What I don't understand is why some sororities make you wear a pledge pin and then lie about it. I went to stay with a friend for the weekend and her roommate was pledging a sorority (like she had her bid hanging up above her desk) and stuff. When she came back to the room she was wearing ribbons so I asked her if that was for her sorority, and she was like "no it's for this nature club I'm in." I thought that was really weird until she left and my friend told me that she the pin was for her sorority, but if anyone asked them about it, they were supposed to lie about it and make up another reason for it. (Two of her housemates were pledging the same sorority and she overheard them talking about it.)

Yikes! Fraud, anyone?

Very good call on your part to walk away from them.

I'm just curious -- no need to use any names, but was this a national or a local group?

Exactly! It was a national group.

An even bigger Yikes!

But was this a policy of the national group or the local chapter?

This is one of the big causes of hazing issues. The national organization can set all the policies they want, but if the local chapters ignore them and do their own thing, and their members (and pledge) are totally ignorant of this, then things go bad.

(and its sad when advisors and officers allow this to occur)

I'm sure the advisors of chapters that haze probably don't know that it happens.

It depends.

In many cases, yes, the advisors are unaware. However, if you have advisors who think that the particular practices are 'ok' (or they even agree with them, etc) they may even support this.

I just wonder the reasoning behind this sort of behavior.

Why hide the fact that a Sorority was Proud enough to Pledge a person and then hide it? What sense does that make:(

If they are good enough to be Pledged, why not show the whole campus they were?

It is a form of advertising to show that that GLO is not dead by not getting New Associates. To hide the fact is not fraud, per se, but, well, I am not sure of the wording to use. Maybe disrespectful to those that felt like they wanted to be part of that GLO. If I was one who so wanted to be a Member, this would be a slap in the face and I too would take a second look.

As far as I know, a new member can do whatever they want during their free time as long as they're not wearing letters (which they shouldn't be anyway). Also, they can't wear their new member pin while doing any activities like drinking & smoking. The rules are the same for actives. What you do on your own time is your business as long as you're not displaying a badge or letters.
Also, we can't force a new member to wear their pins all the time. We can encourage them but if they choose not too, that's fine too.

That I dont know. The whole idea of making the pledges crawl on the ground searching for a lost pin was the idea of the chapter President/new member educator (same person).

But the whole idea of wearing a pledge pin on a bra and being secretive, is beyong me. I have NO idea if it was a policy of the national org or of the individual chapter.

If the prez and NME are the same person, I can tell you right away they're not following national policies...at least not NPC policies.

Oh wow..i didnt know that. But they are not an NPC organization so maybe its different?

Yes. I would say so. :)

Regarless of policies, the jobs of president and NME are so big they shouldn't be done by the same person.

As to the secretiveness of being a pledge. I seem to recall an old thread along these lines that some GLOs make their pledges do this. I don't recall any logical explanation for this.

I seem to recall that it is common among at least some of the Divine 9. From what I remember, there is often an event after initiation where the new members are introduced to the wider community, which is the first time it is publically known that they have joined a particular org.

Perhaps someone from an NPHC org can comment -- although I won't be surprised if the comment is that this is one of those "need to know" basis things, and the we who are not in an NPHC org don't need to know. ;)