Another POV on this topic...
 

While there is no official or written rule on belonging to both an NPC and NPHC GLO, I would think that a woman would prefer to pledge her allegience to only a single organization - after all, it's a lifelong committment! And I imagine involving one's self in any given GLO's activities would be quite enough for any lifetime. :)

But that's just my opinion.

Here's what I've experienced. As always, my POV is that of a non-NPC and non-NPHC greek. My experience is of an up-&-coming national GLO on a very greek campus.

The act of establishing my sorority at my alma mater made my sorority a national entity, from a local. As far as the university is concerned, we are a student organization with the focus sisterhood among women in technical studies (since we are not affiliated with NPC, NPHC, or any other "umbrella" org).

The current NPC advisor at my alma mater was moved to comment that according to NPC rules and regs, any NPC woman could rush and join our sorority, however because of our rules, that wouldn't happen. (Her background is law, so I'm not surprised she commented on that technicality. :)) There have been a few instances when a young lady already pledged or a member of an NPC sorority will enquire about our sorority, and then decline their interest after finding out that we don't initate women who are already committed to, or members of, another GLO.

Before my sorority was well-established on campus, there were many women of color who showed quite a bit of interest in my sorority, thinking that we were special-interest/honorary. Many were on the verge of pledging their candidacy, when they simply lost all interest, and were very tight-lipped about why. I was in charge of Rush at the time, and was baffled beyond imagining. (This was long before I educated myself on the nuances of all greek like. :D) Understanding began to dawn on equeen when I found nearly all of these women, several semesters later, sporting letters of NPHC and CNHL sororities.

Official rules and regulations aside, I suppose it comes down to how (a) a group defines its membership, and (b) how it perceives the membership of other sororities/fraternal organizations.

Could you please send me to the specific section of Title IX where it defines the term social fraternities and sororities. I see them mentioned and requirements placed as to how they qualify for exemption (i.e. being tax exempt under 26 USC 501a) but I have not found an actual definition of the term social v. service fraternity in the statute.

Also, could you please explain how APO or GSS having single sex chapters on many campuses does not violate Titile IX if you are not exempt from it. I would think that any female student denied memebership in APO on a campus with an all male chapter would then have a cause of action, regardless of the existance of a GSS chapter since they are two unique and distinct organizations.

Hi Kimmie,

I provided a link to the Title IX Regulation in an earlier post in this thread. I think Alpha Phi Omega is excempt from the regulation because they're associated with the Boy Scouts of America (even though they're co-ed). The reason why that makes them exempt is mentioned in section 6B of the Title IX statute.

Thank you SoTrue, I appreciate you post and I did where you quoted the statute. But I don't beleive any college based fraternity or sorority meets the definition in 6B. Most likely any organization that is exempt receives their expemtion under 6A. I also beleive that this was dardenr's point. (I.E.- Those with exemption are soical sororities and fraternities and APO is not exempt as a service fraternity)

I asked for the additional information because this is what I see when I look at the statute-

1. Delta Sigma Thea Sorority, Inc. IS a Service Sorority.

2. I do not see in either 20 USC 1681 (the codification of Titile IX) or 26 USC 501 (the statute referenced in Title IX) a definition of waht is meant by social fraternity or sorority. There may be one there but the volume containing 20 USC 1681 has been taken out of my law library so I cannot check the annotation at the moment. I was hoping that dardenr could let me know where service or social fraternity or sorority was defined by law.

3. Outside of a clear defnition, the defining characteristic of exempt fraternities and sroroities is tax exempt status under 26 USC 501a. Delta, for example, is a 501c7 organization and therefore meets this requirement. I suspect this siswhy she is exempt from Title IX. I also suspect this is why most fraternities and sororities are exempt.

4. I am not clear how APO could have single sex chapters if they are not exempt from TItle IX and that is another reason I was looking for clarification. dardenr stated in one post that they are not exempt from Title IX.

Anyway, this is just some of my interpretation of what I have read and was looking for input from members of APO n so I could understand the basis for their reading of the law.

Alpha Phi Omega explanation
 

As has been pointed out before, 6B is only intended for "youth groups" like the Boy Scouts and Campfile. It talks about membership being primarily aimed at those below 19. which none of the collegiate Greek Letter Orgs are.

As for "social fraternities and sororities" that was left to the Deparement of Education (HEW at the time) to decide. Everyone know that the NIC and NPC groups qualified, but other groups were more nebulous. The eventual decision of HEW put the NIC, NPC and NPHC and similar groups into that category, but did not allow "recognition groups" (to use the terminology in Bairds) , honoraries and professionals into that group.

Alpha Phi Omega *did* try to get a Title IX exemption. We did not succeed. In order to keep the Fraternity from completely destroying itself, we came up with a compromise in 1976 that allowed chapters that wanted to go co-ed to do so. In 1986, the board changed that so that the only all-male chapters were ones that had remained all-male since before 1976, requiring that all new or rechartered chapters to be co-ed.

How are we able to do this given Title IX? The short answer is we can't. But the way Title IX is written, it is the *university* that is responsible for determining that all of its student groups fulfill the title IX requirements, not the organizations themselves either at the local level or at the (international) level. So what would happen if a woman *really* decided she wanted to pledge the Alpha Phi Omega chapter at Auburn (for example) and was denied, she would sue the school (and probably the fraternity as well, though not allowed under the Title IX rules) and then the school would decide to either fight it (and lose) or decide not to fight it and in either case would require their Alpha Phi Omega chapter to go co-ed or be derecognized. Since our chapters *require* school recognition to exist, derecognition by the school would force the chapter to be inactive.

501C7 vs. 501C3
 

Alpha Phi Omega is registered as 501C3, that having to do with how tied it was the scouting when it started. But the 501 C area is an IRS concept, not DOE/HEW concept.

I have a question. Why would you want to join more than one fraternity/ sorority? Aside from academic/honor ones??

Why...
 

Because someone is interested in both. Alpha Phi Omega fulfills a different purpose than the Social Fraternities and Sororities do. Of the 14 founders of Alpha Phi Omega, 13 were members of Social Fraternities (8 SAE, 5 a local that later affiliated with KDR) as far as I know all of them stayed active with their social fraternity.

Yes, but NPHC and NPC sororities are much closer in mission to each other than APhiO is to them, despite the NPHC's greater emphasis on service. Additionally, when you join an NPC group, at least when I joined AXD, I swore "never to join any other general Greek letter fraternity." I think most any other NPC or NPHC member pledged something similar, and I would consider NPC and NPHC "general Greek letter fraternities," whereas it would never cross my mind to consider APhiO "general" any more than I consider an honorary or professional group "general."

Not general
 

I agree with what you said. Alpha Phi Omega is not considered a "general" Greek Letter Organization. Baird's classifies Alpha Phi Omega as being one of the service GLO which are in the Recognition Societies.

Isn't Alpha Phi Omega something along the same lines of Circle K International? If that were illegal I'd think a lot of us on here might be in trouble:D

Dual membership I think is meant to cover fraternities with 'secret' rituals (Delta Upsilon as an obvious exception)...

The best standard I'd say is "I'll know it when I see it"..

The litmus test would probably be whatever trial code your fraternity has for expulsion of members due to dual membership.

These groups are so different from campus to campus that I don't think any one UNIVERSAL standard can apply to ANY GLO (service, professional or whatever).

We have the right to determine our own membership and each chapter should be able to decide for themselves what double membership entails.

(That's my interpretation on what I've seen on this subject anyhow)

My only question is why would you WANT to be in two socially-aimed college fraternities and do both organizations justice? You're doing both organizations and yourself a disservice by doing it (and your grades might suffer to boot)

LHT
Kevin

Kevin - yes, I guess that you could say APO is along the lines of Circle K, except we do call ourselves brothers and take that seriously.

I think the prohibition against "double" membership is more meant for people who quit one and try to go to another, or transfer colleges and were Sigma Nu at college A and then try to join Theta Xi at college B.

To sum it all up....
 

I think that this thread can be summed up as follows:

Duel membership b/t NPC/NIC orgs vs. NPHC orgs largely depends on the policies of each individual NPHC org, which I would venture to say would not allow such practices.

While I concur with the previous poster (the Sigma Nu brother) that there is no one consistent definition of a social fraternity (or a social fraternity), thus the attributes that constitutes one is largely a judgment call. HOWEVER, the Federal goverment (HEW, DOE) considers the NPHC orgs to be social in nature for Title IX purposes. NPHCers, if you want to call yourself a service org, feel free to do so, but you might want to count your blessings that HEW/DOE does consider you a social org; otherwise someone could start a movement against your org to make it co-ed and use Alpha Phi Omega as a precedent case (though in my opinion I would consider that HIGHLY unlikely).

An organization's nonprofit status (501c(3), etc.) has NO bearing on a GLO's exemption (or lack thereof) from Title IX. The former is for tax reporting purposes ONLY! No more, no less. So that argument is dead; we are comparing apples to oranges.

I do think that the one attribute that many people think makes a fraternity social is it's mutual exclusiveness (and that may have been the basis for the gov't considering NPHC orgs social GLOs).

Lastly, and this is my opinion only. While I will not infringe upon the right for any org to classify themselves accordingly, I do take issue with NPHC orgs to call themselves service GLOs, because IMHO if they truly thought of themselves as service GLOs, there would be a lot more of a proactive effort to execute service projects and other service oriented activities with orgs like APO and GSS, not exclusively NPHC orgs.

Just my opinion.

RM

Sounds about right...
 

Good sum up.

First I apologize for bumping such an old thread but i didnt want to start a brand new thread for my question

Much of the discussion throughout the thread involved dual membership (a women joining both an NPC and a NPHC sorority)

My spinoff is:
how do you feel about a women disaffilating with one conference and then joining an organization under another conference?

so the issue of dual membership doesnt come into play but does her reasoning matter? or do you feel that once you have been a member of any greek org, even after disaffiliation you should not be allowed to join anything else ever again?

i look forward to you answers

I just read this thread for the first time and it reminded me that I definitely met someone about two years ago who told me he had pledged an NPHC org at one school and now that he transferred was currently a pledge for an IFC (NIC?) org (I did see his pledge pin, am not positive about his NPHC membership, just his word for it). He thought it was really cool to be a member of 2 different organizations but at the same time, the NPHC org he had supposedly pledged at another school does exist on our campus. Instead of joining with them he went through IFC rush.

This doesn't seem...right...or is it just me?

Isn't there an NPHC who is also a part of NIC?

Kappa Alpha Psi and Iota Phi Theta.

I want to say that there's a couple of orgs that are both in NIC and NALFO as well but I don't know which specific ones.

This thread is interesting. However, from what I read unless the DOE recongizes NPC and NPHC as social GLO's despite the NPHC orientation to service-I can be both a member of my sorority and also Omega Psi Phi or Alpha Phi Alpha. Now that would be interesting a lady of my age going to open fraternity meetings in order to meet members and hoping to recieve an invitation to join.

With joining a NPC and NPHC-how would you have the time for both? Afterall, people go to school to get degrees not collect memberships in GLO's (unless honorary and service-oriented). Just my opinion.

Side note: When I was hopitalized multiple times during my last preg. -I always stayed in a room on the maternity floor that was decorated by the Ladies of AKA. It was beautiful. That room always made my hospital stays more tolerable. Thank you Ladies.

Lambda Sigma Upsilon
Lambda Theta Phi
Phi Iota Alpha
Sigma Lambda Beta

Aside from the Title IX stuff and NPC rules, didn't someone say somewhere on GC (maybe even in a Rush thread) that there's a sort of "informal agreement" between the NPC and NPHC that NPC women could not join NPHC groups and vice versa? I would think if a woman disaffiliated from one it wouldn't be so big a problem, but this agreement I seem to remember was talking about dual affiliation.

That dardenr was so effing smart.

I don't know...the intake/recruitment processes are very different from each other, the topic of once being in another Lettered org is bound to come up, no? NPC rules require a 1 year waiting period after depledging (before initiation) before re-rushing and being re-pinned. But even then, it seems like girls who do this are less likely to be pinned by a different org (thinking...she jumped ship once, she'll do it again). I would be slightly hesitant to pledge a girl who had been initiated into another org, wondering why she is not putting forth all her effort into her first org. Both NPC and NPHC have alumnae groups and projects, which carry responsibilities. I would be overburdened with active, 100 percent membership in 2 orgs. Then again, that's just me.

But if I was ever to be offered honorary or alumnae membership into an NPC/NPHC group, I would probably consider it, down the line of course, post-college, as my org is a local, and alumnae membership is done mostly long-distance.

Yes, there is a difference.

Social GLOs and Sevice GLOs, and Admirable GLOs.

They do have the Same Greek Letters in many cases.

But that does not deter each of them from doing specific things.

I am a Memeber of APO. I am a more importantant Member of LXA.

Do I have Respect for Both, Hell Yes.:cool:

While each is on a differnt level, they or We Both are trying to do the same.

Academian as far as some go feel that they should be the only ones.:(

But, if some one is so smart, then why not?:rolleyes:

I agree with PhoenixAzul that it comes down to individual chapters being hesitant to take members that are already in another sorority. According to NPC, if you transfer and there is no chapter of your sorority on your new campus, you can join a local (or any other sorority for that matter, except for another NPC.) Last year, this issue came up when a girl who was a Tri-Delt from another school transferred and was thinking about rushing. My sorority was the only one on campus that she would have been eligible to join, and several of our sisters expressed concerns about taking someone who was already in another sorority as a question of her loyalty.

The girl never ended up choosing to join a local, and I'm still friends with her, and Tri-Delts, let me tell you, she is one awesome chica!

Maybe this was the way it was supposed to be?:)

I don't know whether you realize that the fraternities in the NPHC are MENS fraternities; there are no womens fraternities in the NPHC. :confused:

lol I sure did...but lack of sleep might have really goofed up my writing. My youngest is have some medical problems that has been keeping me up nights at a time.

I was referring that if the male fraternities were covered by Title IV rulings regarding equal access to the organization because they were not social fraternities-then they would have to accept female applicants.

Do not worry I wasn't plan on showing up for any informational meetings. However, I do reserve the right to show up to any open charity activites that correspond to my interests. :)