Will Accusations of Hazing at Dartmouth Affect Prospective Students? Last week, Janet Reitman at Rolling Stone wrote about hazing at Dartmouth fraternities and the consequences for a student, Andrew Lohse, who went to the school newspaper with stories of hazing rituals. All charges have been dropped against the students accused of hazing, though the charges against the fraternity still stand, according to The Washington Post. According to the Rolling Stone piece, Mr. Lohse faced a huge backlash from his fellow classmates, who said his allegations of being forced to, among other acts, "swim in a kiddie pool of vomit, urine, fecal matter, semen and rotten food products," were false. Ms. Reitman wrote: This did not go over well. At a college where two-thirds of the upperclassmen are members of Greek houses, fraternities essentially control the social life on campus. To criticize Dartmouth's frats, which date back more than 150 years, is tantamount to criticizing Dartmouth itself, the smallest and most insular school in the Ivy League. Nestled on a picturesque campus in tiny Hanover, New Hampshire, the college has produced a long list of celebrated alumni - among them two Treasury secretaries (Timothy Geithner, "83, and Henry Paulson Jr., "68), a Labor secretary (Robert Reich, "68) and a hefty sampling of the one percent (including the CEOs of GE, eBay and Freddie Mac, and the former chairman of the Carlyle Group). Many of these titans of industry are products of the fraternity culture: Billionaire hedge-fund manager Stephen Mandel, who chairs Dartmouth's board of trustees, was a brother in Psi Upsilon, the oldest fraternity on campus. Jeffery Immelt, the CEO of GE, was a Phi Delt, as were a number of other prominent trustees, among them Morgan Stanley senior adviser R. Bradford Evans, billionaire oilman Trevor Rees-Jones and venture capitalist William W. Helman IV. Hank Paulson belonged to Lohse's fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, or SAE. In response to Lohse's op-ed, the Dartmouth community let loose a torrent of vitriol against him on The Dartmouth's website. Lohse, it was decided, was "disgruntled" and a "criminal." His "blanket and bitter portrayal of the Greek system" was not only false, complained one alumnus, "but offensive to tens of thousands of Dartmouth alumni who cherished the memories of their fraternities." Another alumnus put it this way in a mock letter to a human-resources manager: "Dear Hiring Manager, do yourself a favor: Don't hire Andrew Lohse... He will bring disgrace to your institution, just as he did when he embarrassed Dartmouth and SAE." The consensus, as another alum put it: "If you don't want to be initiated, don't pledge." What do readers of The Choice think about the Rolling Stone article? Will this report make students think twice about fraternity culture or attending Dartmouth? Let us know your thoughts in the comment box below.