When I enrolled at Washington and Lee, I was confident that their anti-hazing program would protect me from the worst excesses of Greek life. After doing quizzes on my phone to determine whether or not beating someone for not doing chores counted as hazing, I knew no one on campus would be able to get away with this heinous practice. However, this rush season, I felt the need to share my experience rushing a little known sorority on campus, Upsilon Xi Omicron. I want to make it absolutely clear that I love UXO – I have no ill will towards any of the sisters or our chapter’s president. While I experienced some hazing there, some small reforms could go a long way to prevent what I went through from happening again.
My earliest days in UXO made the chapter seem quite normal. We learned chants, songs, and the rich lore of our chapter’s history. I prepared to move to their sorority house next year full time, and made friends with several of the sisters. However, my first hint that something was wrong was when I had to pay the outrageous club dues – my bank account was functionally under their control.
It was in the early weeks of my proper membership that the hazing really started. We had to play an embarrassing game of Truth or Dare where I had to either give up my soul or tell people who my crush was. I was instructed to do chores for the chapter leaders – swiping them into Dhall, driving them to parties, and cleaning blood from around the sorority house. When our chapter’s supreme leader instructed me to sacrifice a goat, I knew I should have spoken up, but I went along with it anyway.
As I said in the introduction, some minor reforms could go a long way in making UXO better for everyone. Rather than giving all of my financial information over to the chapter’s great leader and writing them into my will, maybe a fee of a few thousand dollars could be more manageable. The goat sacrifice could have taken place using a sharpened knife, rather than my bare hands. However, I would not change where I rushed for the world.
My non-sorority friends have not supported me through this process. They told me that UXO isn’t a sorority, that my neck should not be able to rotate 180 degrees, that I had vanished for 30 days and no one knew where I went… but I didn’t want their excuses. What I really wanted was their support so that I could continue serving in this sisterhood that I love. Hail Satan!
The Radish 