The girls at my school would change clothes or turn their lettered sweatshirts (if outside) inside out before drinking alcohol. I always thought that all sororities had ruled against drinking in letters.

This is why I always pitched a bitch when people would say things like "we are a dry sorority/fraternity." Maybe your HOUSE is a dry environment, but to be TRULY dry, a group would have to prohibit drinking by all members at all times. That doesn't exist in the NIC or NPC. This is another reason I pull my hair out over people using the term "house" when you mean "chapter" or "group." The physical structure =/= the chapter. (There ARE local/regional groups out there that are truly "dry.")

The shirt in question doesn't say that any alcohol is being served in AXO housing, or bought or consumed or even contemplated by AXO.

Most of the NPCs have tepidly worded rules like "members shall not act in a distasteful manner" or something of the like. As we've seen in this thread, that varies GREATLY from campus to campus. Chapters might try and have rules against drinking in letters, but I honestly question how they would hold up. There are NO NPC rules against drinking in letters - that would assume that the NPC as a freestanding unit knows the meaning of every group's letters and can legislate members' conduct when wearing them. Which of course isn't the case.

And if they do, more than likely it began because the administration/PoPo was targeting Greeks in some fashion and they want to take the heat off, not because the other groups were morally appalled. I mean I could care less if the Delta Zetas want to have a shirt that says "DZ Does Zoolander!" with a picture of the girls drinking with Ben Stiller. That's their thing, whatever works for them. But if I hear that 4 girls were staggering home from a party and the only ones that pubic safety stopped and wrote up were the two in Greek letters (this actually did happen at my campus), then yeah, I might want Panhel to pass a policy like this, just to cover my and my NPC sisters' asses.

You might want to change the word that's before "safety".

I think a beer pong set up and play on "pre game" is pretty clear. It's super tacky, but like many have said, even if it did have a written reference to alcohol it very well might be totally "sorority legal" since it depends on the organization/chapter. I don't find it surprising that this is fine on some campuses. I suspect the small size of the school and the student body's attitude towards Greek life is why this would never, ever happen on my campus. At larger schools where "everyone" is partying and Greeks don't have to watch their backs as much, there's no real repercussions.

The rules chapters have about drinking in letters hold up just fine, and honestly I don't see a problem with these rules. We (at my chapter) weren't supposed to smoke/drink/curse in letters...and while the cussing was always a problem for me (I tried, but occasionally it would slip out) smoking and drinking never were. The other chapters on campus have similar rules. Campus culture.

No carnation, that's the word I wanted to use. LOL.

By "hold up" I mean that I seriously doubt that a member or a chapter could be disciplined or dismissed for something like that alone - kind of like the law we have here, that they can't pull you over for not wearing your seat belt when you're doing everything else OK, but if you're speeding or something else you can also get an additional fine if you're not wearing your seatbelt. In other words if you send a termination into your HQ with the sole reason being that Sally was smoking and drinking in letters, and she's doing everything else right, it's highly doubtful it will be approved. Ditto if the chapter wants to "discipline" her on it.

Personally I've never heard of that happening. I've never even heard of everyone being punished in any way besides dirty looks for drinking in letters...it's just having the decency to respect the chapter's rules.

My point exactly. Rules that have no consequences for breaking them are silly IMO.

It's more about having respect for your letters and sisters than punishments and rewards. Sometimes people have more complex reasons for their actions than "this is good/this is bad".

But that's just it and that's what this whole thread is about. It's not coming from the top down that wearing letters while drinking is "disrespectful." It's a campus culture issue. It could be that at some campi, putting across a social, partying image is good for a chapter's reputation and helps to increase campus cachet & numbers, and therefore ultimately is a "respectful" gesture.

To sum it up, different strokes for different folks. The only problem comes when people get it twisted and think that chapter rules are national rules...or that customs (on any level) are the same thing as rules.

The point I was making is that it's perfectly legitimate for that to be a chapter's rule. Just because you don't get a spanking for combining letters and alcohol doesn't mean it's "ok" if the chapter decides it's inappropriate. It's up to the chapter to figure out what works on their own campus.

Well, AST rules say that you must not associate the sorority with alcohol in any way, so for us, those t-shirts WOULD be against the rule. Interesting that other sororities find that acceptable.

As a member of the sorority in question, I'm frankly a little offended that you felt the need to specifically write Alpha Chi Omega. This could have been any of our organizations- why did you feel the need to call out my sisters and say that you were "simply appalled" and are clearly judging them throughout the thread?

To my knowledge (and I have reviewed our Policies and Procedures multiple times, as well as done the majority of the work on revising the bylaws for the past year), there is no rule prohibiting those shirts. Would I want that shirt produced by my chapter? No, and I would say something about it. But, that is not my chapter. And, as long as the chapter followed all FIPG guidelines, then there is no problem. Now is it likely that FIPG was followed for this party? I'm going to say no. I don't approve of it, but I know there are chapters where this might fly, and therefore I respect them.

Well isn't that nice for you. I guess AST never has parties where alcohol is served or allowed? Your sisters never drink? If it is, then AST is associated with alcohol in some way. Interesting that you are so disapproving of the practices of other organizations, when you likely don't know what every AST chapter in the US does on their campuses. For all you know, there are chapters of AST running around with similar shirts. Be careful calling out other groups when you don't know whether or not your own sisters may be doing the same thing across the country.