Rumors that the Interfraternity Council was banning parties circulated on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/BaconTFM/status/710692735204786177), Yik Yak and other social media outlets starting March 17. The chatter soon caught the attention of entertainment website Total Frat Move.
Members of the Greek community falsely believed IFC had banned day parties, colloquially known as “darties,” and eventually all parties as well.
These rumors are far from the truth, said IFC spokesman Jacob Farkas.
IFC adviser Nick Evans and Vice President of Risk Management Ryan O’Connor have spent the past three weeks speaking with fraternity presidents and risk managers to educate them about their national policies. Evans and O’Connor have met with 24 MU chapters so far and will soon meet with the remaining eight.
There are 18 IFC chapters that belong to the Fraternal Information and Programming Group, a national risk management education resource and insurance provider. FIPG prohibits “open parties,” which [its website](http://www.fipg.org) defines as having “unrestricted access by non-members of the fraternity, without specific invitation, where alcohol is present.”
Farkas said the chapter presidents and risk managers brought up this rule during their meetings with the IFC executive board, and they mistakenly thought there was a new party ban in place and relayed this misinformation to their general members.
In reality, FIPG’s party ban has been in place [since the early 1990s](http://articles.latimes.com/1991-06-13/local/me-670_1_fraternity-insurance-purchasing-group), according to the Los Angeles Times. IFC does not have its own party ban.
“We want to ensure the safety of all of our members, so we were talking about how to not ban (parties) but control the situation,” Farkas said.
Disobeying FIPG rules could lead to consequences not from IFC, but from a fraternity’s national office. Farkas said IFC cannot force the 18 FIPG chapters to follow FIPG insurance policies.
O’Connor said Greek men have the sizable responsibility of knowing all the policies that apply to them, since each chapter has its own individual rules as well.
“Some officers are new and have not had the chance to realize what their in-depth national fraternities (require), so we’re just trying to make it as clear-cut as we can for the benefit of each chapter,” O’Connor said.
The IFC executive board will soon meet with the chapter presidents as a group and discuss adjusting IFC social policies to align more closely with those of FIPG. Some suggestions, which fueled the rumors, were to require chapters to register for social events and to apply the existing FIPG policy of party guest lists to all fraternities. Farkas said the chapter presidents have mixed feelings.
Both Farkas and O’Connor said IFC is working to make the fraternity community safer for all its members and guests. Although the executive board’s intentions got lost in translation before spring break, the board is trying put out correct information and improve the experiences of general members, O’Connor said.
“Everyone on campus puts an extreme amount of pressure on our constituents to do the right thing constantly,” he said. “We’re just trying to make sure our policies line up so they can do their job more easily.”
_Edited by Waverly Colville | wcolville@themaneater.com_
