Among the Bros: A Fraternity Crime Story

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2023

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-16

Key Figures

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Themes

Privilege and Institutionalized Racism

Content Warning: This section includes discussions of anti-Black racism, drug dependency, murder, sexual assault, and violent hazing rituals.

Max Marshall exposes the ways that privilege and institutionalized racism benefit many fraternity members. He notes that most members of a lot of fraternities, including KA and SAE, are young white men from wealthy families. These frats often specifically look to recruit potential members from “good” families, which certainly means wealthy families and usually implicitly also means white families with conservative political leanings. Marshall implies that this narrow recruitment and the insularity of the fraternities lead to the perpetuation of class privilege and racism.

Frats need wealthy members to fund their social calendars, which means that frats’ social class requirements become self-perpetuating. Marshall notes that until fairly recently, frats like KA and SAE had an official policy to accept only young white men into their ranks. Those policies later became unofficial, but they are often still enforced, especially in southern chapters like the C of C KA. He also notes that while there are some Black KA members in other parts of the country, C of C KAs will often be fairly open about their belief that their chapter should never have a Black member.

The racism embedded in frats like KA and SAE has historical roots, as both fraternities initially had ties to the KKK. The KA website includes an entire page on Robert E. Lee, positioning him as the fraternity’s spiritual founder. The quiet racism that has always underpinned KA and SAE becomes more explicit in Marshall’s narrative when a video surfaces of SAE members chanting a rhyme promoting lynching, exposing just how accepted and vitriolic the fraternities’ racism is.

Members of these frats also benefit from racism on an institutional level. They are able to deal dangerous drugs with the knowledge that they are unlikely to get caught, and their families can afford expensive legal counsel if they are arrested. When they are eventually caught, they do not face police brutality, unlike the unarmed Black man murdered for a traffic violation not far from the C of C campus. Most of the members of the drug ring receive little or no jail time because their race and social class protect them, and because they agree to inform for the police. Zack Kligman, who Marshall suggests may have been involved in Patrick’s murder, avoids suspicion, while Charles Mungin, the only Black man arrested in the murder and drug bust, gets a life sentence and poor legal support despite several uncertainties regarding the events in question. Marshall’s narrative thus illustrates the way in which social and racial privilege can sometimes intersect for these white young men.

Fraternity Culture and Misogyny

The circumstances that led to the development of the drug ring and to Patrick Moffly’s murder were heavily informed by the culture of fraternities like KA and SAE. Fraternity culture, at least on the C of C campus, is based on extremity and danger. Frat members are encouraged to push everything to the limit, with Marshall depicting fraternity culture as heavily steeped in drug use, violent hazing rituals, and misogynistic behavior.

Fraternity social calendars involve many parties and extensive alcohol and drug use. Hazing is an especially dangerous part of fraternity culture across the United States, where it is not uncommon for pledges to die of alcohol intoxication, traffic collisions, or suffocation. Although there have been several hazing deaths at sororities, the majority of these incidents have occurred in fraternities. The general public has been aware for some time that hazing is an unpleasant process, but it is only fairly recently that people have recognized just how dangerous it can be. Marshall’s book emphasizes the violence of KA’s hazing. It is into this culture of power plays, binge drinking, and risk-taking that young men like Mikey, Patrick, and Rob come of age.

Although Marshall emphasizes how disgusting and dangerous hazing can be, he also notes that many frat members seem to look back on their hazing experiences with a degree of fondness. They see it as a way to build strong bonds with their fellow frat members, and Marshall suggests that they enjoy the novelty of an experience that obliges them to briefly surrender power, as many have not faced many hardships in their lives. Frat members are, by and large, willing to accept the culture that exists at fraternities despite the danger.

The violence of fraternity culture extends beyond hazing and into pervasive misogyny and rape culture. The KA instruction to protect women’s “purity” suggests a controlling and proprietary attitude toward female sexuality, while also invoking racial undertones. The casual drug culture at KA and SAE gives some frat members plausible deniability for instances of date rape, especially if they and their victims black out during a party. Given the lax-at-best attitude at KA and SAE toward date rape drugs, there is no indication that women’s boundaries or safety are real concerns for these frat members. Marshall even recounts an instance of multiple fraternity members at Alpha Epsilon Pi date-raping a 17-year-old girl, only to face no legal consequences for their actions.

One of the most challenging things about fraternity culture is how impervious it is to change or criticism. SAE is still a thriving frat with many chapters today, even though members were filmed singing a racist chant, and some members were arrested in the drug bust. Other fraternities, including KA, maintain their standing even after frat members die. There might be some temporary consequences, and there might be public calls to reform or abolish the fraternity system, but things eventually return to the status quo. Marshall thus presents fraternity culture as something both dangerous and yet impervious to change.

The Impacts of Benzodiazepine Misuse

Marshall describes the factors that make a college like C of C an environment in which a young person could develop a severe benzodiazepine dependency. While benzodiazepines like alprazolam are designed to help people manage panic attacks, many college students use them recreationally. Among the Bros examines this drug culture and its wider effects, tracing how benzodiazepine misuse can have serious consequences.

At a college like C of C, most students drink alcohol, even if they are underage. Many also smoke weed and use other drugs, creating a party culture where drug use is essentially expected. For dealers, Xanax is relatively easy to traffic because it is odorless, unlike cannabis. In South Carolina, it is fairly low-risk to traffic it because there is no specific law on the books about trafficking benzodiazepines. Most dealers, besides those like Mikey and Zack who obtain drugs externally or make alprazolam pills, only ever have to interact with other college students on their own campus to obtain their stock. It is tempting for students to buy Xanax for the same reason: They can get it from friends, sometimes without even having to leave their dorm.

The enjoyable effects of Xanax make the situation even more dangerous. Xanax is extremely effective at calming anxiety, and it can enhance the effects of alcohol and other drugs when taken together. Benzodiazepines can be highly addictive, and people who use them often will find that their tolerance increases fairly quickly. Withdrawal is acutely unpleasant, not least because Xanax reduces feelings of anxiety that come back stronger than ever for anyone trying to stop taking the drug. Benzodiazepine withdrawal, as Marshall notes, can be lethal, further complicating the process of getting off the drug. All of these factors together help explain both the popularity of Xanax at C of C and the reasons why the drug ring was able to become so successful in the first place. Patrick Moffly was also both using and dealing Xanax before his death, and his murder was most likely closely connected to the C of C Xanax trade.

This issue is personal for Max Marshall, who has both used Xanax recreationally and had friends whose dependencies on benzodiazepines ultimately killed them. Xanax and other benzodiazepines continue to be prescribed by doctors and are very easy for college students to access; like many of the issues Marshall discusses in Among the Bros, Xanax trafficking and misuse have not gone away despite the intense media attention that the C of C drug ring and murder case generated.