Originally Posted by FSUZeta (Post 1915567)

that is exactly right-too many potential risk management issues doing things with a non-recognized group.

Originally Posted by 33girl (Post 1915372)

KSigAdvisor, you are a fucking idiot.

No school has to grant ANY group recognition. The only thing that freedom of assocation protects is the right of students to join any group - recognized or unrecognized - without fear of harassment/suspension/expulsion.

As a matter of fact, your argument is really AGAINST freedom of association - as you want to "force" FGCU and its students to accept an organization that they have shown, in a vote, that they do not want. Even if FGCU had approved you, the IFC could still vote you down.

You don't have a leg to stand on as far as equal protection until another fraternity comes in and the school recognizes them immediately.

DKE dealt with things like this for a long time, at many schools, and without the whining. I suggest you google them and learn something.

May I reiterate: you are a fucking idiot. (And longwinded, too.)

Originally Posted by rex in effect (Post 1915618)

All I have to say is that the men of the soon to be Rho Zeta chapter of Kappa Sigma have proven all doubters wrong. They succeeded and are becoming a chapter. I would put money on it that FGCU, their IFC, and PanHellenic wanted them to fail because that way the issue would just go away. The fact they are succeeding and becoming a chapter is probably making FGCU mad because they are getting stronger and are not gonna back down. As for the part of associating with sororities on campus. I don't think they even care about having socials with the sororities at FGCU. That is the least of their worries. Jennyj87, i gurantee they could care less about associating with your sorority. Most socials and mixers are just a waste of time anyway. A good one may occur every so often, but it is not even an important part of greek life. Having socials with sororities is not all that important.

Originally Posted by KSigAdvisor (Post 1915575)

My main point, and again, none of you need to agree in order for KS to be on campus, is that despite all of this bickering and disagreement, which there will be more of in the future, when it comes to protecting our rights against universities, we should all be on the same team. That is why the leaders of every national fraternity support open expansion. If you disagree and think whoever gets to campus first wins, fine. But regardless, when you take the time to read the case law, constitution, Title 9, etc., you will realize that FGCU can't keep us off campus just because our peers (IFC and apparently their local advisors) don't want us here. Groups of people don't have to accept competition, but thankfully FGCU (government) still has to treat everyone equally.

And is response to your comment, Belle, that "we're not awesome" enough, thanks for that. (Where are you at attacking her Stu?) The IFC members go out of their way to make it hard on us. One person in a local chapter called our executive director and said he didn't see us on the website and that we were a joke, but he lied to our executive director about who he was (we found out later). Then the kid went around and told everyone we weren't even recognized by our own fraternity, which was patently false. I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong. We knew what we signed up for, and we embrace the challenge. Further, we do hang out with sorority members, but as for official functions, they have been told not to do events with us (possibly for insurance purposes). PHC even went so far as to instruct their members not to sign our petition because they'd get in trouble for signing it. So, Belle, don't assume anything. Our guys are top notch, despite the year and a half peer bashing they've received from the other groups.

It's sad that you guys would fight so hard to keep a bunch of 18 to 22 year olds from enjoying the same rights and benefits that you enjoyed while undergraduates. You don't have to accept us into IFC, but we want our equal rights from the school, plain and simple.

Originally Posted by KSigAdvisor (Post 1915586)

Let me take this opportunity to re-frame the argument, as you suggested, since we are so far off track.

Please stop saying "we didn't follow the rules." If FGCU and/or IFC has said "in order to operate on campus, you must first turn in your constitution, get a faculty advisor, submit your fiscal budget for the year, and sit through a seminar, then you will be recognized," that would be called implementing "rules." Had that happened, and we had said "no thanks, we don't have to follow those rules; those rules don't apply to us, etc." then at that point each of you would have good reason to question our motives. Those "rules" would be equally applied across the board to every student organization. We would have gladly followed those "rules" and once we are on campus, we will follow any such rules the school may require.

However, here is what really happened, and these are the facts. We asked to come onto campus in November of 2008 during a meeting with the office of student life. They said "no." They didn't lay out a bunch of easy guidelines and steps we had to follow, such as in my hypothetical above, they flat out said no.

Going home at that point is not called following the rules. Public universities don't have the right to allow some universities on campus and ban others. So as you can see, we didn't "break the rules" there were no rules to follow. Telling a group they can't come on campus means there are no rules to follow!! It means they can't come, that's it.

Now, FGCU is a public university funded by taxpayer monies, and the way we see it, they don't have the right to tell any student group they simply can't come onto campus.

And this is where all the 1st and 14th Amendment, Supreme Court rulings, and Title 9 arguments come into play. If you think a public university has the right to tell certain groups they can't come onto campus, despite all the clear case law that says they can't, then I guess that's your business, although it's a very difficult argument to support.

But what can't be debated is that the school gave us zero rules to follow, they simply said go home, you can't be here. That is a fact, plain and simple. So, many of you have over and over said "you should have followed the rules" which is extremely frustrating because, as hopefully you now understand, there were no "rules" to follow. We chose to fight for our civil liberties, and because of that, we're being attacked by many people. It's been an uphill battle, but we're still fighting. We simply won't stand for any governmental entity denying us equal protection of the law, and you shouldn't either.

Originally Posted by KSigAdvisor (Post 1915406)

As for you, LaneSig, I believe in complete disclosure and and factual accuracy, so here's what went down: A group of students wanted to start a fraternity and contacted us. We then sent in one of our staff members to meet with FGCU. FGCU informed us that they "weren't open for expansion" and that IFC only "invites" fraternities to come onto campus every year or so. We thought Fort Myers was in the United States of America, so we respectfully said we are coming anyway. For those who keep arguing that at this point we should have respected the university's wishes, you are missing the point. Telling a group of students they can't organize and function on campus is not a rule, it's discrimination. Don't minimize the importance of our plight. First amendment freedoms are as equally important to fraternities as applied to any other group. We (the undergraduate students) have the same rights as every other students. Universities can't simply exclude groups from campus while recognizing other groups, and we will prevail on this point, I promise you.

Originally Posted by KSigAdvisor (Post 1915589)

Jenny87, we have emails of support from Chi Omega and another sorority (can't recall which) supporting us, sent from your national offices.

Originally Posted by KSigAdvisor (Post 1915620)

Jenny, I didn't call you or other females small minded, I said you were "close minded." Before you can "get something," you have to be willing to listen. Thus, calling you closed minded isn't the same as small minded. Also, I'm sure you have insulted someone before that has forgiven you. So, although you were directly and harshly critical of me, I'd ask that you don't hold a grudge and if our guys are deserving and you like them, then judge them as individuals and make your own call. Your executive offices should be contacting you, I hope. They can't "make" you do anything, but they can inform you that this "embargo" against us is silly and unnecessary. Hopefully we gain official recognition soon, and then it will be a moot point.
.

Originally Posted by KSigAdvisor (Post 1915509)

Welcome to the discussion Southern Belle. No one said you have to fix something that you don't think is broken, and no one said you have a small brain. Calm down... if your small brain will allow.... "I'm just sayin...."

Originally Posted by 33girl (Post 1915686)

I never in all my life thought I would say this, but paging NutBrnHair.

Originally Posted by Barbie's_Rush (Post 1915742)

Am I reading this correctly? How do you get to be both an undergrad and an adviser at the same time? I know fraternities are different, but this seems really odd.

Originally Posted by KSigAdvisor (Post 1915662)

Lane- I did post the facts earlier on, no worries. And while it is important to "begin with the facts," I didn't start this thread. Someone else started it, I got wind and hopped on. So, I'm wondering why all of you were blogging w/o knowing the facts first?

Anyhow, there is nothing inconsistent with my stories. Please don't insinuate to others that I am misleading anyone. They said "No, not now, we only invite fraternities on campus." (No and not now are one in the same because there are no guarantees any group will ever be let on, as I explain further below). The expansion process was explained, and when I looked online myself, I also found it in a short amount of time.

The (unconstitutional) "systematic" expansion process at FGCU is as such- the IFC, whenever it feels it is ready, forms a Greek Life Expansion Committee (GLIC). The GLIC invites certain fraternities to come onto campus and give a presentation, then votes on which fraternity it would like to "allow" onto campus.

Just to be clear, this part of the process was always clear and explained to us. They said "we are not ready for expansion, so go home, you can't come here." Aka, they said "no" you can't expand. Were we to wait for an unspecified period of time (which again is arbitrary at whenever IFC feels like forming GLIC), we would have only been invited, maybe, to FGCU to "give a presentation." If we weren't selected, which with 4 or 5 other fraternities vetting for the same right was nothing short of a long shot for all involved, then we would have been told, again, "no, you can't come here, not this time, we might invite you back again to try."

So, this is why we have a problem with the process. All of the fraternities that are told "no" are being shot down by the IFC, which doesn't have any legal right to grant or deny anyone their rights. Our rights to operate on public universities don't rest in the hands of the students (IFC). Each and every student has a right to create his or her own lawful student organization and be a Registered Student Organization at FGCU, that is the law (equal protection). If you disagree, go look it up, I posted it yesterday. So, we decided to support the young men who wanted to be a part of Kappa Sigma and help them form a Colony anyway.


However, when we came anyway, some in the Office of Student Life (obviously) weren't pleased. They decided they wouldn't even recognize us as a student group, claiming that because we are a single-gender organization, we can't be recognized. Our response, logically, was that FGCU allows the other fraternities on campus to operate, why would they deny us those same rights? And hence the equal protection of the laws arguments. FGCU can't deny us the right to be a student organization simply because IFC doesn't want us around. That would be like FGCU telling the Baptist Student Association that it couldn't be a Registered Student Organization because the Methodist Student Association and the Presbyterian Student Association didn't want them around. Doesn't make sense, right? That has been illegal since Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.


Now, this is where what we are doing is important. When governmental officials get wild ideas like deciding they can adopt unconstitutional laws and therefore discriminate against Kappa Sigma and every other fraternity who has been told they couldn't colonize, it is vital to the health of democracy that we stand up for our rights. FGCU is infringing upon our rights, and we have chosen to stand up for ourselves. It isn't poor planning on our part, but challenging the system is a slow process until we finally make enough noise to effectuate change.

I honestly don't think FGCU administrators had any ill will when they adopted the private school policies, I just think they were misinformed and didn't realize telling other fraternities they couldn't colonize was unconstitutional at public (aka government and taxpayer supported) universities. And now that they helped implement those policies, the administrators feel partial and are fighting really hard to beat us down, even though those policies are clearly unconstitutional, as we have pointed out. One read through of Title 9 clearly defeats their position.

So, Lane, the argument is multifaceted and can get convoluted, and typing it out each time someone jumps in is pretty inefficient. The school withheld certain information from us after the initial meeting, but we understood their Greek "systematic expansion" policy from the beginning. It wasn't a matter of not knowing the policies, it is the fact that the school says "thanks but no thanks you can't colonize." We are fighting that policy, and despite the road being long and hard, we are close to gaining our rightful recognition from FGCU, I hope. Our young men on campus have been through a lot, and it takes great courage to forge on in the face of all the attacks to which they have been subjected. There is a lot of misinformation out there, and it is impossible to manage everything the undergraduates (and alumni) say to each other, especially when other fraternity members maliciously spread false rumors.

If you are still reading Lane, thank you. I am forced to be long winded to respond to all the attacks and to also tell the story from way back in November of 2008. Hopefully all of the personal shots at me stop, and if anyone has any relevant, insightful or otherwise helpful questions or comments, please post.

Originally Posted by Barbie's_Rush (Post 1915742)

Am I reading this correctly? How do you get to be both an undergrad and an adviser at the same time? I know fraternities are different, but this seems really odd.