I just read the email. The reason they gave was that there are more legacies than available bids. Then they expanded legacies to include granddaughters, step-granddaughters and nieces in addition to the already recognized daughters, step-daughters, sisters and step-sisters. So now there are even more legacies than available bids.

At this point, which organizations still have preferential treatment for legacies during recruitment? From what I've found, the following still have theirs intact (or there was no announcement of a change of policy easily found):

Alpha Delta Pi
Alpha Epsilon Phi
Alpha Sigma Tau
Chi Omega
Delta Phi Epsilon
Delta Zeta
Kappa Delta
Sigma Delta Tau
Theta Phi Alpha
Zeta Tau Alpha

And these orgs have clearly eliminated their policy:

Alpha Chi Omega
Alpha Gamma Delta
Alpha Omicron Pi
Alpha Phi
Alpha Sigma Alpha
Alpha Xi Delta
Delta Delta Delta
Delta Gamma
Gamma Phi Beta
Kappa Alpha Theta
Kappa Kappa Gamma
Phi Mu
Phi Sigma Sigma
Pi Beta Phi
Sigma Kappa
Sigma Sigma Sigma

If any part of this is incorrect, please feel free to clarify.

I counted 25 orgs and then realized Zeta Tau Alpha isn't listed. I believe their policy is still that a legacy will be invited back to one invitational event. Maybe a ZTA can confirm. See here:

Thank you! I added them. Through a quick search, it seems they haven't made a more recent change to their legacy policy.

Reading through this and the rec thread, does anyone else think it’s bat guano crazy to be doing all this in the middle of a worldwide pandemic?

I mean - the people who are pushing all these changes through have probably picked an optimum time to do so as most of us are occupied with other more pressing things or in the throes of depression. When everyone snaps out of it and wakes up, will these policies really stay? How many national convention throwdowns will result?

I also wonder how the national leadership of so many groups has come to be so far out of touch with the rest of the membership.

Guy with a question here. When a legacy goes through sorority rush do all the chapters on campus know she's a legacy?

If it is disclosed in the sorority recruitment registration yes. I have know of some PNMs that do not disclose that they are legacies. So sometimes yes, sometimes no.

YES! YES! YES!

In answer to your final thought: Consultants, both the legal kind and the operational kind.

Some national sorority boards have been under the spell of consultants for too many years. Consultants stand as middlemen between the sorority boards and sorority constituents.

Consultants sometimes ask the wrong questions of boards and constituants. This can result in poor sorority decisions being made and incorrect actions being taken.

Consultants are sometimes tasked to encourage policies passed by a board but considered unnecessary and discouraging to the constituants because constituants feel they have not been properly consulted or heard.

Another thread spoke about members of sorority boards needing to make high yearly monetary bequests to their orgs in order to even be on said boards. That denies some people from becoming a major decision maker for their org.

Oh yeah, we got us one of those. I wonder how much she’s being paid and if that money couldn’t have been better used for things like scholarships at the many campi we’re on where first gen college students predominate. Or maybe even competitive housing.

I was wondering, why not disclose the legacy status ONLY to the chapter in question? Not all legacies want to join the chapter anyway, and it would prevent them from being cut from chapters that want her but figure "she'll go XYZ anyway because she's a legacy". :confused:

I cannot speak for all schools, but for the one I advise, if a 'mistake' happens (accidentally dropping a legacy after first round comes to mind), our panhellenic will only let us correct that mistake if the PNM indicated that legacy status in her sign-up.

And my international org dropped preferential treatment for legacies before this last recruitment, and guess what? we took just as many "legacies" this year as in prior years. But we still have recommendation forms so that helps a bit.

I don’t think the national offices are “so far out of touch with the REST of the membership.” On my group’s Facebook page, there are regularly posts from members thanking EO for the positive changes being made, especially from women who wouldn’t have been eligible to be in a sorority 60 years ago and have sometimes felt marginalized even as full members.

Even myself, a white girl from a “good” family and a strong high school but no legacies...when I was deciding between two colleges, I definitely considered the fact that one school had a 100+ year old Greek system with more legacies than spots in many chapters. And the other school had a younger Greek system where the first chapter legacies would start to come through the year I graduated. My rush was competitive - sororities were still selective and I had cuts - but our chapter had maybe 2-5 legacies pledge each year. The last time I saw our chapter’s stats, legacies were about 40-50% of the pledge class with many legacy cuts. That’s a huge difference in 25 years and represents many fewer opportunities to pledge for PNM’s like me (who literally was born on life’s “3rd base”), not to mention other PNM’s who have as much or more to give but don’t know the ropes.

Are members grumpy and even outraged about these changes? Sure. But they seem to be the same kind of people screaming “make America great (white) again” and fighting tooth and toenail against America becoming more diverse,, ignoring the huge “leg up” in life they had by being (mostly) white, college educated women. I won’t be so ignorant to think my daughter would be a better DG than a non-legacy just because of her family name. All legacy relatives should strive to raise their legacies in a way that every sorority is interested in her because her character, kindness, morals, service, and intellect radiate on their own.

I know with our org, part of the problem was that this change was announced after a convention during which it had been neither brought up nor discussed.

Also, some women of color were the loudest critics of eliminating the legacy policy. They wanted their sisters or future children to get an extra look if they attended a school that was more homogeneous than where they had gone.

I know that everyone’s policy is different but I think there are ways other than throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Chi Omega has been very smart in confining who is a legacy to mothers and sisters. Once again, this is something that would be served better by being handled on a chapter level rather than nationally.

I know a black DG who would be infuriated if she read that. She is extremely upset because her daughter's legacy status won't be honored when she rushes.

ETA: I can think of a lot of women who are angry about this who do not fit that MAGA picture.