Among the Bros: A Fraternity Crime Story

Mikey starts college at C of C. He plans on joining a prestigious fraternity and is originally attracted to Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE). SAE has a reputation for being the best, throwing the best parties and recruiting members from “old southeastern families” (19) with lots of money. Rich members means more money to throw parties and better access to prestigious connections in the future job market.

SAE is famous for their annual Mountain Weekend, where students rent cabins in the woods and throw raucous parties, destroy public property, and consume a lot of drugs and alcohol. Marshall interviews C of C alumni about Mountain Weekend, including sorority members who attended as the boys’ dates. He learns that in 2012, partiers burned the entire contents of their cabins, and boys threw knives at a headboard just above sleeping girls. When the state park tried to find the culprits, they were unsuccessful, and only one person was charged with minor property damage. 

Mikey is attracted to SAE because of its elite status, and the events of the 2012 Mountain Weekend demonstrate that the fraternity can get away with a lot. However, before he signs up for SAE, Mikey meets Rob, a fraternity member of the Kappa Alpha Order (KA). Mikey can tell that Rob is high and asks if he smokes weed. Rob invites him to smoke at his place across the street, and their friendship begins.

Robert Liljeberg III, or Rob, lives at 7 Montagu Street in a rich neighborhood lined with million-dollar homes. He grew up in a wealthy family in North Carolina and was a devout Catholic and soccer star in high school. He attended Elmhurst College for a year before transferring to C of C, where he joined KA to fit in.

KA is not considered one of the best fraternities at C of C, but it is known for being laid back and extremely proud of its Southern heritage. Only about a dozen of its 130 chapters across America are located outside the South. Coming from an old Southern family, Rob fit right in, and now lives in the off-campus fraternity house on Montagu street with three other KA members. Rob introduces Mikey to the unofficial side of recruitment for fraternities, or “rush.” Rush involves attending frat parties, knowing how to dress, being able to get drunk while remaining socially adept, and impressing older fraternity members without coming across as desperate. 

Rob guides Mikey through KA rush. They bond over dealing weed and playing video games, and Rob is impressed that Mikey makes and sells fake IDs. Mikey refuses to tell him how he makes them because he is not yet a KA pledge. In later interviews, Mikey claims that SAE offered him a bid to join; Marshall cannot confirm this. KA definitely offered Mikey a bid, and he accepted.

When Mikey joins KA, he is given a copy of The Varlet, a small book containing the fraternity bylaws. The bylaws specifically prohibit hazing and describe KA members as a fraternal order of modern knights. Chivalry and honor are important values, and members have “the responsibility to protect the poor and defend women’s purity” (43). The KA Order sees Robert E. Lee as its spiritual founder; his “ideals [are] woven into KA’s soul” (44).

The reality that new members face is quite different from the gentlemanly order described in The Varlet. Hazing rituals vary from year to year, but Marshall interviews multiple KA alumni who describe being forced to binge drink, perform household chores for older members, chauffeur brothers from party to party, and run errands that often required missing college classes. Mikey pours all his energy into his pledgeship. He and his fellow pledge brothers go through several rounds of forced intoxication, eat cat food and other substances that make them throw up, and endure physical pain and sleep deprivation.

To wrap up new member pledgeship, KA members at C of C do “Hell Week,” which involves locking pledges in the basement for an entire week. Mikey and other pledges endure more forced labor and physical humiliation. One night, they are blindfolded and driven out to the ocean. The drivers abandon them, forcing them to walk home all night. Marshall asks the national KA organization to comment on the hazing that took place at C of C, but is told that hazing is officially banned and “the national office ‘has neither records, documents, nor institutional memory’ of any of the incidents” (54).

Members of other fraternities across the country talk to Marshall about their experiences getting hazed. Many of them speak fondly of hazing despite the humiliation, degradation, and pain they have endured. Marshall’s own high school friends admit that they would go through it again just to experience the intense feeling of bonding with other pledge brothers. Mikey completes his pledgeship and is initiated into KA as a full member.