Pledged (44 page)

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Reform rush

Most important, sororities need to change their rush policies because the sorority recruitment system is in desperate need of an overhaul. National offices have a range of possible options. One is to model the rush system after the historically black sororities’ Membership Intake Program. Instead of condensing rush into a short series of superficial events during which a recruit must visit every white chapter, chapters could hold recruitment periods at different times throughout the year. Recruits could spend time getting to know the sisters and the sororities they are most interested in before they decide to make a commitment. Because sororities wouldn’t compete for the same recruits at the same time, there would be less pressure on both parties. Another option is to have continuous open bidding for all sororities throughout the year instead of rush—a practice that a few sororities already encourage as a supplement to the rush period. As girls get to know each other naturally rather than through forced three-minute conversations, they could introduce potential new members to the rest of the group at any time during the year, invite the candidates to spend time with them, and choose at a less hurried pace whether to offer a bid. Interested candidates could observe and participate in sorority events and meet sorority sisters in something other than a cattle-market setting.

The recommendation process also needs to be reformed, if not eliminated outright. Alabama’s associate vice president Kathleen Cramer has rightly called for a de-emphasis of some sororities’ recommendation processes, which help to ensure that sorority demographics remain virtually the same year after year—something that Nationals may appreciate but students, university officials, and concerned members of the public should not. In addition, Nationals should repudiate the current volumes of rush rules putting girls “on silence” and separating recruits from sisters outside of proscribed rush events so they can’t be “influenced” in their decisions. Refusing to allow girls to get to know each other outside of the choreographed rush parties doesn’t allow them to meet friends in a more casual way.

All of these options would create simpler and fairer ways to widen a sorority circle rather than choosing new members on shallow grounds at a hectic pace and then praying after Bid Day that the girls turn out to be decent people.

In any event, there is no doubt that rush—both informal and formal—should be postponed at least until after the first semester of freshman year. Representatives at the Leadership Conference said they preferred fall recruitment so sororities could “get ’em early.” The earlier they lure the girls, the sooner they get their money. But expecting already overwhelmed first-semester freshmen to choose an affiliation before they even settle into a college routine makes little sense. Seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds just entering college—vulnerable, impressionable, away from friends and parents for perhaps the first time—often know virtually nothing about sorority life yet are expected to navigate the complex and intimidating rush process and decide within days which girls they most want as “sisters.” In general, they are too young to know what they will be pledged to. How can sisterhoods transcend friendships if potential sisters don’t know any more about each other than their favorite purse designers?

Another necessary reform is that every girl who rushes must get into a sorority. College literary and debate societies began by assigning every interested student an affiliation; sororities should as well. There is no reason that a girl who wants to be in a sorority shouldn’t have the opportunity to join one, whether it’s her first or fourth choice. Nationals complain about low numbers yet are unwilling to accept girls who don’t fit a certain “type.” Assigning every rushee to a chapter would improve both numbers and diversity. Once the sisters get to know—and accept as a fellow sister—a girl whom they otherwise might have dismissed, their understanding of and tolerance for girls who don’t fit the previously prescribed sorority mold would improve. Further, if sorority demographics were to shift enough so that sisters did not look the same—with different races and different body types—then perhaps there would be less pressure to conform to one image, and therefore fewer peer-pressure problems (such as eating disorders). Speakers at the Leadership Conference emphasized the point of being Greek (to such an extent that they exhibited an air of superiority over non-Greeks). As one moderator said, “We all wear different letters but we’re all the same. We’re Greek.” If that’s true, it shouldn’t matter which girls receive which labels. The kinds of girls who would no longer rush sororities because they would no longer feel an elite superiority are not the kinds of girls who would keep sororities honorable and with noble purpose anyway.

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Define hazing and reduce or eliminate pledging

Nationals also need to present a consistent message about hazing. They should begin by formulating a clear definition of exactly what is proscribed and then support it with a Unanimous Agreement, the strongest measure possible in the National Panhellenic Conference. Currently there is no Unanimous Agreement prohibiting hazing, yet there is one concerning the media: “It is in accord with the dignity and good manners of fraternity women to avoid negative publicity on Panhellenic matters.” This imbalance teaches college students to prioritize image over action, and spin over safety.

Once a hazing definition is in place, Nationals should not have contradictory policies. If they define hazing as anything that distinguishes pledges from sisters, then Nationals cannot differentiate pledges from sisters with different pins and pledge-only exams—and cannot exclude them from ritual ceremonies and the revealing of sorority secrets. Some Greek groups have begun to transition their pledge program to a “Membership Development Program,” which is intended to educate and include all members. This is a step in the right direction.

Nationals recently began referring to pledges as “new members,” because for some, the term “pledge” suggests a period of having to earn membership. “Something as simple as changing terminology can assist in changing a culture of hazing in an organization,” according to an educational resource called the
Greek Gazette
. In fact, Nationals might consider forgoing the pledge (or new member) period entirely. If recruits were to have the opportunity and the time to learn about the sororities before they accepted a bid, then they wouldn’t need the interim time as a pledge to decide whether or not they truly wanted to become a part of the sisterhood. They could be initiated the day after Bid Day.

What’s more, sororities have a large number of local advisers who are expected to assist the chapter. If Nationals insist on having a pledge period, they could at least reduce it to one week and have an adult supervisor on site for the full period. With all of these adult volunteers, it makes great sense to utilize them by requiring adult supervision and oversight at any time during which hazing might occur.

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Emphasize supervision and de-emphasize the house

Along similar lines, if sorority Nationals, unlike fraternities, are going to serve a role in loco parentis, then they should make certain that the adult supervision they advertise is not only present but also influential and effective. At the sorority house that would not allow me access, the adviser knew very well that her house—which openly displayed drug paraphernalia and what appeared to be cocaine—had a drug problem. But when she heard the sisters discussing drugs, she laughed it off and looked the other way. At other houses I visited, the house mothers were nonentities, rarely venturing from their private apartments, not serving as supervisors in the least. Chapters do not allow a house mother to supervise meetings, rituals, or other closed activities if she isn’t a member of the sorority; as an uninitiated woman she is not entitled to know the sorority’s secrets. Given the nature of sorority secrets, however, it seems unreasonable to forgo adult supervision merely out of a fear that an unaffiliated adult might be privy to the sorority’s secret knock.

But for the adults at both the national and regional levels, acting in loco parentis does not need to translate to micromanaging girls’ lives, dictating whom they can speak to or what they can wear. Sororities can have strong sisterhoods even if the girls are allowed to be individuals.

Moreover, Nationals should not have quotas. If they truly believe their own ideals and in the notion of sisterhood, then numbers shouldn’t matter. The Phi Sigma Sigmas at the University of Pennsylvania should not have lost their chapter simply because they didn’t have a specific number of sisters. If they don’t have the money to maintain their house, so be it. A house isn’t necessary for a sisterhood. I spoke with sisters in non–historically white sororities who had no house and fewer than ten members, but they still had strong sisterhoods they were proud of. I also heard from girls without houses in historically white sororities who were relieved they could have sisters without living with them.

Nationals should also consider abolishing rules that require sisters to live in the sorority house for a certain number of years. It is one thing to welcome girls into a club but quite another to force them to reside with each other. Many girls told me that they would rather have had the choice to live off campus, with nonmember friends, or on their own so that they could have an escape from the sorority and a life outside of it. Vicki, in particular, would have preferred to live outside the house. Requiring girls to live in the house forces them to live under the kind of constant scrutiny that encourages conformity and discourages independence and initiative. If Nationals need to fill rooms in a house to maintain it, they could rent rooms to nonaffiliated boarders or share the house with another sorority—both scenarios that currently exist at some universities today.

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Adjust activities

Sisters, too, could take the initiative to make some changes. If the pledge period remains, instead of having pledges perform useless crafts and nonproductive errands for the sisters, pledges instead could be required to spend their “bonding time” performing community service activities together with sisters. Further, sorority policies of fining sisters who can’t attend events or refusing to allow them into social events are counterproductive, particularly when the sisters in question, like Sabrina, work one or more jobs merely to pay for their dues. An Ivy League sister I spoke with said that after two years in her sorority, her financial situation deteriorated so that she could no longer afford to pay dues. She wrote a letter to her sorority’s national office asking if it could reduce her dues or assign her alumna status so that she wouldn’t have to disaffiliate. The national office refused. If Nationals are so fixated on the financial bottom line that they prioritize money above sisters, then it is up to the sisters to look out for their fellow members. When a friend can’t make it to certain events because she has to work, sisters could attend extra events for her and assign her their points.

Sisters could also decrease the number of fraternity socials and replace them with sister activities; after all, sisters aren’t in fact joining all-girl groups if the activities all hinge on men. (And not every girl is as lucky as Amy to have a willing gay backup date.) They could also encourage the girls to bring friends rather than dates to events, if the girls so choose. In the same vein, if sororities are going to continue to have rituals like candlelights to celebrate relationship milestones (or hang banners announcing a lavaliere, as did Alabama’s Zetas), they are inevitably going to alienate sisters who don’t find steady boyfriends. These rituals ought to be expanded to address achievements that have nothing to do with sex. Furthermore, historically white sororities are known to have closed parties while historically black sororities open events to all students. There is no reason why white sororities need to be so insular. Some schools have at least worked out a compromise: sorority parties are closed for two to three hours before they are opened up to a guest list that includes nonmembers.

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Strengthen the sisterhood

No girl should be so uncomfortable with her sisters that she cannot stand up for herself. Sabrina’s alienation could have been prevented if any of the other sisters who observed the situation had said to the girls making racist comments, “That’s racist, and that’s wrong,” or “That’s unacceptable. We won’t tolerate that.” Or suggested to the exec board that they have a speaker come in to discuss race issues. Or even just shown the compassion and consideration to ask Sabrina how she was doing. Perhaps sororities should use their speaker budget to invite someone who specializes in team-building exercises and can help sisters open the lines of communication within the chapter.

The current arbitrariness of sorority rules is troubling—particularly involving such notions as “questionable reputation” and similar ideas. Sisters should not be able to oust a fellow sister unless they not only have involved responsible adults in the process but also have done everything they reasonably could to help the sister in question. Rather than disaffiliating a girl for drug use, the local advisers, the house mother, university personnel, and sorority sisters should help to get her into a rehabilitation program. Instead of rejecting a girl for public sexual antics, sisters should address the deeper insecurity and self-esteem issues that the girl may be experiencing. Advisers and house mothers should be trained to recognize problems and, at the least, to make appropriate referrals when necessary. If sisterhoods were truly stronger than friendships, then, like real sisters, sorority members wouldn’t cast someone out merely for making a mistake.

What Universities and Graduates Can Do

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Establish authority

In the 1980s, colleges and universities shied away from direct responsibility of Greek houses because of stricter host-liability laws regarding student drinking. Among the sometimes conflicting rules of national sorority offices, campus Greek administrators, and local advisers, students have slipped through the gaps between the various levels of authority. Consequently, so many people try to impose rules that the rules are often never enforced. There are things that universities can do to try to turn sororities into more positive and useful campus groups. And graduates, whether or not of the Greek system, have a strong voice that can persuade universities to make the right decisions.