Wesleyan Mandates Residential Fraternities Become Co-Ed
 

Greek life at Wesleyan has been under a microscope for some time now. A few years ago, the administration mandated that fraternity houses open up their residential living to women, which Psi U and DKE did. More recently, Beta Theta Pi has been under scrutiny for a sexual assault lawsuit and a student falling out of a window while intoxicated.

I just opened my email and saw this letter concerning the future of Greek life from President Michael Roth (himself an alum of Alpha Delta Phi, which at Wesleyan is a co-ed literary fraternity), and the head of the Board of Trustees. If I'm reading this correctly (as a non-Greek), won't this mean either de-recognition from the school or from the national organization? Or they have to give up their houses (DKE and Psi U's are beautiful)?

It's that one line right here, from the citation provided: "women as well as men must be full members and well-represented in the body and leadership of the organization."

IMO, that line implies that all men's GLOs must initiate women as a part of their organizations to keep on-campus residential housing for their organization. Am I interpreting that correctly?

This is stupid and I can't believe DKE went along with it.

My question is, do the sororities have comparable housing? If not, wouldn't a better solution be to GET the sororities comparable housing, rather than having women join groups that don't really want them and having them live in a fraternity house? Many women are NOT comfortable with that, let alone their parents.

There are no longer NPC sororities at Wesleyan.

Isn't Trinity treading similar water?

Do they have local groups? If not, isn't that another issue? "You can be in a fraternity that's forced to take you, but God forbid you have a group of your own"?

The fact that they allow NPHC groups with apparently nary a peep is unbelievably condescending. These are the same jackasses who thought school integration was about black people wanting to socialize with white people.

Do the NPHC groups have housing on campus?

I know this campus well. The culture is such that single-sex houses are more of an anomaly that co-ed houses. DKE, at least, has had female residents since 2004. Some groups may choose to be unhoused rather than operate a coed house.

There is one local sorority as well as NPHC groups: http://rhoepsilonpi.com The NPHC groups do not have housing, and as far as I know, they have never sought it.

I know for Delta and AKA (and I'm sure Zeta & SGRho), those are "city-wide" chapters, so housing wouldn't be necessary or worth the time. A line may come through and not have any members from that university, but from others in the service area of the chapter. I've heard of city-wide chapters having different rules as far as being recognized by the universities.

When I was there from 2004-08, there were pledge classes for many of the NPHC groups - I know for certain there were lines for AKA, Zeta Phi Beta, Alpha Phi Alpha and I want to say Kappa? But to the best of my knowledge, those are chapters centered in Hartford, and there are no residences. There was also another multicultural sorority at the time that folded after a year or two, and my senior year a Latina sorority had a line, but I can't recall the name. Kappa Alpha Theta was the last NPC on campus, house-less, and they disbanded in 2004-05.

The three fraternities are the only remaining national, single-sex fraternities on campus. DKE and Psi U have played along with the university's rules until now, but Roth has had it out for the fraternities since he took office. Eclectic and Alpha Delta Phi are both co-ed.

[QUOTE=mystikchick;2293286]When I was there from 2004-08, there were pledge classes for many of the NPHC groups - I know for certain there were lines for AKA, Zeta Phi Beta, Alpha Phi Alpha and I want to say Kappa? But to the best of my knowledge, those are chapters centered in Hartford, and there are no residences. There was also another multicultural sorority at the time that folded after a year or two, and my senior year a Latina sorority had a line, but I can't recall the name. Kappa Alpha Theta was the last NPC on campus, house-less, and they disbanded in 2004-05.

ETA: Reading the website for the local, I think the timeline matches up with when I posted here about how there were girls who thought it would be as simple as just contacting Theta and boom, chapter reinstated. There were a lot of women interested, but I don't see the administration backing a sorority of any stripe officially on campus. It's a pity, because Wesleyan had a rich sorority life with some of the first women who were admitted to campus in the late 1800s - as I recall, there were particularly strong links with the founders of AGD. These three fraternities are the last remnants of an extensive fraternity life on campus - most of the former houses are now administrative buildings and one is a program house.

It'll be interesting to see if the Psi U chapter goes co-ed or not. It's not a catch-22 for them like it would be for DKE though.

This development shouldn't surprise anyone. While Wesleyan always was and still is an elite LAC it is also widely mocked for its oppressive political correctness.

This article indicates towards the end that this has already happened on other campuses (I was surprised!)

I don't understand ho a school can get away with requiring co-ed membership.

http://benswann.com/colleges-forcing...nder-equality/

Look at it this way, the organization is a guest on their campus. As far as I know, the only court cases which have allowed an override of the school rules are based on religion. (Christian Fraternities suing to force school to allow bylaws to require that officers fit a specific set of Christian practices including not being Homosexual, etc.)

LMAO at how the article is illustrated with a picture of a sorority house.

I also don't get how schools think women living with men is going to prevent sexual assault.

I doubt a group could get away with initiating females at one college and no where else. Nationals worry about law suits regarding females suing for membership. Other groups will worry that those law suits would affect them as well. I think this is a politically correct way of telling them they're not allowed to be there at all. This is an outright ban, without actually coming out and saying it.

If this Roth guy thinks that this will end any other way, he's out of his mind.

Actually, the Psi Upsilon chapter wouldn't have any problem. Psi Upsilon is local option and there are several co-ed chapters. It is DKE that would have to give up housing and become an unhoused single sex fraternity and I believe that there are others at Wesleyan that are in that state.

The theory is that the culture of the organization changes when there are female members, and it won't promote sexual assault the way it did before. Individual psychopaths will still do their thing, but they won't be getting trained in sexual assault by older members.

I don't know if there's any data about how that works or doesn't work to change culture. It's hard for me to imagine a co-ed group instructing its pledges to chant "No means yes, yes means anal" the way a male fraternity did down the road at Yale. But who knows?

You know what?? Collegiate women are NOT there to teach idiot fraternity boys what is acceptable and what is not.

Hmmmm. The calibre of the self-professed "investigative" journalism of the linked article is called into question when the headline reads "Colleges Forcing Fraternities to Accept Women ..." And the accompanying picture is of a sorority house... :/

From the point of view of the college, all the students are there to teach all the others. That's the purpose of a residential college, especially a highly selective one where they're hand-picking each student to bring something to the class. This college thinks that a group of its students are isolating themselves in a way that's reinforcing their worst instincts, and it doesn't want to support that any more. I don't know if the change will work, but it is logical.

I'd rather my sorority pull charters than initiate men at respective chapters. If that's the way colleges want it, so be it. They can face any consequences of their decisions. I would hope male fraternities would do the same.

Would this be a situation where the national organizations don't really care if the campus doesn't recognize the chapters and keep the chapters running regardless?

False equivalence. Allowing women to have spaces of their own is not the equivalent of allowing men to have spaces of their own.

If fraternities and sororities start allowing members of the opposite sex to join, then WHAT is the point?! Ugh.

Do they have to let women join? or do they just have to allow women to live there as well?

It sounds like they have to let women live there as well.

Honestly, if they don't want fraternities, I'd rather they just did away with them and went full out on these dumb "living learning communities."* I'd hate to be the person who applied or worse, went to this school thinking they had Greek life and got this bastardized version of it.

*Friends and I were talking a few weeks back about how their kids' schools are sorting people in the dorms by major, interest, etc. I can't imagine anything more awful. Who wants to meet nothing but carbon copies of yourself? These kids are never going to get anywhere in life if they never are forced out of their comfort zones.

I'm curious...I thought sororities and fraternities have a Title IX exemption that allows them to remain single sex (see link). Sooooo, couldn't Deke challenge this edict? I seem to remember that Psi U already has (a) coed chapter(s).

http://www.dol.gov/oasam/regs/statutes/titleix.htm

It's up to the school to recognize them or not. Nothing compels the school to recognize.

Honestly, there are lots of things that happen that are illegal and infringing on rights, but when it comes down to threats of expulsion it's pretty hard to ask a 21 year old to be the poster child for free association.

The Title IX exemption just means federal law doesn't require social fraternities and soroties to be co-ed if they want to be recognized by a school that receives federal funds. Wesleyan can still chose to only recognize co-ed GLOs.

And yes, Psi U already has co-ed chapters. They have a "local option" on that.

Wesleyan is a private school. Infringing on rights doesn't even enter the equation.

I wasn't speaking of Wesleyan specifically, just in general.

As mentioned, Psi U does have several co-ed chapters. The interesting thing actually is that a situation very similar to this one is the reason Psi U has that "local option."

Except for that pesky Universalizability thing that guy Kant talked about....