Many of Prof. Levi's statements are incorrect, in both letter and spirit. MIT guarantees all freshmen a dormitory room for all four years. At any time during the freshman year, a student who did not initially choose dormitory housing can enter the dorm system. This has been the case since MIT built dormitory housing in the early part of this century. Further, the dormitories at MIT are considerably better appointed, cleaner, and in better repair than those at most colleges. Nobody has ever been forced into a fraternity by MIT, nor does MIT have the authority to force the fraternities to accept a certain number of new members. If students choose a fraternity because they don't like the dorm room they got (which, unlike at most schools, they have a hand in choosing), that is their choice, but freshmen at most other schools in the nation are routinely forced to live in poorer conditions. MIT's so-called housing shortage refers to the fact that the Institute does depend on the fraternities to house a certain number of freshmen. However, if fewer freshmen choose fraternities, MIT will triple some double rooms, as it has in the past. Nobody is forced into a fraternity, and triples are very common in American colleges. MIT's decision to house all freshmen on campus will, of course, require building a new dormitory, which it is doing. Also, traditional fraternities are not granted a special status at MIT. MIT off-campus houses where freshmen may live include one national and one independent co-ed fraternity, one sorority (other sororities on campus do not have houses), one independent all-female group, and three independent co-ed groups. One of the latter has been voluntarily dry for more than a decade (meaning the house does not serve alcohol at any of its events, internal or public, nor is drinking alcohol purchased with house funds) -- no sham, it's really true, both in letter and in (lack of) spirit. The non-traditional houses are not oversubscribed by comparison to the fraternities; there is enough space in these houses to meet demand. Having visited a number of these houses, I will state that they, as well as a large percentage of the traditional fraternities, are good places for a freshman to live. In many houses the social environment is so positive that I would prefer my child to live in one than to live in a dormitory at MIT or any other school. It is a rare group of students who will badger a housemate into studying rather than partying, if there is a big test coming up, yet this is common in many off-campus groups at MIT. It may sound cliché to say that the group that created a tragedy is not representative of the rest of the off-campus living groups, but it is nevertheless true. There are about half a dozen houses whose dangerous behavior is an embarrassment to MIT and a danger to their members and guests. Despite quite a bit of internal pressure, the MIT administration has still not seriously enforced any set of behavioral standards on the groups it has allowed to house freshmen. They have required a physical house standard -- sprinklers and other life-safety systems far in excess of local building code requirements -- but they have steadfastly refused to enforce behavioral standards. Perhaps they desired to avoid the perceived liability of involvement, or of making a judgment call. The result has been tragedy, and it is not limited to the Krueger death. Unfortunately, by moving all freshmen to campus as of 2001, the MIT administration will lose what little control it has over the half-dozen or so renegade houses, and will take from the remaining houses the annual injection of vitality and new life that freshmen bring. At an institution whose primary product is inculcation to a particular way of thinking that is very narrow and focused, the loss of community members who still possess divergent points of view will ultimately be detrimental to the off-campus community as a whole. What the houses will then become, and how they will behave, is anyone's guess. [I am a graduate of MIT: SB 1988, Ph.D. 1995. While an undergraduate I lived in the substance-free, non-fraternity house mentioned above.]
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