20-year-old Andrew Coffey, a Pi Kappa Phi fraternity pledge on Friday, there was only one thing a responsible university president could do.
And FSU President John Thrasher did it—he banned all Greek life indefinitely on campus.
“I want to send a serious message, I really do,” Thrasher reportedly said. “We’ve got a serious problem.”
But all of us know, the problem of bad, felonious behavior isn’t limited to FSU. It’s everywhere there’s a Greek presence, and most notoriously at places like Penn State, where Tim Piazza, 19, of Lebanon, New Jersey, died in February after a night of binge drinking at Beta Theta Pi house.
It’s at New York’s Baruch College , where Pi Delta Psi, an Asian American fraternity and perhaps a positive sign of diversity, showed how quickly Greek life can go negative. This year four frat brothers pleaded guilty to murder in connection with the death of 18-year-old student Chun Hsien Deng who was murdered in Pennsylvania during a hazing event when he was blindfolded, weighted down and beaten as he crossed a frozen path.
