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True Gentlemen
- The Broken Pledge of America's Fraternities
- Narrated by: Rick Zieff
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
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Publisher's Summary
An exclusive look inside the power and politics of college fraternities in America as they struggle to survive despite growing waves of criticism and outrage.
College fraternity culture has never been more embattled. Once a mainstay of campus life, fraternities are now subject to withering criticism for reinforcing white male privilege and undermining the lasting social and economic value of a college education. No fraternity embodies this problem more than Sigma Alpha Epsilon, a national organization with more than 15,000 undergraduate brothers spread over 230 chapters nationwide.
While SAE enrollment is still strong, it has been pilloried for what John Hechinger calls "the unholy trinity of fraternity life": racism, deadly drinking, and misogyny. Hazing rituals have killed 10 undergraduates in its chapters since 2005, and, in 2015, a video of a racist chant breaking out among its Oklahoma University members went viral. That same year, SAE was singled out by a documentary on campus rape, The Hunting Ground. Yet despite these problems and others, SAE remains a large institution with strong ties to Wall Street and significant political reach.
In True Gentlemen, Hechinger embarks on a deep investigation of SAE and fraternity culture generally, exposing the vast gulf between its founding ideals and the realities of its impact on colleges and the world at large. He shows how national fraternities are reacting to a slowly dawning new reality, and asks what the rest of us should do about it. Should we ban them outright, or will they only be driven underground? Can an institution this broken be saved?
With rare access and skillful storytelling, Hechinger draws a fascinating and necessary portrait of an institution in deep need of reform, and makes a case for how it can happen.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
Critic Reviews
"Riveting, infuriating...an exposé that, given the influence of fraternity alumni, requires tremendous courage to pursue." (Kirkus Reviews)
"John Hechinger draws a complex, layered, but comprehensible portrait of the infamously elusive and exclusive college-bred base of Donald Trump. It is hard to imagine a better moment for this investigation of one of the foundations of White male privilege-the college fraternity. True Gentleman is indispensable if Americans are going to figure out why women's lives, why poor lives, why queer lives, why non-White lives are still so disposable in the United States of America." (Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America)
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Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Matt Lathrop
- 06-27-18
Every parent should read
I purchased this book for background research. I am working on a case involving College drinking and hazing. It is very well researched and written. the book explorers the fraternity culture of hazing, alcohol consumption and abuse, sexual assault and abuse, and institutional racism. the book focuses on the fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon. This is primarily due to the secrecy involved in fraternity life. Sigma Alpha Epsilon, as part of a settlement stemming from a hazing-related student death, was required to publish statistics and information regarding their disciplinary record online. Examples of other fraternity offenses are found throughout the book.
If you are a parent, about to send your son off to college, this would be an eye-opening education about fraternity life. I went to college but was not a member of a fraternity. Much of what I believed about fraternities was a caricature. I thought they were pointless drinking social clubs. This book paints with dramatic color, just what goes on in fraternities, and what it will take to change them.
1 person found this helpful
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Poet, memoirist, labor organizer, and Episcopal priest, Pauli Murray helped transform the law of the land. Arrested in 1940 for sitting in the whites-only section of a Virginia bus, Murray propelled that life-defining event into a Howard law degree and a fight against "Jane Crow" sexism. Now Murray is finally getting long-deserved recognition: The first African American woman to receive a doctorate of law at Yale, her name graces one of the university's new colleges.
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Pauli Murray the Trail Blazer
- By K COOKE on 05-11-22
By: Pauli Murray, and others
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Notorious RBG: Young Readers' Edition
- The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- By: Irin Carmon
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 2 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has become an icon to millions. Her tireless fight for equality and women's rights has inspired not only great strides in the workforce but has impacted the law of the land. And now, perfect for a younger generation, comes an accessible biography of this fierce woman, detailing her searing dissents and powerful jurisprudence. This entertaining and insightful young listeners' edition mixes pop culture, humor, and expert analysis for a remarkable account of the indomitable Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
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Enjoyed by whole family
- By Amy McCarthy on 11-07-18
By: Irin Carmon
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Fraternity
- In 1968, a visionary priest recruited 20 black men to the College of the Holy Cross and changed their lives and the course of history.
- By: Diane Brady
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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On April 4, 1968, the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., shocked the nation. Later that month, the Reverend John Brooks, a professor of theology at the College of the Holy Cross who shared Dr. King’s dream of an integrated society, drove up and down the East Coast searching for African American high school students to recruit to the school, young men he felt had the potential to succeed if given an opportunity. Among the twenty students he had a hand in recruiting that year were Clarence Thomas and Theodore Wells....
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AMAZING & UPLIFTING ACCOUNT
- By The Louligan on 01-20-15
By: Diane Brady
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Civil Rights Queen
- Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality
- By: Tomiko Brown-Nagin
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Born to an aspirational blue-collar family during the Great Depression, Constance Baker Motley was expected to find herself a good career as a hair dresser. Instead, she became the first Black woman to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court, the first of ten she would eventually argue. The only Black woman member in the legal team at the NAACP's Inc. Fund at the time, she defended Martin Luther King in Birmingham, helped to argue in Brown vs. The Board of Education, and played a critical role in vanquishing Jim Crow laws throughout the South.
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We must share this story!
- By Gina on 01-16-23
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The Bridge
- The Life and Rise of Barack Obama
- By: David Remnick
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 24 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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No story has been more central to America’s history this century than the rise of Barack Obama, and until now, no journalist or historian has written a book that fully investigates the circumstances and experiences of Obama’s life or explores the ambition behind his rise. From a writer whose gift for illuminating the historical significance of unfolding events is without peer; we have a portrait, at once masterly and fresh, nuanced and unexpected, of a young man in search of himself, and of a rising politician determined to become the first African-American president.
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Good biography even if you know the story
- By Amr on 12-31-11
By: David Remnick
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The Firebrand and the First Lady
- Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice
- By: Patricia Bell-Scott
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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An important, groundbreaking book - two decades in work - that tells the story of the unlikely but history-changing 28-year bond forged between Pauli Murray (granddaughter of a mulatto slave who, against all odds, as a lesbian Black woman, became a lawyer, civil rights pioneer, Episcopal priest, poet, and activist) and Eleanor Roosevelt (first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1948 and human rights internationalist) that critically shaped Eleanor Roosevelt's, and therefore FDR's, view of race and racism in America.
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Inspiring
- By Jean on 02-20-16
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Last Lion
- The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy
- By: Peter S. Canellos
- Narrated by: Skipp Sudduth
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Abridged
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No figure in American public life has had such great expectations thrust upon him, or has responded so poorly. But Ted Kennedy -the youngest of the Kennedy children and the son who felt the least pressure to satisfy his father's enormous ambitions - would go on to live a life that no one could have predicted: dismissed as a spent force in politics by the time he reached middle age, Ted became the most powerful senator of the last half century and the nation's keeper of traditional liberalism.
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Depressing and dry.
- By anne anderson on 09-08-17
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Plenty Ladylike
- A Memoir
- By: Claire McCaskill, Terry Ganey
- Narrated by: Claire McCaskill
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Claire McCaskill reads her unapologetic memoir of how she went from Missouri mom to become the state's first female senator by embracing her ambition, surviving sexists' slings, outsmarting her enemies, and finding joy along the way.
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Refreshing
- By Jean on 09-03-15
By: Claire McCaskill, and others
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A Nation of Nations
- A Story of America After the 1965 Immigration Law
- By: Tom Gjelten
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1950, Fairfax County, Virginia, was 90 percent white, 10 percent African American, with a little more than 100 families who were "other". Currently the African American percentage of the population is about the same, but the Anglo white population is less than 50 percent, and there are families of Asian, African, Middle Eastern, and Latin American origin living all over the county. A Nation of Nations follows the lives of a few immigrants to Fairfax County over recent decades as they gradually "Americanize".
By: Tom Gjelten
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When Everything Changed
- The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present
- By: Gail Collins
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 15 hrs
- Unabridged
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An enthralling blend of oral history and Gail Collins' keen research, this definitive look at 50 years of feminist progress shimmers with the amusing, down-to-earth liberal tone that is this New York Times columnist's trademark.
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The book I have been waiting for!
- By A Teacher on 09-10-10
By: Gail Collins
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Fraternity
- An Inside Look at a Year of College Boys Becoming Men
- By: Alexandra Robbins
- Narrated by: Alexandra Robbins
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Two real-life stories. One stunning twist. Meet Jake, a studious freshman weighing how far to go to find a brotherhood that will introduce him to lifelong friends and help conquer his social awkwardness; and Oliver, a hardworking chapter president trying to keep his misunderstood fraternity out of trouble despite multiple run-ins with the police. Their year-in-the-life stories help explain why students are joining fraternities in record numbers despite scandalous headlines.
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Qualitative AND Quantitative
- By John Torrey on 02-24-19
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Invisible
- The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America's Most Powerful Mobster
- By: Stephen L. Carter
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Stephen L. Carter delves into his past and retrieves the inspiring story of his grandmother’s life. She was Black and a woman and a prosecutor, a graduate of Smith College and the granddaughter of slaves, as dazzlingly unlikely a combination as one could imagine in New York of the 1930s - and without the strategy she devised, Lucky Luciano, the most powerful Mafia boss in history, would never have been convicted. When special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey selected 20 lawyers to help him clean up the city’s underworld, she was the only member of his team who was not a white male.
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A Moving Biography
- By Jean on 10-31-18
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Just Like Us
- The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America
- By: Helen Thorpe
- Narrated by: Paula Christensen
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Just Like Us tells the story of four high school students whose parents entered this country illegally from Mexico. All four of the girls have grown up in the United States, and all four want to live the American dream, but only two have documents. As the girls attempt to make it into college, they discover that only the legal pair see a clear path forward. A coming-of-age story about girlhood and friendship, as well as the resilience required to transcend poverty, Just Like Us is also a book about identity.
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