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I've pretty much grown immune to Greek t-shirts that reference drugs, alcohol, and/or sex. After a couple of decades, I'm used to it, and it takes something pretty raunchy to even catch my notice.
The t-shirt in the picture is a pretty harmless example of the average Greek t-shirt I see out there. This one was for a fraternity philanthropy to raise money to fight ALS that involved swingsets. "Go High or Go Home" was the theme, and there you see a young man and woman in their swings. Of course, once you realize the date of the event is 4/20, going "high" takes on a special meaning. Clever fraternity men!
This shirt is very tame, as far as Greek t-shirts go. But since it's National Alcohol Awareness Week, the shirt reminded me how casual we've become about associating our letters with drugs and alcohol. We think it's cute and harmless. We chuckle. I bet the designers of this shirt didn't think that anyone over age 25 would get the "4-20" reference.
Swing high for ALS, my friends, but then I'm assuming that your chapter enjoys the weed. Use an alcohol reference for your recruitment t-shirt, and I assume your brotherhood is full of drunks.
Your t-shirts are the basis of your community reputation. When I see a sorority woman wearing a t-shirt that demeans women, fairly or unfairly, I make assumptions about that woman's self esteem.
Is there something we can do – short of enacting yet another policy – that discourages this sort of thing? It seems to me to be one of the simplest steps we can take to clean up our image in our campus communities.
