Will Ferrell: Maybe We Should Ditch Fraternities

In a Q&A, the Get Hard actor suggested that most college Greek societies aren't worth keeping around

Photo: ACE/INF

His 2003 comedy Old School is an ode to frat life, but actor Will Ferrell isn’t so sure that fraternities and sororities are worth keeping around.

In a New York Times Q&A that had Ferrell, 47, answering reader-submitted questions at SXSW, he fielded one from a member of Delta Tau Delta, the frat to which Ferrell belonged during his days at the University of Southern California.

In light of the racist chant incident at the University of Oklahoma earlier this month, Stephen Browning asked Ferrell if he thought fraternity membership is still a worthy cause.

“The incident in Oklahoma, that is a real argument for getting rid of the system altogether, in my opinion, even having been through a fraternity,” Ferrell began. “Because when you break it down, it really is about creating cliques and clubs and being exclusionary. Fraternities were started as academic societies that were supposed to have a philanthropic arm to them. And when it’s governed by those kinds of rules, then they’re still beneficial. But you’ve got to be careful.”

Ferrell went on to say that he didn’t consider his fraternity experience representative of how most college Greek societies work, and concluded that he thought the Oklahoma incident presented “an interesting dilemma for universities these days.”