BY TERESA WATANABE,
DEBBIE TRUONG
AUG. 20, 2022 5 AM PT
On a warm Friday afternoon, a large crowd of young men walked along 28th Street near USC wearing sneakers, colored shorts and lanyards imprinted with their names as they visited one fraternity house after another.They were welcomed by other young men dressed in colorful T-shirts branded with their fraternity name and graphic designs — one showed a hand wrapped around a glass bottle, another played off the “Kill Bill: Vol. 2" movie poster that featured a blond woman brandishing a sword. Another showed a retro image of a woman in formal attire being offered a bottle of soda — “Rush Kappa Alpha 2022,” the shirt said.Rap and house music blasted from speakers. The guys shot hoops and lobbed a volleyball in a sand pit. And on the sidewalk, prospective and current fraternity members traded notes. “This one had the free burritos,” one said to two young men next to him.In many ways, such fall “rush” or recruitment activities are a Greek life rite of passage. But they are limited at USC. In 2017, the university banned fall rush for first-year students after multiple reports of hazing at frat houses and longstanding faculty concerns about the negative effect of pledging rituals on student grades and health.However, the eight fraternities that welcomed first-year students to their recruitment event Friday had all disaffiliated from USC last week. In a bold move and despite USC warnings, they decided that, for better or worse, they would rather be free from what they said are unfair university policies and chart their own course.
As USC students, they remain subject to campus conduct rules and laws against hazing, sexual assault and other misconduct.
USC strongly criticized the move to disaffiliate and invite first-year students to rush, saying in a statement that such fall recruitment “has been repeatedly shown to be unsafe for new students.” The university, which stripped the breakaway fraternities of the right to use the USC name, logo or campus Greek life resources, also asserted they were “chafing at procedures and protocols designed to prevent sexual assault and drug abuse and deal with issues of mental health and underage drinking.”.