When you apply for just about any job, internship, scholarship or college, you’ll probably see a section on the application promising that you won’t be discriminated against on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, etc. As members of one of the freest countries in the world, American collegiettes are used to seeing these seemingly obvious yet certainly necessary disclaimers.
One place you won’t necessarily see this same guarantee, however, is the sorority rush process.
The National Panhellenic Conference’s Unanimous Agreements, the governing document of the governing body for most traditionally white sororities, outlines official procedures and ethical practices for sorority sisters across the country. Yet nowhere in the 11-page document does the NPC condemn outright the practice of discrimination—racial or otherwise—in the selection of new members. In fact, the NPC somewhat ironically guarantees “the freedom of citizens to choose their associates.” This may be a valid right enjoyed by individual Americans, but some Greek organizations may be taking it a little too far, bordering on pre-1960s-esque segregation.
University of Alabama: The White Tide?
The University of Alabama has the largest sorority recruitment in the nation year after year, giving it one of the most competitive rush processes. In August, a record-breaking 2,081 collegiettes participated in Alabama’s formal sorority recruitment. Another record-breaker: a whopping 91 percent of those collegiettes who participated—1,895 women—received a bid to one of Alabama’s 18 Panhellenic sororities.
By far the most noteworthy statistic, however, is that none of those 1,895 bid-receiving girls were black.
It wasn’t for lack of trying. At least two black collegiettes participated in Alabama’s recruitment this year, and neither received a bid, despite being extremely qualified.
Two individuals out of more than 2,000 potential new members (as rush participants are called) may not seem like a big deal, but the plot gets thicker. Members of four Panhellenic sororities at Alabama—Chi Omega, Pi Beta Phi, Delta Delta Delta and Alpha Gamma Delta—have come forward saying that they were not even allowed to vote on accepting the black ladies before powerful alumnae as well as national and chapter leadership dropped them from the process. An anonymous source from Pi Beta Phi, for example, told Alabama’s student newspaper, The Crimson White, that alumnae threatened to cut financial support for the chapter if the black collegiettes received a bid.
To make matters worse, discriminatory action is not new to Alabama’s sororities. Before this year’s rush, in the history of the university, only one African-American woman had received and accepted a bid from a traditionally white sorority. Carla Ferguson pledged Gamma Phi Beta in 2003, setting a precedent but not a standard.
The conflict at Alabama between the campus chapters, the alumnae and the student body has prompted official university intervention. Shortly after the allegations of racial discrimination surfaced, University President Judy Bonner imposed new requirements on the sorority rush process to further integration and diversity. With these new rules, Alabama sororities now must accept members year-round and expand their memberships to a maximum of 360 women.
“Under the leadership of President Judy Bonner, the University has taken significant steps to increase diversity in the Greek system this fall,” says Cathy Andreen, director of media relations for the University of Alabama.
In a recent video update to the Alabama campus community, Bonner reported that 200 additional bids have now been given out by NPC sororities, including 23 bids given to minority students. Bonner also asserted that the University will also seek to expand diversity within its fraternities and its traditionally black Greek organizations. The improvements are promising, yet the future of the process remains unknown.
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A Flawed System?
At Alabama, sorority members pointed fingers at national and chapter leadership and influential alumnae as the primary sources of racial discrimination. Often, alumnae have significant influence in the recruitment process because they contribute to large endowments or own the sorority house.
At the national level, Panhellenic sororities are governed by the National Panhellenic Conference. In 2003, the NPC added a nondiscrimination clause to its Policies and Best Practices, but unlike the Unanimous Agreements, adherence to this standard is “not required but is strongly recommended”. What’s more, the statement simply denies the use of discriminatory practices among sororities, rather than specifically prohibiting it, stating, “NPC fraternities do not discriminate in membership selection practices on any basis prohibited by law.”
Beyond the NPC, the Greek system as a whole remains largely segregated thanks to its nature. Just as the National Panhellenic Conference oversees the nation’s traditionally white sororities, the National Pan-Hellenic Council governs traditionally black sororities and fraternities. The National Pan-Hellenic Council operates a completely separate recruitment process from the NPC.
“Panhellenic Council has historically been white, and National [Pan-Hellenic] Council has historically been black,” says Brittany*, a collegiette at a school in Mississippi. “If a black or [Hispanic] woman wants to join a Greek organization, she would have to decide which rush she wants to go through.”
This dual system of Greek organizations dates back to decades before the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and it still seems to draw a line between whites and blacks today.
Segregated Sororities: A Southern Phenomenon?
While Alabama has made headlines for racism in its Greek system, other universities, particularly in the South, deal with similar situations.
According to The Crimson White, many Southern schools, including Ole Miss and Auburn, have integrated their sororities more so than Alabama. But Southern sororities as a whole continue to prove that bad habits can be hard to kick.
Brittany considered going Greek at her school, but she was turned off from the idea by something she was told during rush week. In casual conversation with Brittany, a member of a sorority said, “I’m worried our chapter is going to get too dark.” The girl then nodded her head toward a specific potential new member who was out of earshot, Brittany says.
“It caught me off guard, and I had literally just met this girl. I didn’t know what to say, and the other girls weren’t disagreeing with her, so I just left,” she says. “I couldn’t say if discrimination was acted out in that chapter; it could have just been that one small group of blatantly racist girls I happened to meet that day. I never met any of the officers of the chapter.”
Alice Calder, a junior exchange student at the University of Southern Mississippi from Great Britain, has also noticed racial tension on campus.
“In general, coming from the U.K., I’ve found racism a lot more prevalent in America – or at least Mississippi – than back home,” she says. “It’s not necessarily people being mean or nasty, but people do discriminate and generalize in a way that would not be accepted in Britain. This attitude seems to be pretty prevalent, and I have heard it from people in my sorority as well as members of others. However, this is just a general attitude, and it has never come up in relations to anything to do with sororities, particular girls, recruitment or anything.”
Although she will only spend one year at USM before heading back to the University of Exeter in England, Alice rushed and pledged a sorority earlier this semester. “As I have only just joined, I was not part of the decision-making process for recruitment, but was surprised when going through [rush] in a school with such a large African-American community [at] how few decided to take part,” she says. “Though at Southern Miss there are also dedicated African-American sororities, so I suppose it’s not surprising that there is such a split.”
Despite the general climate of discrimination that Alice has noticed at USM, she maintains that it is not specific to or particularly prevalent within Greek life. “So far the impression I have gotten from my sorority is that they are very accepting regardless of race, sexuality or any other factor,” she says.
Thanks to stories like The Crimson White’s at Alabama and Brittany’s from her school, the South has received the attention of experts and collegiettes alike. But the problem doesn’t end at the Mason-Dixon line. After all, the guidelines put forth by the NPC that only “strongly recommend” nondiscrimination apply to all Panhellenic sororities in the country, not just to those in the South.
Matthew W. Hughey, an associate professor of African American studies at the University of Connecticut, has studied racism in white sororities. “It’s de jure illegal, but de facto in practice,” he told Inside Higher Ed. “The bigger point here is that the Greek letter system—all over the United States, not just in the deep South—has traditionally been based on exclusion… We shouldn’t think organizations based on exclusion will all of a sudden become inclusive.”
From hazing to that crazy email from a sorority sister at the University of Maryland, it’s no secret that sororities have a controversial reputation. Now that allegations of racism have surfaced from collegiettes across the country, will that reputation ever change?
Representatives from the National Panhellenic Conference were unable to comment at the time of publication.
*Name has been changed.