Let me be open from the jump: I am a life member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, pledging in 1986 as a freshman at the University of Georgia.

I was the Southern Region College Brother of the Year and Southern Assistant Vice President, a chapter advisor, and now a member of the national commission reviewing membership intake.

I have worked as a campus Greek advisor, VP for Student Affairs, and College President. And I have worked as an expert witness for hazing cases (White and Black Greek groups) more than anyone in the country.

When I read Anjan Basu’s piece, I was intrigued. Well, first I was annoyed because the article contains many factual errors indicating a lack of research before writing. For instance, the NPHC does not have the power to enact policy on member organizations, so it did not end pledging in 1990. Each organization did after the presidents agreed to do so.

The expert witness in me hates that he even wrote this piece. God forbid his chapter catches a case- this will be Exhibit A.

But Basu’s article exposed a harsh reality. While many have intellectualized the difference between pledging and hazing, the two are often synonymous. Basu is the first to call pledging for what it is.

He argues that intake does not work “efficiently or effectively” and should be reexamined. I agree, but the more fundamental question is, what is the goal of intake? When it works, what’s the quantifiable end product?

There has not been a significant study to determine the impact of pledging on the effectiveness of Black fraternal organizations.

I argue that the metrics available to us suggest clearly that hazing (and pledging) does not and has never worked. We espouse that this is a lifetime commitment, yet the vast majority of the people on our rolls are not active, financially or otherwise.

In a 2001 doctoral dissertation, Avril Weathers found that 15% of the women on her sorority’s roll of 200,000 were financial.

If you figure in the people who actually do the work of the organizations, cut the figure by half.

When past Alpha General President Darryl Matthews called on 10,000 Alphas to serve as Big Brothers (a national program) I knew it would not happen. It didn’t. People are not joining to serve, but rather to be served.

I’ve been a big brother for 3 years, along with parenting a 3-year-old and a 4-month-old. It’s hard, but part of my commitment as a member, something pledging did not teach me. Basu tells us what pledging accomplishes – memorizing history, poems and songs; dressing alike to foster unity; developing group consciousness.

He wrote- “these are all great things for an aspirant to know.” What the hell does any of this have to do with completing the goals and objectives of the organization?

We spend significant time and energy participating in stupid human tricks so that people can prove their worthiness.

None of this makes a good member. It makes a good pledge. The two are very different. This is the basic premise of hazing, a custom that dates back to the 1400’s in German universities and freshmen were called penals and carried pen cases around signifying their second-class status.

In the U.S., we started hazing in the 1860’s. There was no pledging at that time, so pledging was born out of the tradition of hazing once American colleges and universities forbade freshmen hazing in the 1920’s due to injuries and death.

Unfortunately, the practice moved into fraternalism. Pledging and hazing are just ways to make people earn their respect from their peers. That’s why Basu bemoans not being able to yell at “his boys” for messing up, or forcing them to attend study sessions.

He never once indicates how these activities make the chapter and the fraternity better. So I’ve been thinking. Maybe we do need to haze. But we need to haze our members. We need to punch brothers who consistently earn GPAs below a 2.0 and severely beat anybody with one less than a 1.0.

We should slap sorors who don’t attend the service projects. We must paddle brothers who choke their girlfriends on campus in broad daylight.

We need to kick drunken sorors who fight at parties wearing paraphernalia. Don’t be shocked. These incidents have happened on campuses in the past three months. The fundamental flaw of our membership process is that you do all the work to get in, and then you have no accountability.

For something supposedly so important, there are no consequences for poor performance. Starting with kindergarten, you spend 13 years working to get into college. But if you never go to class, never take exams, A&T will send your butt home. You earn an undergraduate degree, and maybe a graduate or professional degree to get that dream job.

But if you don’t go to work or complete your assignments, you will be fired.For Black Greeks, we just want you to be hazed for a couple of months, and then you are done.

There are no repercussions for your behavior or performance thereafter. Life does not work like this. Instead of our obsession with how people get in, we need to focus on selecting (not trying to make) good people, and how to address those who consistently fall short.

It’s not the process; it’s the people.

Basu wrote that intake means “no standard of choosing potential members.” There is a standard for joining, but we don’t have standards for remaining a member. We simply hallucinate hazing’s benefits while we watch our organizations continue to lose relevance.

We need to choose the best people who will have a commitment no matter how they come in, instead of allowing a parade of the mediocre infiltrate our ranks.

Hazing is simply the haphazard attempt to make chicken salad from chicken sh**. And that’s why our present state stinks.Walter M. Kimbrough is president of Philander Smith College and author of “Black Greek 101: The Culture, Customs and Challenges of Black Fraternities and Sororities.”

• Walter M. Kimbrough