I don't believe, and many other people don't, that when you become Greek you have to give up your rights. There's a big difference between "you have to wear a style of shirt you hate for rush" and "you have to censor what you say because you're Greek."

Facebook, myspace, etc are seen by many people as personal expression. The difference is that they're out there for everyone to see.

Do we as Greeks really want to pander to the lowest common denominator who believes that if one member or one chapter of a group does something, the whole group does it? This isn't about underage drinking - if people want to fight that they can (as showed in the story I posted). It's all about image.

Britney Spears is from Louisiana. I think she's a trashy tramp. That doesn't mean everyone from Louisiana is a trashy tramp. That's because I'm not stupid.

No one's giving up rights. They're being asked not to post pictures of them DRINKING online. Who cares? Ever heard of pick your battles? Save it for the chapters that tell their girls what to wear week to week, tell them they can't join certain groups, tell them they can't say certain things or can't hang out with certain people, or make them lose weight or take the purple steak out of their hair, or make them remove a piercing. This stuff DOES happen. That is censorship.

Fortunately I am not stupid either...I see reality. Reality is that because drinking became such an issue within the Greek system (and though college students drink, Greek or not, where there is smoke there is fire) we DO have to worry about image. Underage drinking is illegal. Just because a lot of people do it doesn't mean the law changed somewhere along the line. And binge drinking IS a horrible habit for a million reasons. Again, because some people do it doesn't mean it's not something to be concerned about. For all of the chapters and houses of Greek organizations that made their pledges do shots, or drink a whole pitcher in a certain amount of time, or bought alcohol for all of the 18 year olds, there are chapters that discourage that. BUT reality is that the media focuses on the negative, NOT the positive. No one is willing to give Greeks a break for alcohol abuse, regardless of the fact that it's not just a Greek problem. To show a good faith effort to combat the abuses of drinking, Greek organizations are forced to make blanket rules. They cannot possibly go through every single facebook profile and decide if Suzy's bar picture with a beer is ok or not. That's life.

If you join a sports team in college, you'll have a curfew. You're sometimes told you can't drink or do drugs-regardless of age (as applies to alcohol, not drugs). Sometimes you have to dress a certain way or use certain products. You might have to do community service if you break these rules. Why? There's a purpose...you have a curfew to make sure you stay on a regular schedule and stay healthy. You don't drink or do drugs so that you can stay in the best physical condition. You might have to present a certain image when you represent the university that you play for. And in the same way there is a purpose for these rules in Greek life.

Being part of ANY group, club, society, or team means doing things you don't want to do sometimes. People who aren't willing to make these SMALL sacrifices don't need to join.


And lastly, people use the internet as "personal expression" too often. There's no need to post EVERY detail of your life online. a) most people just don't care and b) it's dangerous. Not only does that provide a starting point for any unbalanced characters out there, it can hurt future employment prospects.

FWIW, I don't understand the compulsion to post every picture you take online either. I would never do it. But apparently it's something that college students these days find to be important in terms of self expression and just saying "don't do it" isn't making them stop.

If we see large numbers of intelligent young women disaffiliating or choosing not to go Greek at all because they feel they can't express themselves as they want, the sororities need to rethink the policy, not just say "if you can't follow it then you shouldn't be Greek." The internet is still a new thing - I'm sure the sororities went through something similar when prohibition was repealed or the like.

Okay...stop right there. You are generalizing. First of all, the difference between a sports team and a sorority is that in sports teams, your physical condition directly impacts your usefulness. Not so in sororities. I agree that personal expression online should be somewhat censored, but I DON'T think that a sorority has the right to mandate that. If you put up drunken pictures and can't get a job, that's YOUR problem. It shouldn't become the problem of sisters who do have common sense.

And as for picking your battles...there's a reason why free speech in the US is almost unlimited. You can't start picking and choosing when it applies. It's all or nothing. If a sorority has the right to tell someone what they can post pictures of, then why don't they have to right to tell them to take out that piercing?

"Drinking makes us look bad." "Your eyebrow piercing/purple streak in your hair/tattoo makes us look bad. Get rid of it."

Same story.

Besides which..if it REALLY was all about your future, then the sorority SHOULD be concerned with what you wear and your outward appearance. We all know how you look at an interview matters. So again, they should have the right to take out that purple streak or get rid of the piercing or demand the tattoo is removed...if your logic holds.

Free Speech in the US is almost unlimited BY THE GOVERNMENT. The Constitution does not protect you from a private organization, with which you choose to be affiliated, imposing some punishment on you for what you say. You can accept the punishment or remove your membership in the organization. Private organizations, work, (private) school, clubs, sororities, fraternities, etc. all limit your speech in some way.

Are large numbers disaffiliating because they can't post drunken pictures on facebook? Really?

Personally I don't want to deal with people that are going to get so upset over something so small. They're more trouble than they're worth. They are the type that will raise a battle flag over every small injustice, causing chaos and havoc in the chapter. It's ESPECIALLY important in any group to pick your battles. We're talking facebook. I guess I can't understand facebook being such a part of a person's identity that they feel they're being stifled if they can't post a picture with a beer.

I have a much bigger problem with the chapters that choose to mandate their members' personal appearance. I don't think that should define an individual either, but it SHOULD be, to a healthy person, much more important to personal identity than a facebook profile.


You do know that sports teams kick off team members that, say, get in trouble for drinking too much even if they are of legal age? Drunken pictures do NOT have an effect on just you. It is 100% a problem for all of your sisters.

a) Even if you are of age it effects the image that ALL people have of Greeks. Greeks absolutely have the reputation for being shameless drunks. Obviously, this is NOT true for everyone. There are Greeks from teetotaler to responsible moderate to shameless drunk.
b) It effects recruitment. If you're trying to recruit a bus load of party girls, that's one thing. If you want to throw in some campus leaders, that could be a problem. For students who are not familiar with campus life, they are choosing a sorority based on what they can see in just a couple of weeks. This includes the reputation the chapter has on campus as well as how they present themselves. If you have a bunch of sisters doing shots off of each other or who have a beer bottle in almost all of their photos, what message does that send? Why is alcohol so important that it MUST be shown? If it's not secondary, then there's a problem. There's meetings for it.
c) It is too hard to have to go through every facebook picture of every member to approve it or not. There is a place for blanket rules in our society. Schools have them, work places have them, teams have them...that's the way society works.

Actually, the US constitution does not guarantee "all or nothing" free speech. There are limits to everything. It IS stretching your parameters to compare not including alcohol in your photos on an online site to having to change your personal appearance. May I also point out that private organizations and businesses have THE RIGHT to "censor" if that's what you want to call it, their members or employees. The government does not, in most cases, but sororities do.

You missed my logic. My logic is based on the FACT that drinking has become an issue, problem, and liability for the entire greek system. It's also based on the fact that, legal or not, drinking always has the potential to be dangerous. It IS about image, but on a much deeper level than your future job interview. It encompasses every Greek organization that exists today. Why else would they all address alcohol...and not your method of dress? Why does NPC make statements about alcohol and not clothing? Bottom line...it's a bigger deal.

Drolefille totally stole my post. Well said.

And AlphaGammaDeltaSquirrelGirl (I don't know how to make the greek letters on here :)) is now my hero among the younger sister ranks. I don't know where you go to school, but judging by your posts, you would have fit right in at my chapter. :p

As such, I bestow upon you the mascot I grabbed from the lolcat thread and emailed around to my chapter sisters (we abstained from anything squirrel-related at AM, but this is a snarky squirrel we could all get behind :p):

http://icanhascheezburger.wordpress....-screaming.jpg

I said "IF." As in...has not occurred yet...is still shaking out. For all I know I'm completely wrong and membership numbers will go shooting into the stratosphere. Widespread national policies on Facebook etc are less than 5 years old. We don't know what effect they will have. I'm just saying that if they have the effect of membership going down or the quality of members going down, it would behoove chapters and national orgs to take a second look at them.

Stop comparing Greeks to sports teams, for the reasons fantASTic sited. Coaches told team members to not drink when they're in training even back in the day when 18 year old drinking was legal.

And for the record, there are some schools where appearing to be too goody-goody (online or in general) is more disadvantageous and can hurt your chapter's rep more than the reverse. That includes the "campus leaders."

I am AGREEING with you that it's stupid to post everything on the net and I don't know why people do it. I am not the Greek orgs' target market for new members, though.

Thanks.

That thing is totally going on my computer background.

I don't see how not posting drunken pictures makes you "goody goody". If your chapter is social everyone will know it because everyone on campus will know who they are. Name recognition. But it is not necessary to have alcohol plastered all over the place to be popular.

Someone who is a real leader isn't going to be turned off just because a chapter doesn't place alcohol on a pedestal. A real campus leader is a young professional, someone who has goals, including career goals. They will realize the value of keeping the fun at home.

I expected nothing less! :D

Oh for crying out loud in a bucket.

I said "ONLINE OR IN GENERAL." You posted while I was editing.

Not my fault. :p

I completely agree, 33girl. The Facebook policy is much bigger than just drinking pictures, though, and it creates WAY more problems than that. Here (and, I imagine, at most schools) actives of any NPC sorority MAY NOT facebook or accept a friend request from any potential from the period of disaffiliation to formal recruitment...and a potential is defined as ANY non-sorority woman, even part-time or about to graduate seniors. Do you see the problem here?

What happens is that potentials see us as elitist instead of friendly, and our friends in classes - who we would normally encourage to go through recruitment - instead feel as though they are being shunned and that you are being rude to them because you deny their request. It may seem trivial to you older people, but it IS very rude. It also makes communication more difficult - a lot of group projects I've worked on have communicated through Facebook, which is not allowed. Facebook can be a great, useful forum for projects, especially with large groups, and it sucks that we can't use it.

The easy solution to that is to explain the situation to the person. I don't know about you, but I don't friend random people. I friend people I talk to in person or otherwise. So you simply explain to your friend that recruitment rules are complicated because some girls cheat, so during recruitment you can't add them as a friend. Surely they're old enough, in college, to not get offended by that.

I never said we friend random people. What I said was that it's rude to deny people you know, and that remains true. Even if you explain it, what do you think their reaction is? 90% of the time, this is how it goes:

Me: "Hey, sorry I had to deny your friend request. I'm in a sorority and we aren't allow to do that until after recruitment, which is on ________ this date. It's just a rule to make sure no one influences potential new members until after they get a chance to meet all the sororities."

Friend: "Oh...really? That's really weird. I guess all that stuff about Greeks only wanting to be friends with other Greeks is true. Sorry to waste your time."

No matter how you explain it, they get offended...because they don't understand our rules, and they won't unless they come from our side.

Besides which, you STILL haven't addressed the issue with communication and group projects.

This is the same thing that happened when open parties went away. I know it was for a good reason, and especially at a large school I don't blame people one bit, but it has the same result - people look at us as "elitist." They don't know that the policy was made because Godfrey GDI came to the party and tried to force himself on a brother's girlfriend or that Gemma GDI broke the lock to the chapter room. All they know is that they're not allowed to be a part of it.

Just for the record, my willingness to consider simply not listing greek affiliation in a profile such a viable choice has almost nothing to do with wanting to be able to post drinking photos. I agree that alone seems pretty trivial.

My finding the choice attractive is driven more by just liking to reserve the ability to think of my own individual expression instead of having to filter everything through a how-will-this-reflect-on-the-group filter.

Sure, as a GLO member you have to accept that your behavior does reflect on the group and you have to be willing to follow rules, and I agree if those ideas REALLY bother you, membership might not be for you.

But there are a lot of things that aren't black and white about how they might reflect on the group, and for all those issues, I think it's fine to do what you can not to tie your own behavior and ideas to public presentations of your membership in the group.

If I want to be a member of some joke group formed by a someone I know, which might not be clearly banned by group policy and it not be something that would bother an employer, and yet, might not be a group my sisters would be excited about, not listing my affiliation in my profile spares my sisters any connection to the joke group.

It's possible that all chapters would be stronger if they were only filled with people who were so excited about posting their affiliation that it was always going to be primary, but I'm not sure that not feeling that way means that you shouldn't be a member.

Then you have crappy friends. I'm being serious here. I've had to explain it many times and I have YET to have a single person get offended by it. Some of them think it's a little weird, but I've never had one insult me like that or be such a baby as to not be mature enough to understand, even if seems weird and unecessary to them. It's really not that big of a deal not to friend someone on facebook for two weeks.

And if your Panhellenic council will not allow communication during class or work, maybe y'all need to do some serious re-prioritizing. For us school and work are ALWAYS ok. School is the reason you are there in the first place.

I just can't understand how people can join any group and have serious issues with being asked to make small scarifices. That's part of being in a group. If we're talking about a chapter telling their members they can't associate with another group of people, for instance, or telling them they can't wear certain things (when they're not at a specific sorority event...asking members to dress a certain way during Recruitment is fine within reason), or telling them they have to weigh a certain amount...that's all too controlling. But asking people to clean up their facebook's? I guess my issue is that a) I can't fathom facebook being so important to a person's personal identity that they have to have certain things on there at all costs and b) I can't see why making small scarifices aren't expected when one joins a group or team.

That's what I said a couple pages back. I don't understand it either, but I am not Facebook's - or a sorority's - target market.

Our HQs pay out the wazoo for research on how to "brand" themselves, what shade of pink the new logo should be, how to reach this generation of students. It doesn't make sense to do all that and then in essence blow off how students feel about Facebook because the people running the sorority don't get it.

I am. On both accounts. And I still don't get it.

If it were a complete either/or, I'd understand what you are saying. If I had to choose to be a member and let the group determine all my facebook content or resign my membership, I, of course, would choose the group over facebook. But that choice doesn't have to be made.

I like the option that says, your postings are your business, but if you choose to display the groups letters, symbols, etc, then you need to follow these rules. It's perfectly reasonable, but it must accept that some people will choose expression over displaying the letters, and to me that's okay. It's not that you are refusing to compromise; it's a different form of accepting the choices the group gives.