Among the Bros: A Fraternity Crime Story

Content Warning: This section includes discussions of anti-Black racism, drug dependency, murder, sexual assault, and violent hazing rituals.

Max Marshall exposes the ways that privilege and institutionalized racism benefit many fraternity members. He notes that most members of a lot of fraternities, including KA and SAE, are young white men from wealthy families. These frats often specifically look to recruit potential members from “good” families, which certainly means wealthy families and usually implicitly also means white families with conservative political leanings. Marshall implies that this narrow recruitment and the insularity of the fraternities lead to the perpetuation of class privilege and racism.  

Frats need wealthy members to fund their social calendars, which means that frats’ social class requirements become self-perpetuating. Marshall notes that until fairly recently, frats like KA and SAE had an official policy to accept only young white men into their ranks. Those policies later became unofficial, but they are often still enforced, especially in southern chapters like the C of C KA. He also notes that while there are some Black KA members in other parts of the country, C of C KAs will often be fairly open about their belief that their chapter should never have a Black member.