The Pirates Are Pillaging Their Own Campus

East Carolina University is going through a bad stretch. 

Sexual assaults. Hazing reports. Drunken student behavior. Religious-property vandalism. A dorm peeping case. Alleged drug and alcohol use among prospective members of Delta Zeta and China Omega. YouTubers running amok. And that’s just the beginning. 

Some of these incidents seem to be a common occurrence on ECU’s campus. Over the past year or so, members of Phi Kappa Tau, Delta Zeta, and Chi Omega sororities have been involved in hazing prospective members. To its credit, ECU suspended Phi Kappa Tau for four years for hazing. 

ECU’s leadership is not uniquely responsible for disorderly Greek life on campus, which is a broader problem affecting colleges across the nation. Nevertheless, ECU’s administrators should be held accountable for recurring incidents of sexual assault and domestic violence, repeated gun scares, several peeping incidents and armed non-students entering residence halls. 

All of these incidents took place in the past twelve months, including four sexual assaults reported on ECU’s campus in the first two weeks of October 2025. The same month, police charged a student with public intoxication, disorderly conduct, property damage, and trespassing after he entered one of the university’s residence halls. 

In April, a student reported two men holding cellphones over a bathroom stall, the fourth peeping report that semester. And just a few weeks ago, an armed YouTuber entered an ECU dorm. 

These recurring incidents and security breaches tell a story of institutional neglect and a lack of oversight. They also raise a question: at what point should ECU’s leadership be held responsible for the unsafe campus environment it is supposed to supervise? 

While ECU police have charged several students involved in recent incidents, and university leaders suspended Phi Kappa Tau for four years over hazing, the broader problem persists. Gun scares, hazing, sexual assaults, and secret peeping continue to occur, pointing to a systemic problem on campus.

ECU is not exactly known for rigorous academic standards or selective admissions. It is also frequently ranked among the top party schools in the Tar Heel State. At times, as Russell Kirk once described college campuses, it seems more like an expensive, undisciplined country club for young adults.

One would think that a party-oriented campus culture, combined with repeated disorder and misconduct, would make ECU’s administrators more concerned about student discipline and campus standards, not less.

Yet something clearly isn’t working. What has ECU done to address these problems? Has the university’s leadership acknowledged a broader, systemic problem on campus? Have stricter security protocols been put in place?

Any large university will experience misconduct and occasional disorderly student behavior. It is unreasonable to believe that university administrators can prevent every instance of debauchery. ECU is no exception. No university with thousands of party-hungry students can prevent every assault, hazing incident, or drunken episode. Party schools also have an inherent sense of disorder. They just do.

However, it becomes concerning when similar forms of misconduct begin to recur, as they have at ECU: residence-hall security breaches, hazing allegations, and peeping incidents.That raises a different question altogether: are ECU administrators responding to these incidents at all? 

So, after a year from hell, packed with incidents of drunken disorder and misconduct, what ECU should actually do? To begin with, the university’s leadership should better enforce already existing conduct rules. This should be followed by stricter residence-hall access, stronger Greek-life oversight and severe consequences for repeat violations. 

This doesn’t mean that ECU has to suddenly start being the fun police. But it does mean that they have to create a culture where consequences are taken seriously.

Colleges and universities, including ECU, should be homes of learning, not summer camps for adults. Institutions of higher education need to provide secure residence halls, strictly enforce student conduct, and respond transparently to incidents. Discipline has to matter.

Repeated disorder and chaos should not be accepted as a feature of college campuses.  

Jovan Tripkovic is communications manager at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.