From Local to National to Local to National
 

I was doing research on a local at Dickinson College and came across an interesting scrapbook they have in their archives.

https://cache.nebula.phx3.secureserv...1-a912aeb20b33

I was going to put this in the ZTA at Tulane thread, but that closed.

I'm sure this isnt the first time something like this has happened, and I'm sure it doesn't happen too often either...It was kinda sad, but funny.

To go from being a local organization, then become a chapter of a large international sorority, only to disagree with policies of that organization to become a local once again.....then years later become a chapter of DIFFERENT international sorority!! Man, I bet some alumnae are confused!!

BG

Honestly, in the late 70s - early 80s in the Northeast...I'm sure much more of this happened than you would guess.

I find it anything but "sad" that a group of women refused to put up with racist behaviour. I also find it turbo awesome that the administration of the college was 100% in their corner.

http://deila.dickinson.edu/cdm4/docu...CISOSHOW=38747

Thanks for the full link. This is pretty awesome, and one of the reasons I get very frustrated when my group (and others) continually insist that our ritual should remain unchanged because of its historical importance.

The sad part I was referring to was the reasons for the separation.

Bg

That was such an intriguing story!

This is a heartwarming story. Thanks for sharing it.

A very good story. I'm glad the BD's of Phi Mu/ADE's stood up for their beliefs. There was like a 12 year gap between national affiliations, so I don't think that's bad, either.

This, times a million. While tradition has value, it does not mean that our organizations should not grow and change or keep parts of the tradition that are harmful.

ETA: I should add I'm talking about traditions/practices loosely, not ritual (or even GLOs) specifically. Obviously, I only know my own org's (which is not Phi Mu) ritual, and while I find it lovely, I don't know if or how it has changed over time.

This is simply untrue. You may want to check that.

Yes, they made slight changes in 2010 (which is public knowledge) to please the insurance company and to clarify initiation attire. They have made no changes to reflect the increasing diversity of our membership.

It's no secret that most NPC rituals are based in scripture, as Phi Sigma Sigma publicly states they are one of the only orgs with a ritual NOT based in scripture. I piss people off every time I go down this road, but asking women to participate in a Judeo-Christian ritual is a good way to make sure that Muslims, Atheists, and others feel excluded from your organization.

That's still not what I'm talking about. Other changes have been made more recently. You might want to attend a collegiate initiation if given the opportunity. You'll see what I mean.

Not necessarily, maybe it is different on the fraternity side, but being part of a fraternity originally founded as Catholic based many of my brothers were atheists and were not discouraged by the rituals. So I think most of it boils down to the person themself

Self-selection bias: the fact that people who joined your organization are okay with it does not mean that nobody chose NOT to join your organization because of it.

I'm not saying that everyone should go and totally change their ritual, drop their traditions, etc. I'm just saying that I often feel that the white, Christian majority in most of our orgs (NPC and NIC) can be blind to their own privilege as the "in group". Everyone has dropped the actual WASP clauses decades ago, but that doesn't mean that "tradition" doesn't still stand in the way of true diversity, in many instances.

While I (underlined) was able to just play along with the religious aspects of our ritual and there were Jewish members who just stood quietly through the parts that contradicted their beliefs, the fact is you shouldn't have to. You're not told as a pledge what the ritual says and a devout Atheist might be SERIOUSLY unhappy at the turn of events. I've never raised a stink about this because 1-I know it would be a losing battle and 2-if there was any sort of success with a petition to clean up the ritual, some chapters would probably go ballistic over removing the religious aspects. I see this as causing a huge rift in the sorority if it happened. But I'd love to compare our ritual to Phi Sig's.

Isn't the term "a devout atheist" an oxymoron?

Yes. Yes it is. But I liked the sound of it ;) Plus, any other terms I could come up with read as angry or militant atheist, and that's not what I meant. A true believer in the lack of a higher being, therefore, devout.

I just read the entire scrapbook (hooray for digital archiving!). I was impressed that the ADEs had such nicely-thought-out symbols. And I applaud the sisters back then who made the decision to disaffiliate -- and their successors for the well-reasoned decision to reaffiliate.

Actually, my mother asked our pastor to visit my grandfather (with his approval) when he was 96 years old. The pastor called my mother afterwards to say that my grandfather was the most devout atheist he had ever met.

Thankfully, within two weeks, my grandfather had a complete turnaround!

Back on topic: I question whether all rituals should be watered down so that everyone can tolerate it. I couldn't help but think that pktcougar made a similar point. Should a ritual be changed due to a handful of people, or should it remain true to its original form? That might be a concept of a completely different thread.

While I can appreciate the thinking about not "watering down" the ritual, my guess is some sororities are more religiously based than others, and some may have added in a religious element because it just never occurred to them NOT to. Religion is the one ritual most people have from childhood, so adding Amen to anything can happen almost without thinking about it. Just as a for instance.

I'm Jewish... Throughout my own initiation, and subsequent Sigma Kappa initiations as an active collegiate member, I was more curious than anything else... and spent a good deal of time researching certain Christian aspects that I never would have thought of even considering before. It was more eye opening... what my founders were so proud of and concerned with... that I found the beauty in their ideals. I am a mathematician, thus I look and study the thought an logical process, and I'm glad I spent the time and effort to learn what I did...

I like the perspective given from the link, very insightful.

As for this budding off topic discussion, I don't feel a ritual should be changed. It was written a certain way back when it was founded and there is no need to change it. It's actually better to keep it the way it is to better learn the history of your organization. My group doesn't limit itself to Jewish members anymore, but our ritual is still basically the same thing (one minor difference) and I hope it doesn't change in the years to come.

I think it needs to be looked at a different way. The Ritual of an organization needs to match the values that the organization embodies, tied to the founders' vision.

So, if XYZ now allows non-whites, but there was a clause in the Ritual that is anti-minorities, that should be removed.

But if XYZ was founded as an organization to further white culture and unity, then that same clause should be reevaluated to match the current social climate (read: equality).

Now, not the best example, but I hope you're getting the direction that I'm aiming for. Rituals should not completely change but should evolve with bettering times, considering how old most of our organizations are. Acceptable norms in 1900 aren't the same in 2013.

But if a Ritual doesn't at all match the organization's purpose and values, then there are much bigger issues which need to be resolved.

I think you explain it rather well. From hearing stories from my friends who are Jewish and pledges christian based groups, they do feel uncomfortable at ritual (that's all I ever get out of them ;) ) but they understand its history.

Maybe I feel strongly about my ritual because of its Jewish values and how many Jewish groups have made the way for being less Jewish and we did the exact opposite, keeping with our values. If there are any AEPi's reading this I hope they get what I mean.

This is more or less what I was getting at. A sorority may have included elements that are now considered wildly racist, even though white supremacy was never what they intended. The same could have happened inadvertently where it applied to religion. They were raised in religious homes so when it came time to write a ritual, of course they included these elements. But they didn't intend for the sorority to be religious per se. Or maybe they did, but that's never been the take away I got on our ritual.

/eta I don't know if my sorority has ever modified the ritual. Maybe I should look into that!

There's a difference between POLICY and RITUAL. This discussion is making me REALLY curious as to what some rituals may include.

Seriously - I've never had a real craving to know about other groups' rituals, but this conversation makes me curious.

It's hard for me to imagine that if a ritual (or section of) was that offensive, that some disgruntled new initiate wouldn't drop and then tell the world of the horrible experience.

I mean, there are some historically significant pieces that shouldn't be changed (like the catsuits, duh), but if there are parts that are as outrageous as has been implied, I'd think it's time to make the ritual match the values of an organization.

Outrageous is in the eye of the beholder. Using a non-religious analogy, the Pledge of Allegiance is super-duper to some people, whatever to others, kind of annoying to some who can stand quietly while others recite it, and really gets up the hackles of some. As we become more diverse and the idea of what a "sorority girl" is changes, I would think more of the latter would surface.

And, while I've never gone in search, I think your comment about a disgruntled ex-member blabbing actually does happen. I just like the idea of preserving your secrets, even if I don't know what they are. And the way I can preserve it is to not do the leg-work to find out for myself. Even though there's definitely a part of me who would like to know the details. Like, how similar is the symbolic meaning of Alpha Xi Delta versus Alpha Gamma Delta? But that's a discussion that is pointless to have since, you know, nobody's talking!

I guess I meant more about an ex-member blabbing something bad enough to be picked up in news or what not and brought into the spotlight, thus causing all NPCs to have to evaluate ritual or what not. It makes more sense in my head, but words aren't working well for me right now. I know there are likely many secrets out there, but I don't really want to know.

There are two issues here:

1) For some people, there is a slight discomfort, but they suck that up and do it anyway. I think I fall into this category. Being asked to participate in a ritual with Christian elements, or those elements being specially modified for me, is really just a reminder of "hey, you are different", which is something that any non-Christian in America deals with a thousand times in their lives, and while I'd prefer not to deal with it in my ritual, it's pretty much the same as when people in my office buy me Christmas cards. I accept that the sentiment trumps the exact wording.

2) A much bigger concern to me is that some elements of ritual might straight-up conflict with people's beliefs, as something they are absolutely not willing to do. I know everyone here is saying "oh, it's no big deal, that has never happened in my group", but I don't find it far-fetched at all that some non-Christian students would just avoid the Greek system entirely because of the PERCEPTION that these are Christian (or Jewish) rituals, regardless of the reality. I think it would be great if more groups opened their ritual books, or made their ritual truly non-denominational with a statement to that effect.

For what it's worth, when a discussion like this turns up I always point out that people should look to Freemasons as a prime example of what happens when "rituals" and "secrets" of an organization are "leaked".

It happened to them, and still does as anyone curious enough can go to any library and find books about their rituals and whatnot, but the fact is, that organization is still going strong.

I think there are more more false issues and misconceptions about Greek life than just the rituals that keep people away.

I really dislike hazing, and I get irritated though whenever the media reports a hazing incident as "initiation rituals" when 99% of the time an actual "initiation or induction ceremony" have nothing in them that has to do with the hazing stunts people use during a hell week or other events......

MHO,
BG

Well, I think there's also a difference between preaching through a ritual versus acknowledging where the organization's values stem from.

I'm going to try to explain myself without revealing any aspects of my own Ritual, so hopefully it makes sense.

SigEp is not a religious Fraternity. But, SigEp was founded by students studying to become Baptist ministers. There are a few things in reference to our cardinal principles, VDBL (see siggy), that can be connected to some religious texts. But, I can say that I was never asked to pledge allegiance to a religion or anything of that nature.

So, if all of that was removed, a lot of the value would be lost.

All I have to say is it's not church. You aren't there to worship. As pshsx1 says, there is a difference between preaching and explaining the source of an organization's values. I doubt very seriously any group has a ritual that includes offensive material, but sourced material from the Bible or other religious texts may be uncomfortable for some members. We have discussed before whether fraternities required members to take an oath that they were Christians or believed in God. The same may occur in sororities. Individual conscience decides whether or not someone who does not believe in God or a member of another religion could make that oath without discomfort.

IMO, you can read a Bible verse and think "wow, that's an awesome thing to say" without believing in God. Jesus Christ is one of our exemplars, but so is Hermes. We don't require you to worship either one, we just think that some of their qualities are admirable.

This is part of the reason that Alpha Phi Omega added the oath to the pledge manual. http://www.apo-em.org/brotherhoodoath.htm

It's kind of interesting, but one of our most active chapters has a similar story to the OP. I don't know if they were ever a local originally, but they were part of a national, then split off from them when the majority of the chapter wanted to initiate women and they were told they couldn't. They stayed a local for a decent period of time before petitioning to join Psi U.

Well, that's when talking to proposed initiates (neophytes, pledges, or whatever anyone else's term is) prior to initiation is important. Swearing on a religious book, for example, doesn't necessarily men you're swearing to that religion. Sometimes there's just something in there like a pink catsuit reference that's really important (see 33girl's response below).

^^ This!

But surely you understand why that makes some people uncomfortable?

Actually, while many today surely see it as just an old-fashioned practice or just "how we do things," that is pretty close to what it means.

To swear is to make an oath, and an oath by definition is an appeal to a deity or something else that one considers sacred (one's honor, one's grandmother's grave, "all that is holy") as a witness or testament to the truth of what one is saying or to the binding nature of what one is promising. The meaning of placing one's hand on a sacred text is to invoke symbolically the deity/ies of whom that text speaks to witness the oath.

Exactly, Lionel de Rothschild, the first Jew elected to the Parliament of Great Britiain was refused to be seated (and re-elected anyway) because he refused to take the oath and the Christian Bible and using the standard form of the oath which was Christian Oath, this went on through 4 parliaments...