During the 2019-20 school year,UChicagoschapter of Kappa Alpha Theta (better known as simply Theta) had more than 180 members.Now, inJanuary of 2021, it hasjust over30.
UChicago is one of many universities across the country to see a mass exodus from Greek life in recent months. Hundreds of students reportedlydisaffiliatedfrom Vanderbilt Greek life institutions in July, the University of Richmonds entire Panhellenic Councilresignedover the summer, and Abolish Greek life Instagram accountssprungup at campuses nationwide. The catalysts for these movements have varied from school to school, but one common thread runs through them all: the belief that Greek institutions are rooted in classism, racism, and exclusivity.
According to anop-edpenned by five former members of Thetas leadershipall of whom have since disaffiliated from the sororityUChicago Thetas most recent reckoning began with an incident in the fall 2019 recruitment cycle.
In the fall of 2019, during the tenure of previous leadership, women of color, and dark-skinned women specifically, were excluded from the process of meeting new members from day one and told explicitly to go home throughout the process, the op-ed read. This prevented several women of color, who had signed up to participate in recruitment, from interacting with new members.
These women looked around the room, and they were like, wait a minute, everyone who wasnt assigned was Black or Asian, said M., a former Theta member familiar with the matter who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation or harassment. There were other people getting multiple assignments, whereas they were not [getting assigned to speak with prospective members].
Speaking to new members is the main way in which current sorority members participate in recruitment and, according to the op-ed, the selection of specific members over others sidelined many women of color in this process.
A heated argument ensued when they raised this concern with a member involved in planning the recruitment process. Subsequently,the Monday following recruitment, multiple members recounted a collective experience of exclusion and belittlement at the hands of fellow chaptermembers to our advisorsand present chapter leadership at a Membership Development Committee (MDC) meeting, but no action was taken,the op-ed read. MDC performs a disciplinary function within Theta, adjudicating disputes among members.
It is problematic to not recognize that exclusion from sororities, and feelings of exclusion among Black women, is an issue, M. said.
Members of Theta leadership during fall2019 did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
But according to former Theta leadership, the failure was as much in the aftermath of the recruitment debacle as in the moment. Knowledge of what happened became public in the summer of 2020, amid the racial justice protest movement sparked by the police killing of George Floyd. The leadership posted a letter on Instagramwhich has since been deletedapologizing for the incident on behalf of the chapter, prompting widespread concern and interest in the issue from alumni andotherobservers.
So,in the summer of 2020, Theta's MDC embarked on a fact-finding investigation, holding near-daily interviews with alumni and current members in an attempt to pursue disciplinary measures against those responsible for the incident. We, as new leadership, had to go back through and figure out what happened, said Ella Parker, Thetas former Chief External Affairs Officer.
But they quickly found themselves restricted by certain aspects of Thetas standard disciplinary procedures, which are set by the national organization. The main one, they said, was the wealth of confidentiality policies within the organization, which prevent individual grievances from being shared with the group unless members do so without naming anyone involved. Rather than discuss specific instances of racism within the sorority, the group was only permitted to discuss racism broadly.
As the investigation hobbled along, the leaderships faith in the disciplinary system quickly eroded.
Its like a black hole.You just scream into it, B., a former Theta member,saidin an interview withThe Maroon.(Some former members of Theta leadership spoke toThe Maroon anonymously, as they received threats of legal action for pursuing disciplinary action against certain members.)We have this system thats supposed to adjudicate these different issues and disputes, but it doesnt actually do its job whatsoever. Nothing actually comes out of it in a productive way,in a way that is transparent or addressable, because the word confidentiality gets flung in your face every time.
The fact that the chapter even has a disciplinary committee, B.said, is primarily for show.
Parker said that the members who came forward with the allegations of racial bias and exclusion also lost faith in the disciplinary process.
When women come forward with allegations,"they are told, we will handle this; youve been heard; well take care of this,Parker said. And that was the problem,because then when nothing happened, the time had already passed, and the people who originally brought something up felt disrespected,and didnt want to have anything to do with it anymore.
At the conclusion of the investigation, the leadership singled out one member who had been involved in organizing recruitment and was deemed primarily responsible for the initial incident. The sorority initiated a membership termination vote in an attempt to kick the member out of the chapter. The vote passed almost unanimously.
Several weeks later, however, the leadership learned that this vote was overturned by the chapters panel ofadvisors, a volunteer group of Theta alumni appointed by the national organization to advise and oversee the chapter. As the basis for this decision, the advisors cited procedural shortcomingsthey told us we didnt take good enough notes, B. said. The advisors also claimed that bias against the wrongdoer,may have clouded voting members judgment, as the events from fall recruitment were at that point general knowledge within Theta.
This decision incensed many members of Theta, including Parker, who toldThe Maroonthat the advisors had never voiced these procedural concerns throughout the disciplinary process,andthatthe identity of the person under investigationwas kept confidential. But beyond this, Parker said that the advisors decision undermined the will of the group.
It just says a lot that we voted near-unanimously for this, and our advisors still chose to overturn it, Parker said. They dont think that we know whats best for our chapter.
Several weeks after this controversial decision, a rift formed within thegroupbetween those who wanted the chapter to dissolve entirely and those who wanted to remain in Theta. Per the chapters bylaws, dissolving would require a unanimous vote, which was clearly unattainable. The advisors decision was a pivotal moment, signaling to many members the national organizations opposition to real change.
We realized that any change that we would want to make would be met with the same resistance by, quite frankly, old white women who dont understand why racism is that big of a problem in its manifestations here on this campus, said Allie Salazar, a former Class Representative for Thetas MDC.That was, I think, the moment at which leadership realized anythingwe do is going to be in vain.
Theta is not the only sorority whose efforts at reform have been stymied by an intransigent national organization: anearlyidenticalincident played out atNorthwesterns chapter ofZeta Tau Alpha.
The thing that was really damning was the systems inability to deal with [the initial incident], Salazar said. Being members who were on the administrative side of it, we found that the system was unable to rectify the wrongs that had happened, insofar as it wasnt as explicit as a hate crime.
For former Theta member A., who identifies as a woman of color (and asked to remain anonymous for fear of harassment), it was the response from Thetas national leadership and one ofitschapteradvisorsin particular that erased her faith in the sororitys ability to change.
There were a lot of girls who came toNationalsexpressing their concerns, A. said. It was very obvious to not only the girls [whomThetas advisor] talked to but[to]pretty much everyone in the chapter that she did not care about our chapters women of color,and she did not care how they felt about it. Shefar more caredabout protecting the people who were responsible for the incident rather than the people who were affected themselves.
That was when A. and the majority of Thetas members started disaffiliating in droves. In August of 2020,fewer than 30 members remained.
Thepublic disintegrationof UChicagos chapter ofKappa Alpha Thetawas far from an isolated incident. Following the summers mass mobilization against structural racism, sororities and fraternities on campuses nationwide found their checkered pasts andpresentdiscriminatorypracticessuddenly subjectedto the harsh spotlight of mediascrutiny.
Several past presidents of UChicagos Panhellenic Council(Panhel)havecome outin favor of abolition, and student-led movements to abolish Greek life emerged at collegesacross the country, decimating many chapters membership in a matter of months,just as onedid forTheta.
Social media has played a large role in this wave of activism.There are over 50 Instagram accounts advocating Greek life abolition at different universities, many with hundreds or even thousands of followers.
Months later, however, the question remains whether that movement will keep its initial momentum. Whats more, not everyone who sees a need for change to the Greek system agrees on what form it should take.
In June2020, Hannah Pittock, a former member of the sorority Alpha Omicron Pi (AOII), penned anopen letterto AOII headquarters,arguing that Greek life should be abolished,rather than reformed. While her article received support from many like-minded activists,itwasalso met withvalid resistancefrom women of color who, she said, had been working towards reform for years.
One of the inherent problems with the letter, and with my participation in this piece, is that it engages in the same problematic dynamic Im trying to dismantle, ofwhite women speaking over or for women of color on issues of racial justice,Pittockwrotein a statement toThe Maroon.The reform ideas outlined are not new,nor did I come up with them,theyre reforms women in Greek life,and especially women of color,have been working tirelessly toward for years.This letter failed miserably in acknowledging that,it spoke over them and for them in a really problematic way, and it didnt give credit where it was due.
UChicago Theta did not respond to multiple requests for an interview, and AOII representatives declined to be interviewed.
While the momentum to reform or abolish Greek life is currently driven by the internal pressure of members disaffiliating en masse, observers outside the system have longexertedpressureon Greek organizations to dissolve or reform, especially in the wake ofracist incidentsand in conversations surroundingsexual assaults.UChicagosPhoenix Survivors Alliance (PSA) has been critical of the role Greek life has played in campus sexual assault for years, and the close ties between fraternity social life and sexual assault took center stage in a publicart installationthe group put on last spring.
Since the racial justice protests reachedapeak inthesummerof2020, sororities atUChicago have begun attempting toaddressracial injustice in their pasts. In astatementissued in November, UChicago AOII said that it had created two new leadership positions responsible for diversity, equity, and inclusion within the chapter.Itisalso implementing regular educational chapter meetings on racial justice and allyship, including curriculum aimed specifically at recruitment, andit hasannounced a zerotolerance policy for discrimination and harassment.
Similarly, UChicago Thetaannouncedin October that it was eliminating preferential treatment for applicants who are related to Theta alumnae, known as legacies, among other reforms. Delta Gamma (DG) said in astatementon Instagram thatit isalso abolishing legacy admissions and implementing regular workshops on diversity and inclusion foritsmembers.
In spite of sororities problems, the women who do join their ranks say that they play an important role, serving as a social network, a support system,and more. But the feasibility of a community that preserves the benefits of Greek life without its baggage remains an open question for many.
Parker, for one, is optimistic about the possibilities of a non-Greek space for female-identifying students.I firmly dont believe that the only way to mobilize a group of women is through Greek life, Parker said. I dont think it has to be this problematic to get a group of women together and get them to do really amazing things.
Although she chose to disaffiliate, A. still appreciates some aspects of her time in Theta and wishes that more marginalized students would be able to experience the sense of community she found there.
I wish there were other people coming from backgrounds like me that could have experienced thatthat could have gotten to know so many different kinds of people, from so many places all over the world,and have fun with them and feel like they belonged, she said.
Parker, too, noted that there were aspects of belonging to Theta that she still found appealing, particularly the opportunity to work on philanthropic projects and build a close working relationship with Thetas philanthropic partner, CASA of Cook County.
We dont just do philanthropy because we have to.We actually have an insane[lypositive] relationship with the organization that we do philanthropy for, Parker said. I understand the reason why Greek life philanthropy is problematic, Ive read the abolish Greek life posts on it, but I do think joining Theta that was a really cool thing that I was excited to be a part of.
One former sorority member, who spoke withThe Maroonanonymously for fear of harassment, now runs theInstagram account@abolishgreeklifeuchicago. She said that even on a campus without Greek life, there may still be a need for sorority-like organizations. While several RSOs do cater specifically to women on campus, they are generally oriented toward students interested in particular fields of study, career paths, or political concerns rather than the general interestsocial structure that sororities provide.
I think it would be great to have environments on campus for female-identifying students.Thats one of the main reasons I joined Greek life in the first place, she said. A lot of the same infrastructure could be transferred over to some sort of all-female space on campus thats more inclusive, that doesnt turn people away based on their personality,based on how they look,orif they can pay their dues.
But under these circumstances, such an organization may not be recognizable as Greek life, another moderator of the Instagram account said.
Greek life was founded to exclude, she said. When you start to make a list of all the things that would need to happen for Greek life to be reformedhow do we include people who dont identify within the gender binary? Or people who cant afford to pay dues? How can we make this place more accessible?it starts to unravel all of the things that make Greek life what it is.
This conversation has already begun playing out onUChicagoscampus since the wave of disaffiliations this summer. Some former sorority members have formed a new group for female-identifying students, referred to as the Oak Society, which held recruitment information sessions during the first week of winter quarter and quicklycame under fireon social media for its resemblance to thesororitymany of its members had just left.
Still, some see Greek lifes problems as symptomatic of a deeper issue. A. said she believed that despite the efforts of those running recruitment to bring in primarily rich, straight white women, many of the members of Greek organizations do want to see more students from different backgrounds join. The problem, A. said, was an environment that has long permitted racism to go unquestioneda problem that isnt unique to Greek life.
I think it happens at a lot of RSOs and other organizations on campus, but because its more characteristic of the stereotype of Greek life,were willing to point the finger and say well Im not racist;Im atXXXgroup organization'instead of Kappa Alpha Theta or instead of Sig[ma]Chi, A. said. I think solving this problem doesnt necessarily lie in abolishing Greek life.Itlies in abolishing an environment that allows these things to happen, which is harder work.
A. said she thinks that increased representation from people of color within Greek organizations could lead to a culture shift that makes sororities and fraternities more welcoming places for marginalized students.
I think on aPanhel-wide level there needs to be some checks and balances that place an emphasis on diversity and inclusion across all leadership positions, she said.
During the monthswhenThetas public reckoning played out, members ofUChicagosororities openlydiscussedthe viability and varied historical legacies of Greek life on social media.One AOII Instagram postclaimed that Greek life institutions elitist practices serve to preserve white supremacy within the Greek system.
But UChicagos fraternities largely escaped censure, despite the fact that conversations about University oversight of the Greek system have long centered on fraternities, fueled by a long list of incidents that drew public outcry.
Included in those incidents were examples of overtracism, allegations ofhazing, andsexual assaultat fraternity parties. The University of Chicago, however, refuses to engage questions of regulating Greek organizations because of a long-standing policy of not recognizing Greek organizations.As such, former Theta leadership said that the responsibility for checking fraternity misconduct has commonly fallen toUChicagos Panhellenic Council, to which the sororitiesKappa Alpha Theta, Alpha OmicronPi, Delta Gamma, and Pi Beta Phi all belong. Just as a lack of real self-governing power withheld by the national organization prevented the women of Theta from enacting reforms in their own chapter, sororities lack of power over fraternities can restrict their ability to reform the practices of campus Greek life more broadly.
This arrangement puts sorority women in the position of policing the behavior of fraternity men, with little leverage other than the ability to issue public statements and refuse to participate in social events with fraternities, asthe Panhellenic Councildid with the fraternity Sigma Chi followingallegationsthat it had failed to prevent date-rape drugs from being given to female students at a number of its O-Week parties. This dynamic becomes especially fraught in cases of sexual misconduct, sometimes involving members of thesame sororitieswho are called upon to discipline fraternities for their negligence.
Theres a history at UChicago of [sexual misconduct] not being addressed adequately by fraternities, and I think Panhel has fallen into this role and feels a responsibility, Parker said. Panhel knows better than anyone because its so often women in sororities who are the victims of these types of thingsbecausethey spend the most time atfratsand at parties where sexual assault instances occur.
While declining to say whether this was an accurate characterization of the dynamics between sororities and fraternities on campus, Panhel wrote in a comment toThe Maroonthat our chapters want to provide safe spaces for women to support and empower one another. Members of Fraternities Committed to Safety (FCS) declined to comment.
Looking back on her time in Thetas leadership, Salazar said that she was bothered by how much of sorority social life depended on the cooperation of fraternities, particularly given that UChicago sororities have no houses andare technically prohibited fromserving alcohol.
Because we werent supposed to do anything related to alcohol at all and college kids, for better or for worse, bond over alcohol, we became socially dependent on fraternities for that bonding,for this experience of going out, this experience of partying, Salazar said. They became the holders of the social capital.
That dependence, B. added, limited the ability of sorority leadership to sanction fraternities for bad behavior and to a certain extent ensure the safety of theirown sisters.
The fact that we have to use parties as a bargaining chip to say hey, youve done something wrong is absurd, she said. Its all-around bad that women are being put in this weird position where we have to interact with them, but also police them, but also ask them for money for the philanthropy event.
The situation is made worse, A. said, by the fact that fraternities have no governing body equivalent tothesororities Panhellenic Council empowered to issue regulations across campus. While10campus fraternities (oneof which, Sigma Phi Epsilon,isnow defunct),signed a pledge in2016,formingFCSand agreeing to abide by certain sexual assault prevention and response protocols, the pact contained no real enforcement mechanism forviolators, and FCSs website was inactive as of January 2021.
If one fraternity says something [about reform], another fraternity can say fuck off, Im doing this instead, A.said. Its definitely a lower level of accountability for fraternities.
The durability of Greek institutions is a result ofnot onlythe ready-made social scene they provide to members, butalsoof thefinancial, social, and culturalcapital invested in the institutions. Those seeking to topple the centuries-old institution face significant obstacles in the deep pockets and broad alumni networks that fraternities and sororities command.
On the national level, sororities and fraternities cycle through many millions of dollars yearly. For the 2017-18 fiscal year, Kappa Alpha Thetas national organization reported $58 million in revenue,and spent close to that amount. The funds are channeled into a number of areas: chapter programming, philanthropic fundraising, scholarships, and costs of housing, along with maintaining the national leadership apparatus.
The incentivesforjoining Greek life also render abolition an uphill battle. At UChicago, fraternity housing is one potentially significant perk of joining Greek life, and housing corporations control a flow of cash through both membership dues and alumni donations. The Chi Upsilon Alumni Association, which manages housing forUChicagoschapter of Phi Gamma Delta (Fiji),reported revenue in the hundreds of thousands in 2017, as did the Midway Educational Foundation, a separate organization that funded improvements to Fijis house.
Fraternities and sororities loyal alumni networks are powerful incentives for a prospective member, posing an additional challenge to Greek life abolitionists. The names of UChicago Greek lifes most prominent donors are familiar to any student from the names of houses and University programs: billionaire trustee Byron Trott (Fiji), wealth manager BernardDelGiorno (Fiji),Jeff Metcalfof the Metcalf Internship Program (Fiji), trustee Gregory Wendt (Alpha Delta Phi),andhedge fund manager John Thaler (Psi Upsilon). Greeklifealumni are expected to leverage their career success in order to give students and recent graduates from their fraternity a leg upPsi Upsilons 2013 Member Education Guide, for example, encourages alumni to offer mentorship and summer internships to current brothers.
The national network of Greek life also has a political arm. The Fraternity and Sorority Political Action Committee, also known as FratPAC, funds election campaigns of Greek life alumni and lobbies members of Congress to support the interests of Greek life (including, notably, theiroppositionto a 2013 anti-hazing bill).
FratPACdonates to candidates across the political spectrum, ranging fromVice President Kamala Harris to SenateMinorityLeader Mitch McConnell. While most ofFratPACsdonors are individuals or individual fraternity and sorority chapters, some subsidiaries of national Greek organizations contribute as well, such asthePi Beta Phi(Pi Phi)sorority and Delta Gammas Fraternity Housing Corporation. While the legal restrictions and cash flows are complicatedPi BetaPhi, for instance,stateson its website that it draws its donations from alumnae dues rather than collegiate ones and doesnt contribute directly to campaignsthe financial links between Greek organizations andFratPACslobbying activities on Capitol Hill have raised a chorus ofobjectionsfrom studentsto the political uses of their dues. These political commitments of Greek organizations havegalvanizedcampus activists calling for abolition.
In addition to economic and political influence, however, Greek organizations rely on a particular kind of cultural power for their enduring place in campus life.According toTulane University professor Lisa Wade,who studies sexual culture on college campuses andhascalledfor the abolition of fraternities and sororities, the centralityof Greek lifeto narratives of the college experience in itself helps perpetuate the Greek system.
You have these two prongs of power,[one being]economic power,which is the resources that many of these historically white fraternities and sororities have to make themselves seem indispensable to a college, Wade said. But they also have this cultural power, where this state of affairs that advantages this particular group seems normal. It just seems normal and right.
According to Wade, the concentration of social power in fraternities originally founded as exclusively white, wealthy, and male organizations is somewhat paradoxically responsible for the expansion of the Greek system to women and students of color. Given that history, Wade questions whether the boundaries of that system can be further expanded and made truly inclusive without overhauling Greek lifes defining features.
The fraternities became the model for what it looks like to organize around an identity and lift eachother up. It was because fraternities had so much power that we saw women forming their own fraternities, that we see students of color forming their own fraternities and sororities, that we see Jewish fraternities and sororities, Wade said. Its not because theres anything special about this word or these organizations.The copycatting was because of the power that these white men held.
According to Wade, dismantling Greek institutions starts with acknowledging that maintaining them is a choice,rather than an inevitable outcome oranecessary part of college life.
We need to start asking:Fraternities offer us a lot, they bring in money and other things, but what is the cost? Wade said. Part of the way we do that is[by]exposing this cultural lie weve been told [about the necessity of fraternities].
The groundswell of student activism that rippled across college campuses in recent months encouraged Wade, who saw both abolitionist activists outsideand students inside Greek life working to reform their organizations or leaving them as signs of the potential for change.
I think students are deciding for themselves whether or not they want these institutions, and I see a lot of potential there for what might happen, Wade said. People in Greek life responding by disaffiliating is such an incredibly powerful thing to do. It gives other people a permission structure, the permission to say, Hey, actually, I dont love this either.
Despite the frustrations Salazar encountered and herownchoice to leave Theta, she said that many women who chose to remain sorority members are working to accomplish the changes she found impossibleto make.
There are a lot of women,and women of color especially,who really want to make change and feel some level of institutional support for that.Whether thats support for pureP.R.purposes or [if] thats genuine support,I dont know, Salazar said. Theres this belief that we can make the change;the question is whether or not they can. Will this work? I dont know.
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Founded to Exclude: Greek Life, UChicago Theta, and the Push for Abolition - The Chicago Maroon
