Starting with the recent accusations of gang rape against 7 denizens of a fraternity at Cornell University, Bill Maher’s latest real-time episode takes out after the Greek houses, including sororities. (Maher went to Cornell, with a double major in literature and history). I agree with Maher: when I went to William & Mary, I participated in fraternity rush, but gave up after visiting two houses and seeing the “brothers” making cryptic notes on the freshmen. I’d prefer to find brothers using my own criteria rather than theirs, and many of the friends I made, most not in fraternities, are still friends today.
While he doesn’t conclude anything about whether there was a rape or not, but he does think that fraternities, with their hazing, drinking, and rowdiness, don’t conform to their mission to produce “gentlemen.” I’ve never heard of the “elephant walk” he describes as a bonding event. but Grok (below) affirms that it has been a real thing.
The guests you see on the panel are U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Sara Eisen (financial reporter for CNBC).
The “elephant walk” described by Grok (my quesiton in bold). I’ve left out the links.
Do fraternities really practice the “elephant walk”?
Yes, some fraternities have practiced the “elephant walk” as a hazing ritual, though it is not universal, is often illegal, and has become less common (or more underground) due to bans, lawsuits, and scrutiny.
The ritual typically involves pledges (new members) forming a single-file line or circle, frequently while nude or partially clothed. Each person holds the genitals of the person in front of or behind them and walks together. Variations include inserting a thumb into the anus of the person ahead (sometimes with a rule that if it slips out, the thumb goes in the mouth). The posture is said to resemble elephants linked trunk-to-tail. It is framed by participants as a bonding or loyalty test through shared humiliation.
Documentation and evidence
- It is treated as a known practice in academic work. Folklorists Alan Dundes and Lauren Dundes analyzed it in their 2002 essay “The Elephant Walk and Other Amazing Hazing: Male Fraternity Initiation through Infantilization and Feminization,” placing it in the broader context of humiliating initiation rites.
- Dictionaries and references record the slang meaning explicitly (e.g., Wiktionary).
- News coverage has referenced it as an established form of hazing. A prominent 2019 case involved Sacramento State’s Delta Chi chapter: an anonymous tip with a photo of a “simulation” (clothed men holding objects) triggered an investigation. Participants described it as an educational skit about hazing rather than the real thing; the university treated the allegation seriously amid other Greek life issues. Other reports and student accounts mention similar incidents or rumors at various schools.
I still have trouble believing this!
When I was in college, I helped a friend move into a Sorority at an Indiana college. Since UC then had only two fraternities, neither big, Greek life was foreign to me. On the drive she explained all about it. It seemed like the most elitist, chicken-sh*t, make believe nonsense I’d ever heard. And she was trying to paint its good side. But hey, horses for courses. My wife loved her time in a sorority. Still, the goings on at frat parties are highly questionable, but also an open secret. I think Caitlin Flanagan at The Free Press is right to ask, “What Was Jane Doe Looking For?“
I graduated from Sacramento State/California State University Sacramento and was a member of a fraternity in the late 60’s and early 70’s. In those days we did do some silly and stupid things during the hazing part of being a pledge but nothing even remotely similar to the claimed elephant walk. I too find it hard to believe any such thing ever occurred except in someone’s imagination.
Agreed, I participated at my university as the Greek system was large and a convenient way to meet females.
As compelling as meeting females was as far as reasons go, everyone I knew would have quit prior to anything similar to the described elephant walk.
Likely with an, “[eff] that, [do it] yourself.”
But it is possible I am projecting.
Proud to be an alum of an institution that ditched its Greek system: https://www.newsweek.com/inside-colleges-killed-frats-good-231346. Of course, it was already falling apart and out-of-step with student ethos long before the ban. The replacement was interesting: a system of “commons”: small residential groups guided by a faculty member that stayed together for the first 2 years. But, those also eventually went away: https://www.middleburycampus.com/article/2024/12/five-years-adrift-why-hasnt-middlebury-replaced-the-commons-system. The challenge is how to build community in higher ed, and exclusive social “clubs” do the opposite. But the frat boys at high levels of our government show how something like the Greek system within its “us-v-them” ethos was not unifying, but divisive.
I went to Cornell in 1959- after being at Public School in England – ie 59 years ago. I never ever heard of the elephant walk. I joined a fraternity and all my oldest friends are from my fraternity at Cornell
Those sort of reported disgusting behaviours regrettably happen elsewhere – not just fraternities. Cornell is at fault – attempted cover up? Suspend Chi Phi but don’t abolish fraternities
SUNY-Binghamton had little (if any) Greek life when I was there from 1974-1978. I don’t think I missed anything. We still had social groups, political groups, and all the rest. And we didn’t have the scandals that seem to buzz around these institutions. I don’t know why universities put up with put up with them. They are liability magnets.
The trend is toward affinity floors etc. If sororities and fraternities no longer have a purpose on campus, they will die out naturally.
https://www.thecollegefix.com/nearly-40-universities-maintain-neo-segregated-housing-despite-hud-demand-to-end-practice/
I don’t think it’s a question of them no longer having a purpose — it’s just that the purpose is evidently nothing to do with education, and in many ways is inimical to it.
Bill loved hanging out at the Playboy Mansion. I don’t see much difference between what went on at the mansion and what happens at fraternities.
I did some undergrad work in the US, some in Israel. Israeli universities do not have fraternities or sororities. Perhaps it’s because students in Israel are typically older, post army service, and more serious about educational goals and do not attend university for social life.
In the US, I was studying scientific subjects. Looking back, none of the friends that I made in scientific circles were into frats or sororities. We certainly did our share of drinking, but in general, those were not the social circles we moved in. We did not associate exclusively with other scientists, but we did tend to hang around with students who were more intensely involved with their studies.
And I’ll tell you something: I would not join any association that used routine humiliation as initiation. Call me a prude, but if I wanted to put my fingers in another guy’s behind, I would become a proctologist.
Maybe MIT is an exception, but it has a lot of frats. In fact, I met my (now ex) husband at a party at his MIT frat and even lived in a (different) MIT frat for a couple of summers during college.
I guess I wouldn’t know.
Given my high school records, i had the same chance of getting into MIT as an undergraduate as I had of flapping my arms and flying to the moon.
Luckily for me, there was such a thing as standardized tests in those days, or I wouldn’t have gotten into university at all.
I have a funny comment about this. My boss was an ex-MiT professor. He said “you are not qualified for MIT, but they will let you in anyway”. Why? According to him “you will be the only non-Asian person who applies”. I did not go to MIT, or ever apply.
Submitting to abuse and humiliation to earn the privilege of socializing with the abusers seems sick and desperate to me. But I’m super-introverted so I have a biased perception here.
My comments are contradictory. I went to a school (U of C, like PCCE) that had no Greek life and didn’t miss it. Conversely, I was very impressed by the Sorority girls at UCLA.
There was perhaps nothing on campus less appealing to me than Greek life, but I’ll give the brothers some due.
While we will never know all the details of the last minutes of Flight 93, which went down in Pennsylvania on 9/11, there are four names which surface in most accounts of the passenger revolt against the hijackers: Todd Beamer, Mark Bingham, Tom Burnett, and Jeremy Glick. (Yes, this retelling is probably an artifact of those who made phone calls, what they thought to say, and what others remembered.) Three of those four men were presidents of their fraternities. The man who didn’t belong to one attended a Christian college, which had long since banned them.
A quick consult with Grok reveals that most U.S. presidents who came of age in the fraternity era were members, with at least four being chapter presidents. And the roster of frat members who went on to distinguished careers as university presidents, federal and state supreme court justices, and industrial titans and CEOs is exceedingly vast.
Next time you read a Supreme Court decision, try not to picture Kavanaugh doing an elephant walk.
All I know about fraternities comes from the 1978 documentary Animal House. They did seem a bit weird then.
I don’t believe it for one second. Pure urban legend, like the one about Richard Gere’s fascination with gerbils.
When I was a uni student I had a close friend who was in a frat, so I attended many frat parties. Other than rampant drinking and drug use I did not see any unsavory behavior. Most of the frat guys had steady girlfriends. I cannot imagine the kind of scenario described in the Cornell incident unfolding at my buddy’s frat. But that was a long time ago, so perhaps things have changed.
Ummm. . . you are making a generalized statement based on your personal experience going to Greek parties with your pal.. Seriously? Why dont you do some research? Here rom Grok:
It was not a generalized statement; perhaps I should have made that more clear. I was referring to one frat at one major university at one particular time a long time ago. Obviously some were/are a lot better than others, but I also suspect that things may have changed for the worse since then.
Oh, and to clarify further: when I said I did not believe it for one second, I was referring to the elephant walk story specifically.
I think fraternities are partly the result of the liberal arts degree — i.e. everyone studying a core curriculum before specializing. That means there is no subject basis to act as an organizing principle for socializing, and fraternities step in to fill the breach. I went to a British university in the 1980s, where everyone is basically studying a single subject for their whole (3-year) undergraduate degree, which means that it’s the department, and your peers in that department studying the same subject, that are the basis of your social life (which has the added benefit that social life is more aligned with the interests and priorities of the subject you’re studying). There are exceptions of course: Oxford, Cambridge and Durham have a hybrid system of departments and (non-subject-specific) colleges, which can both provide a social focus; and many universities also have social activities centred around specific halls of residence.
The closest analogy I can think of to fraternities is as a sort of undergraduate version of the Masons — basically a means of instrumentalizing social relationships into transactional ones for career-building purposes. The idea that they provide mutual protection from blackmail (because everyone knows that everyone else did things just as bad) should probably also not be underestimated.
” it’s the department, and your peers in that department studying the same subject, that are the basis of your social life. ” Precisely the case in grad school even in the US, in my experience and observation.
I’ve been reading a bit about the Cornell sexual party/accused assault story. For me, it isn’t a story about fraternities so much as a story about changing and confused understandings about sexual boundaries and appropriate behavior by young women and men. That said, how can we operate in a society where consent can be withdrawn after a sexual encounter is over? Especially, days or months afterwards? And, as a supporter of the Equal Rights Constitutional Amendment, how can we women credibly demand equal rights when we want to demand special sexual victimhood rights with the male always in the wrong, especially when alcohol is involved? I haven’t been able to resolve those seeming contradictions. Hate that. 😼