UW fraternities opt to enact ban on hard alcohol early

Starting on September 1, 2019, fraternities at colleges across the country will not be permitted to have hard alcohol at parties. Closer to home at the University of Washington, that ban has already started.

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Back in August, the North American Interfraternity Conference (NIC) instituted a new rule, effectively banning all hard alcohol at fraternities across the country. UW’s own Interfraternity Council (IFC) — in an effort to provide ample time to adjust to the rule — implemented the ban starting on Jan. 1 of this year.

“Expecting overnight compliance from August 31 to September 1 would trap a lot of our chapters into not being successful because they wouldn’t have time to really change their culture,” UW IFC President Erik Johnson told The Daily. “And we wanted to be able to adjudicate that internally before it’s just left up to their [national organizations] to decide what is gonna happen.”

In the spirit of that nine-month buffer period, all sanctions for fraternities violating the new policy will be addressed on a case-by-case basis before September. Punishments will reportedly get tougher the closer it gets to the Sept. 1 national date.

The new policy bans all alcohol over 15 percent ABV at any fraternity chapter house or event, except when provided and served by a third-party vendor.

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“Nearly all hazing and over-consumption deaths in the past two years have involved students consuming high-percentage alcohol beverages,” the NIC’s official page on the new policy reads. “The Conference felt it was critically important to act with one voice to effectively implement an industry-wide standard.”

Incidentally, Washington State University already bans alcohol of any kind at social events on chapter property, a policy that students typically get around by hosting house-sponsored parties off school grounds.

The new policy will affect over 6,100 fraternity chapters across 800 campuses.

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