Universities are pushing actions that force “gender inclusion” upon its students.

Cornell University recently passed a resolution to implement “gender-neutral housing“. At the University of Texas – Arlington, there is a cry for “unisex bathrooms.”

Now, Allie Grasgreen of Inside Higher Ed reports that a Connecticut institution are requiring its fraternities and sororities to go coed.

If women live in a fraternity, is it still a fraternity? Can a sorority house men?

Most people would probably say no. At least, not by today’s standards.

But officials at Trinity College in Connecticut aren’t thinking about today’s standards. They’re thinking about the standards of 2023. That’s why they’re requiring Greek life to go coed.

It’s part of a strategic plan to improve the sense of community and image of the college, where students tend to run in cliques, retention rates have declined slightly, and social culture has grown out of proportion to academic life, said Frederick Alford, dean of students. At the outset of the planning, the president asked officials to ponder what they wanted Trinity to look like in 2023, the year of its bicentennial.

Over the past year, a committee of trustees, administrators, faculty and students have studied Trinity’s culture through interviews and data-gathering. While some of their recommendations will affect all students – for instance, the college will start placing all incoming students into cohorts in one of six residential “houses,” where they will engage in various living/learning activities and be mentored through their second year by a dean and faculty member – the makeover of Greek life is clearly causing the biggest stir.

Greek students on campus are outraged, and alumni and family members have spoken out as well. (A Change.org petition has more than 4,000 signatures.)

Many opponents say that even if Trinity doesn’t explicitly intend to abolish the fraternities and sororities, that is in effect what the college is doing. That is because chapters that include members of the opposite sex are not recognized by the national Greek umbrella organizations.

“If we wanted to, however, we can become a ‘society’ of some sort that will be coed without any national ties, network, tradition, history or financial support,” said Amalia Nicholas, a Trinity senior who is active in Greek life. “So basically, another typical student club.”

Fraternities and sororities were of particular interest to the committee because that’s where members identified the highest incidence of drinking and lower grades, on average, than the rest of the student body. “They seemed to exercise a dominant position in setting the social tone on campus,” Alford said. In other words, they threw the parties – and students flocked to them.

Kiley Hagerty, a senior at Trinity and president of its Ivy Society sorority, says Greek life was left to pick up the slack once the college slashed funding for social events (funding it’s now reinstating), and now, they’re being vilified for it.

“We’re the only ones providing a social outlet,” she said. Hagerty doesn’t think going coed will make a difference in terms of the partying. “Let’s face it – we’re in college.”

Alford says he still wants fraternities and sororities to be able to throw parties, but he does expect that they’ll take a different shape with female and male students planning them together.