On some of these campuses Bid Day ends at 5 pm. In fact one of the fraternities on my campus threw a 5:01 party on the last day of sorority recruitment (or fraternity rush, whichever ended last, usually ours did though.). Whether the new members attend a fraternity party is up to them, but it's not a "bid day" event nor is it a "chapter event."

I can't speak for other chapters but any chapter event we had would have required quite a bit more planning, signing off on, and so on. Not the same thing as "Hey some of us are hanging out with the Alpha Betas tonight, want to come along?"

I should have been more clear...individuals going out and a sorority event (even an unofficial one) are different animals. I'm talking about girls doing their own thing once all the chapters have held their actual events.

It's not an NPC rule that "Bid Day" ends at 12:01 the next day?

At least, that was the rule on my campus.

I don't believe so. The 5:01 parties were real, though they weren't always on sorority bid day like I said. Our campus rule was 5pm. Now, our bid day started early in the morning and the activities were usually over/after lunch. So YMMV?

It's entirely possible that I'm misremembering something though

This kind of confuses me. I know what it is really addressing is using fraternity guys in the recruitment and bid day festivities, but doesn't this technically prevent dads and other male relatives from attending bid day as well? Is there more to this excerpt? I know entire families come down to many of the SEC schools to celebrate bid day at the house, including dads, brothers, grandfathers etc., so much so that some chapters have put limits on the number of guests. Aren't they technically breaking the unanimous agreement?

Sometimes alcohol is prohibited for certain days with our chapter (bid day, initiations, etc.) But i have never heard of an entire pledge term being dry.

I have heard of dry pledge terms, but don't personally know of any right now. In my experience there was to be no alcohol at any events except formal (and then there are many, many hoops to jump through prior to the event so my chapter often didn't have alcohol at formals) but what people did on their own time was their business (provided they didn't make it public knowledge of course). Years ago on my bid day I went to the bar in town with a bunch of sisters, but it wasn't a bid day event...it was "Hey, some of us are going to _____, want to come?".

Yes I understand. Our VP of Standards came into our new member meeting recently and was like 'You guys aren't 21 there should be no drinking'. She didn't realize we actually pledged two 21 year olds this year so they can drink.

I think it depends on how you define "participation."

As an outsider, it seems to me that men at Bid Day (no matter who they are, in a sense) are a moot point because they aren't being used to sway PNMs one way or the other.

I wonder (related) if there is a rule stating that non-members cannot "participate" in recruitment. For example, if you have to bar men from the process, wouldn't it be just as unfair to use some famous person (volunteer or for hire) as an integral part of recruitment?

Any time a non-member is part of rush, it has to be approved by the school's panhel. That goes for alumnae (from that school and others) and women from other schools too.

I mean Marlo Thomas can't just swing by and stop at the local Theta chapter for their rush party. Panhel needs to approve it, and most likely never would.