At a fraternity house last Friday, Beirut tables were out, National Bohemian beers were freely flowing and the jungle juice had just whittled down to only a drop in the cooler downstairs. Rushes were drinking openly amongst brothers and friends, and one who had just gotten a bid that night was passed out upstairs.
Although this scene may occur on a typical weekend, last weekend was part of a period of what fraternities dub as a "Black Out period," meaning that no social events can be hosted by the Inter-fraternity Council (IFC).
Although the IFC rules dictate that a dry rush should be held at Hopkins, this may not necessarily be the case for those in the IFC, according to several sources.
Recruitment Chair of Pi Kappa Alpha Omar Atassi said that his fraternity enforces a rule that if rushes are caught drinking or smoking hookah with brothers, those involved will lose their privileges and lose active membership as brothers.
"We have an honor code in general - everyone's been supportive and the IFC has worked pretty well together. We trust one another in following the rules," Atassi said.
Atassi rushed three years ago. He claimed that similar procedures were followed when he rushed and have continuously been followed in proceeding rushes.
However, an anonymous source stated that during rush period two years ago, he went to Pike (Pi Kappa Alpha) for an event that was not an official rush event and was served alcohol.
Atassi said that his definition of a social event was "any event that included rushes drinking," which the aforementioned anonymous source did attend during his specific Black Out period, during which he rushed.
According to Director of Greek Life Rob Turning, the IFC is responsible for rush week and regulating events to the best of its ability.
"Black Out is an agreement between fraternities that they have to hold themselves accountable to," Turning said.
"These types of regulations have nationally been in place for 20 years and now should be commonplace. Hopkins is trying to catch up and not be behind anymore," Turning said.
The recruitment chair Jake Meth of Alpha Epsilon Pi declined to comment on precautions the fraternity takes to ensure a dry rush.
"We have official rush rules for rush week and orientation rules for orientation week, but not all fraternities follow them, and there are no consequences for not following the rules," Kyle Rodenbach, former vice president of finance for Sigma Phi Epsilon, said.
Recruitment chair Andrew Brandel of Sigma Phi Epsilon said that his fraternity takes precautions to ensure that rush regulations are followed.
"We run all the events in the house or out of the house, we don't have alcohol here because of rules both internally in the chapter and from the IFC," Brandel said.
According to Brandel, part of Sigma Phi Epsilon's regulations is that brothers can neither drink with rushes nor have illicit activities going on around rush, entirely per IFC rules.
According to Brandel, the ramifications for not abiding by IFC regulations depend on what the incident was and the number of offenses.
"The IFC works together. We all agreed in a meeting a week before rush to work together - that there were no infractions, [that] no one was breaking regulations," he said.
"We're much more lenient than sorority rush because girls can't have certain kinds of interactions with girls, and our primary ban is on illicit activity (which we don't condone or engage in)."
"You can't distribute alcohol at any rush event. When rushes are present, it has to be alcohol-free, even if it's just people chilling in a room," Stu Sweeney, IFC President and member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, said.
"Of course, there's no regulation at brothers-only events."
Sweeney confirmed Turning's statement that there have already been reports of incidents of rush violations.
"Drunken people get the most attention. They end up at the hospital and it's not hard to hear about that. The problem is not being vigilant enough - people would show up at alcohol-free events already drunk when I went to a certain fraternity," Sweeney said.
"This implicates the fraternity with alcohol violations."
Sweeney said that the reported violations may reflect a similar scenario.
If a fraternity is found guilty of violating rush procedures, the repercussion would be a fine and possibly probation, though Sweeney said that he considers the latter measure to be possibly too harsh.
Recruitment chair of IFC Matt Topelius, and current member of Pi Kappa Alpha, declined to comment.
"The goal of a dry rush is to ensure that rushes get an unbiased view of each fraternity so that he can figure out what is the best fit for him," Turning said.
"Fraternity rush is different from sorority rush. It's not high commitment - the guys just feel each other out."
