One, 18 year olds shouldn’t be rushing for future daughters they may not even have. I wasn’t a legacy and certainly wasn’t thinking about choosing “my legacy” when I went through rush. I didn’t even have children until my late 30’s. My chapter President who became a traveling consultant and has been a chapter advisor to multiple campuses since....has 3 sons.

I hope your daughter will consider DG) for her college experience and our sisterhood rather than what some guy’s sperm might produce for her in the future!

Two, legacies being equal to all other PNM’s isn’t watering everything down. Your stance that it’s the first step to lowering GPA or leadership standards is a straw man argument at best. At worst, it’s elitist bias that non-legacies (or proxy for non-white) PNM’s have lower grades and lower standards. This move by DG - like it or not - is to ensure that we are recruiting the highest quality women and that unconnected PNMs with stellar grades, leadership, friendship, & potential don’t “fall through the cracks” while less qualified legacies are ushered deeper into rush week.

I know we all think our sweet babies are perfect and that our legacies would be lucky to pledge them, but the reality is there are almost always 100 other girls with better grades, more volunteer hours, more honed leadership skills, stronger Recs, better fit for chapter personality, etc. As one of my sisters said yesterday, let our focus be on raising young women and promoting our Greek experiences. I would love for my daughter to become a DG but I would be equally thrilled for her to find HER HOME in any NPC sisterhood!

That’s my biggest concern and also where other NPC groups who don’t share that same policy have had some REALLY angry alumnae and legacies. One NPC group on my campus was notorious for “cross cutting” their legacies on Pref Night (pre-RFM days when cross-cut was a real thing).

It's so cruel to raise a daughter with stories and songs from your sorority and she makes it to prefs--and gets dropped afterwards. Some sororities say they dropped the policy of listing them first on the bid list because there are so many legacies now. WTH? If you don't want them, don't ask them to prefs. Don't string them along! And if you know you do, please put them at the top of your list.

This is the part most upsetting to me as well. Thankfully my 3 daughters have gone through recruitment. It was peace of mind for me knowing that when the two who attended our preference parties they were at the top of the bid list. If there was worry about them getting cut after making it that far, it would have been excruciatingly painful for all involved.

Yes! I already have an automatic donation to the Foundation set up, but I just might do some additional unplanned giving.

As for lots of DG's being upset about this, either they aren't expressing it or they aren't on social media. I first heard about this policy change a few days ago on one of DG's regional Facebook pages. For every member who was upset, disappointed or, yes, even outraged, there were five more who were supportive and even pleased. Same reaction when Executive Offices posted the announcement on Instagram yesterday -- the number of members who were happy or OK with it far outweighed those who were unhappy. And some members of other NPC organizations (e.g., KKG, AGD, ADPi, PiPhi) weighed in with their support and challenged their own organizations to make a similar change.

I looked at the page. Anyone who is against the change is getting attacked, so I suppose that they--like often happens in cases like these--will be silently showing their opposition by withdrawing their money.

I'm torn about this. On one hand, I want sororities to be more inclusive for all women and I think eliminating the legacy preference helps chapters choose women for who they are and not for who their mom/sister/aunt/etc was. It's similar to colleges dropping legacy consideration in my mind, because like sororities college affiliation has historically been used to admit the white, affluent children of white, affluent people (and I've got some fascinating data on Harvard legacy admits if anyone's interested in seeing this in action).

On the other hand, I'm a legacy to ADPi through my mom and I *know* that the only reason I got that courtesy invite to the second round of recruitment was because of my connection. The other chapters that ADPi recruits against all dropped me, I didn't know a single woman in ADPi, and I absolutely did not and still don't fit that chapter's mold. I wasn't dumb when they kept inviting me back for recruitment rounds. My chapter also takes legacies very seriously and we tried our hardest to make as many want to join as we could. I'm eternally grateful to share my ADPi experience with my mom and my sorority journey wouldn't have been half as rich without my mom there for all of it.

I think the middle ground between these two ends is that individual chapters can still give legacies a preference if that's what they choose to do, rather than being mandated to do so by Delta Gamma. Obviously I'm not privy to DG's recruitment system but I'm sure there's a way a chapter could ensure legacies feel extra special and warm and fuzzy if they wanted to.

I have never really been on board with the idea of legacies. I don't see why my membership means someone I'm related to gets an advantage. As a PNM I'd rather be on equal footing with everyone than having an "edge" because I was expelled out of someone's uterus once.

I just hope this gets publicized REALLY REALLY A LOT so the other sororities take it into account and don’t all drop a girl because they assume she’ll be high up enough on her legacy chapter’s list.

Jen, for many people, it's not just the expulsion. The moms/grandmothers/sisters have often shown them the pins, introduced their sisters to them, sung them the songs, etc., for many years. I did all that with my daughters and most of y'all know that none even went to a school with my sorority. Still, it would have been nice to share the bond with one of the nine.

33, agreed. This happened to my niece back in 2005--she was an in-house legacy to one group and probably would have fit better in others, yet she was cut to 2 groups right off.

I guess I just don't get why it's so important to share sorority stuff like that. I have a ton more family traditions and things I'd rather pass along than songs and pins for a group they may or may not like in the end. And I'd hate for someone to feel obligated because of me, and I would've hated to have felt obligated to my family (because I'm the type that totally would, to my detriment).



I hope all the groups look to doing this. Have everyone on equal footing.

Part of legacy status is a recognition that in addition to having a possible background in the sorority, a legacy can also bring an alumna back into active duty, if she has perhaps not been active in the past. Alumnae involvement is a problem across the board, and I know in our Alumnae Panhellenic mothers who hadn't been doing much for their sorority or panhellenic would often become active when their daughters went through recruitment, even if they didn't pledge their legacy chapter. It is also a way of honoring the alumna and her membership. I don't think one invite to the first invitation round is too much to ask, and as for the preference bid list, if they make it to pref, the chapter should absolutely want them. I would fight this should Gamma Phi consider it. As for a level playing field, that's what the Unanimous Agreements are for. If a sorority choses to do something independently that differs from the norm, more power to them, but they shouldn't expect others to do it just because they did.

I think that to some degree whether you think this concept is awful or great also has to do with your collegiate experience and where your chapter was in the pecking order of your campus and within your national organization. Also whether it concerns a legacy to the same chapter.

On another note, the Reddit thread on this is almost comical in its polar oppositeness to this thread.

No no no no no! Please stop with this nonsense. This is why I hesitated to comment on the NPC Community College Task Force thread... because I was so enraged at the mere suggestion that NPC sororities would be lowering their standards or would become obsolete because they considered a change.

Why would eliminating legacy policies on the national level = eliminating grade requirements? This makes no sense and is comparing apples and oranges. It reminds me of the people who argue, "We shouldn't allow gay marriage! Next thing you know, people will be allowed to marry their dog!"

Just no.

This! Individual chapters still have a say. They always have, regardless of what any national policy says. Either they like a legacy and want to keep her past second round (if national policy dictates she stay past the first) or they bring her through preference (knowing at that point national policy dictates she's "stuck").

I guess the question I have is this: who feels more hurt by this whole thing? Is it the legacy going through recruitment? Or is it mom who's upset because her daughter won't be her sister and is threatening to pull donations? I don't have the answer, but I'd be curious to know.

There is no acceptable way to express opposition to this because a segment of society is attempting to make any kind of dissent unacceptable. I read this thread last night and walked away without commenting because I knew what I wanted to say would probably lead to being attacked.

My thought as soon as I read this? Wokeness and equity comes to NPC recruitment and, therefore, NPC. The timing is interesting because I just finished watching an extensive interview with Peter Boghossian and James Lindsey about how wokeness destroys organizations from within in a very predictable pattern whether it is a church, a knitting club, a hiking group, or a college/university. It cuts off conversation, creates an alienated middle, and ultimately destroys the community. One of the things they specifically mentioned is the way it guts organizations financially as people in the alienated middle are forced out and leave with their money. I would guess this is the start of it in the NPC.

And if you think I'm overstating this, let's come back in four years and revisit this thread. Declining college enrollments, a prediction of 25% of colleges/universities closing in the next ten years, coronavirus fallout, massive job losses, and now these kinds of decisions?

I sincerely hope I'm wrong. I bet I'm not.