The Gist

The Frat Doesn’t Have Your Back

Fraternities protect themselves, but not their members.

Students and mourners stand outside of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon near San Diego State University after news that a student had died at Phi Kappa Theta in 2012 in San Diego.

Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images

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Sigma Alpha Epsilon was already the country’s deadliest fraternity when it became famous in 2015 for its racist chants. But Bloomberg News senior editor John Hechinger says SAE’s response to its scandal was unusual, as leaders used his reporting to try to reform members. Even so, the rising costs of insuring national fraternities might cause local chapters to shut down before reforms can take root. “The leaders of SAE know they are a legal judgment away from oblivion,” writes Hechinger. His book is True Gentlemen: The Broken Pledge of America’s Fraternities.

In the Spiel, Trump’s speech at the United Nations.

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