These groups are very devoted to the almighty $$ and to the Us vs Them mentality. The sororities are especially brutal on pledges emotions. Pledge Handbooks for the fraternities might have been 30 pages, but for sororities they were closer to 300 or more. I worked at a Kinko's my first year in college and that was one of my first tasks - copying and binding these handbooks. The bigger sororities used 3" thick binders for them. The rules are ridiculous and mostly serve as reasons to justify kicking someone they decide they don't like out without having to actually say that they are too fat, too poor, not white enough, etc....
I actually joined a fraternity the next semester. It is an actual official Greek organization, but it is TOTALLY different than the general Greek organizations. It is a co-ed service fraternity. Our primary goal was to make the world a better place. Everything centered around volunteer work with the campus, the larger community and the Boy and Girl Scouts. To pledge you had a set list of tasks, some were silly, many were hard work, and everyone had the same list. Your skin color, ethnicity, finances, relatives and status had no bearing on anything. You did have to do 50 hours of community service in a single semester though. What you wore only mattered if it was part of the work (no clubbing clothes to a Girl Scout function, no fancy clothes to clean up a slum area, no risque slogans to Special Olympics, etc...). It was an amazing experience, I met some of the best in this world, and I learned more about myself and what is important to me than I ever dreamed I would.
We did not haze or humiliate anyone in the group. We did silly things but if you were not comfortable doing something, no one made you feel bad about it. If someone tried, others would stop them and let them know that it wasn't acceptable, period.
We did get heckled and harassed by the other Greek organizations, and many said we were not 'really' part of the Greek system We either ignored them or quietly did our thing and proved them wrong. We didn't care about what most of the Greek system cared about so their stupidity toward us was easy to ignore.
We organized badge days where 200+ Girl Scouts came onto campus and earned a badge in a day, we were troop leaders for Boy and Girl Scout Troops, we cleaned up highways when groups that had 'adopted' them abandoned their commitment, we organized days where dump trucks went to the worst areas and volunteers cleaned up the curbside trash like old toilets and couches. We worked as escorts to help people cross campus at night safely, we were on call designated drivers on major party nights with MADD and SADD, we built ramps and fixed up houses for people who couldn't afford it, we ushered theater events and concerts and read to kids and did just about anything you could think of and more. If any of you have seen Austin City Limits, a country music program that was on PBS for years, we worked crowd control, ushered, and filled in for many positions during filming (and saw AMAZING performances!) and did many more things.
If anyone has a child or young relative/friend who wanted to be part of a group with proud traditions, history and a track record of all the good things the Greek system is supposed to be about, I would share info happily. The hardest part of switching universities for me was leaving this group of friends. There was not a chapter at the school I transferred to and I missed it greatly. It is a national group and now there is even a chapter at my university.
What we did, and how we treated each other, is what I expected a brotherhood or sisterhood to do and be. It isn't what I saw in traditional Greek organizations, but that is their loss.