This week two years ago, I was dreading Dillo Day. I had been told it was the best day of the school year — even the library closes early, forcing students to put down their books at 2 p.m. to enjoy themselves.

However, I eventually realized that the day’s fun wasn’t readily available to all. Rather, to attend a pre-concert party, you had to acquire a wristband. You could get one through being in a sorority, which I was not. Or, you could be friends with a guy in a fraternity, which I also was not. 

As a result, after leaving an upperclassman acquaintance’s pre-pregame, my friends and I aimlessly wandered, dejected as we heard lively chatter and music in the backyards of houses plastered with signs like, “No wristband, no entry, no exception.”

Dillo Day helped me understand the two-tiered social life at Northwestern: one for members of Greek Life, and one for everyone else.  

I don’t blame the frats, though their signs could be nicer. Their backyards can fit only a certain number of people, and they’re going to want it to be filled with their friends rather than some random freshmen. 

Rather, the problem is that we have an unfortunate number of sororities and fraternities: enough that they dominate the social scene, but not enough that everyone is welcome. 

This is an issue particularly because Evanston is a college town that hates being a college town.

Unlike fellow Big Ten schools, such as Michigan and Indiana, you cannot go anywhere in town after 9 p.m. to find something to do. Even the one spot in town that college students go to, Reza’s Lounge and Nightclub, just closed. 

If you don’t want to join Greek Life, you could join a club with a substantial time commitment like an a capella group or the ultimate frisbee team, which also host social gatherings. Or, if you’re unathletic and vocally ungifted like me, you can tag along with one of your friends to their events, go to a musical performance in someone’s basement or go downtown — none of which I’d consider ideal. 

It’s not only the access to parties that creates this hierarchical system within social life. The University’s housing system is another factor. 

The few times I visited my friends in sorority houses, I was envious. We lounged on soft sofas and ate snacks from always-stocked kitchens. I watched as girls did their homework in their pajamas in the warm environment of their living room. It felt like a home, but it wasn’t my home. 

Furthermore, it’s natural to want to live with your friends your sophomore year, as students in fraternities and sororities do. Yet, this experience is almost completely unique to them. While you could technically live in a suite in Kemper Hall or Schapiro Hall your sophomore year, that’s a small minority of students.

Instead, a popular dorm for hundreds of non-affiliated sophomores, Foster-Walker Complex, is antisocial by design. It strangely resembles British reformer Jeremy Bentham’s ideal prison: a panopticon structure with cells/rooms around the perimeter and a lack of common spaces for inhabitants to interact. Instead of a guard tower in the middle of Plex, however, there’s a slab of concrete with some trees.

You may say that I could choose to live in a residential college, which fosters a similar social environment as a sorority house. I did try to do this, but it failed. Before I arrived at Northwestern, I excitedly applied to live in Willard Residential College — my first choice — followed by Shepard Residential College and Public Affairs Residential College. 

However, apparently my application essay was not good enough; I was placed into International Studies Residential College. While technically a residential college, this building also lends itself to isolation — you have to make an active effort to go to the dorm’s common room.

What irks me most is that students who live in a worse environment actually have to pay more to do so. For example, if you were a sophomore member of the Delta Gamma women’s fraternity in the 2023-2024 school year, you would’ve paid $14,334 for the year, including chapter dues, building fees, social activities, miscellaneous fees, a double room and board. These costs were calculated according to the Recruitment 2024 matrices, a document provided to all potential sorority members. Meanwhile, that same year, I paid $20,334 to live in a dorm that was about as welcoming as the dentist’s office.

There are a number of things the University could do to rectify this tiered system. Though it might seem silly to suggest when the University is under budget constraints, new dorms need to be constructed. They should have architecture that encourages social connection, and allow sophomores to live with their friends. 

Although student quality of life isn’t factored into the U.S. News and World Report college rankings, I’d love for the University to spend more of its money on ensuring students have dorms they’d be happy to come back to at the end of the day. That, to me, is worth more than top-six status.

My second suggestion is that the Office of Community Standards should adopt a more permissive stance towards fraternities and sororities. For example, last year, Northwestern sent an email to members of Greek Life warning that they could be investigated for “concerning behaviors,” which could be subjected to disciplinary measures. The behaviors in question were wearing “elaborate costumes” and members “carrying objects with them,” typical activities for Big/Little sorority week.

Let me be clear: University policies should severely punish any incident of sexual assault, drugging or hazing that endangers the community. But disciplining students for wearing costumes to class, for example, does not create an environment in which these organizations thrive. Consequently, when there are fewer Greek Life events and chapters, it becomes more exclusive. 

You could read this and wonder why I didn’t just join a sorority if it means cheaper, nicer housing and invitations to parties. However, I’m not into forced cheer, ranking potential new members against each other and the name of my chapter being used as a heuristic for my attractiveness. 

Still, I am a person who likes to have fun at a school where most people like to have fun. I suspect this is why the Abolish Greek Life movement has lost traction — their latest Instagram post was from September 2023. It was easy to say Abolish Greek Life during the pandemic, when frats didn’t have parties. But, if you were to say Abolish Greek Life now, that would mean you would be obliged to forego football tailgates, Halloween festivities and Dillo darties. 

For similar reasons, I, along with many other women, put on tops that could fit a toddler and attend parties that many of us had to ask a man to attend. Notably, these men are usually fully clothed. While this dynamic made me wary, I still enjoyed myself, so I didn’t think about it too much. This year, thankfully, I am a junior with friends who live in houses and host their own events.  

This gross power imbalance could be rectified, at least partially, if the University maintained a consistent stance towards these organizations: continue to subsidize them and encourage more of them to grow so that the rest of us are free to partake as we please, or don’t allow them at all so that an alternative social scene can develop. 

But, as it stands, a select few enjoy all of Greek Life’s benefits, while the rest of us watch from the outside. 

Talia Winiarsky is a Weinberg junior. She can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.