Laws in Pennsylvanina against sorority houses
 

I would like to know if anyone had any information about past laws that prohibited laws against sorority houses in the state of Pennsylvanina. thank you.

I graduated From Lehigh in 96. We were under the idea that a certain amount of woman living in a house in Penn was considered a brothel. So we all had a whole dorm on campus thet was our sorority house. There were ways around having a house house, but I'm not sure what they may be.

Our landlord owned 5 sorority houses. I believe the way he got around it was by calling each bedroom a separate apartment. For example I lived at 101 Main st, Apartment D.
I'm not sure that these laws apply to all of PA. If so all the students need to band together & get them changed - it's the most sexist thing on earth!

Hey, I'm a tri delt at Penn State University. OK, the situation with sorority housing. The law USED to be that more than 7 women in a house was a brothel. SO, since most sororites were started on our campus many years ago, they've remained in dorm building. Each sorority has it's own floor. We could get houses now if we wanted but at this point, the problem is with available land and money.

From what I remember we had the same kind of law in Fairfax County, Virginia. (George Mason University). As far as how many could live in house without it being considered a brothel..We didnt have a Greek Row at our school...16 fraternities and 6 sororities. All of the fraternity and sorority houses, including ours were off campus in the neighborhoods around campus...Made navigating to parties interesting.

Kevin Mullinix
Beta Theta Pi Alum
Epsilon Mu Chapter
George Mason Univerity

[This message has been edited by kmullini (edited June 20, 2000).]

Louisiana and some parts of(I've heard--may not be right) St. Louis have those laws...supposedly in Louisiana, the only houses that can house more than eight women are convents? (If there are Louisianans who can set me straight--please do so! I know it's why Tulane can't have sorority houses, but I thought LSU did, so maybe it's just a New Orleans thing?

Good thing Rhode Island doesn't have that law. I love my sorority house.

I used to go to Tulane and the sororites there DO have houses, I just don't think that girls are allowed to live in them.

I now attend LSU, and they have houses, all located on Sorority Row.

As far as I know, the law only applies to New Orleans.

Virginia still has this law. A sorority house would be considered a brothel house so they're not allowed. My school tried to build houses that only 2 or 3 members would live in; they would be used mainly for meetings, recruitment, etc...but it still hasn't been passed and I don't think it ever will. We have no type of meeting place, not even a dorm floor or anything. We hold our meetings, initiations and recruitments in random rooms across campus that change every semester.

I have been involved with Greek life for more than 15 years and have heard the same "story" about sorority houses and brothels everywhere.

I honestly believe this falls into the category of "urban myth". Can anyone show me a law that defines a residence with more than x number of un-related women a brothel?

I doubt you could find one. And if it exists, call the local District Attorney and see if it has been enforced in the last 50 years.

I have the same skepticism about laws regarding Fraternity Houses at schools that don't have them. I doubt that there are laws in most places that specifically refer to Fraternities and letters on the house.

If 10 guys can rent a house from a landlord at 37 Maple Lane, why can't the landlord put greek letters on the outside of the house. Could he put a sign that names the house Maple House?

And why can't a housing corporation be the landlord?

GreekUSA-

I don't know if there is an actual law or not, but my school believes there is. They are the ones who have told us about it but now I wonder if they really know that there is no law but just tell us so we can't fight them for housing.

I do know that five or six years ago, in East Lansing, MI, it required the approval of the City Council to place letters outside on our sorority's rented house. My guess is they somehow make it fall under the category of outdoor advertising...

Have also heard the bit about x number of women can't live together in CT and other states. I have always thought that if this was true, it was awfully sexist!

[This message has been edited by BFulton (edited June 21, 2000).]

In most cases, sorority or fraternity houses don't exist in communities for one simple reason zoning. For example, at Ball State, no sororities have houses. The urban legend always was that one of the daughters of the Ball brothers (who the university is named after) was black-balled by a sorority, and as a result no sorority would ever be allowed to have housing. Truth of the matter, zoning laws, and the NPC nationals themselves account for why many campuses don't have sorority housing.

AlphaChiGirl,
I went to school at Johnson and Wales U. in downtown Prov and we were ALWAYS under the impression that this law is on the books. Is your house on Brown's campus? If so, it is excluded from the law? If not, I've got some work to do!!! http://www.greekchat.com/forums/ubb/smile.gif

I just thought of something regarding this topic. If X number of women in the same residence is considered a brothel, how to colleges/universities get around it with dorms? What is the (legal) difference between a dorm and a sorority house?

Is this thread for real?

How can a house of x numbers of girls be considered a brothel and a house of the same number of guys not be considered whatever you call a bunch of male ho's? Think about the legal implications-- I mean really, folks!

I use to go to Louisiana Tech which is in the northern part of the state. They have that same 7 women in one place equals a brothel. The have lodges instead of houses. They have their meetings and recruitment in the lodges,but live either on-campus or near by.

Carnation,

We have all heard the farmiliar statement that prostitution is the oldest profession. In the US, many towns and cities and even states made laws at their origin to prevent women from having brothels. They wanted to do away with this 'oldest profession' and as we can all see, they were unsucessful. However, even though it is sexist or doesn't agree with the 'times', many small towns and rural areas, and even some states still have laws on the books such as this one. If you enter a library and look up some laws, there are still some pretty outdated laws on the books. Of course, most of these outdated laws are not enforced, and haven't been enforced for 50+ years. In the state of West Virginia, it is illigal for a man and woman who are not married to live together. This is very outdated and not enforced. There are all kinds of quirky laws, such as in Massachusas (sp?) all men entering a church must have a rifle with them!! No, we don't enforce them, and yes they are outdated. They are silly and should have been struck from the books long ago, but some of these laws do exist. I'm sure at this point that the 'greek sorority house being a brothel' is mostly a myth, but I wouldn't be surprised if some small towns still had this law and have not taken the time to strike it. Keep in mind that nobody recently made these laws, they are old. Also, the reason why men are not included in this law is because 1) men's whore houses either didn't exist in that time or were very infrequent, and 2) women at the time were inferior and this was just one more way to control them. I just wanted to let you know that it is quite possible that these laws still exist, but I seriously doubt that they would ever be enforced.

kmullini, I know what you mean! My boyfriend lives in Fairfax and his brother goes to George Mason University where he is a brother in the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity. My boyfriend always talks about how the houses are kind of hard to find sometimes cuz they're scattered everywhere.

But where I am, at Longwood College, that's not really a problem, with Farmville being a small town. There are several houses off campus that are "frat houses" and they're all within walking distance of the school. But we don't have sorority houses either, because of that whole idea of prostitution. We have a dorm on campus that is strictly for sororities. Our Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life is trying to make a fraternity row somewhere nearby but I don't think it will happen. And that law about a certain number of women... how old-fashioned can you get???

Daisy Margarita,

Thats cool with how Longwood is set up. Sounds ideal. I've never been to Longwood myself though. Yeah, I think there is too much politics going on with Fairfax. I think if it was more rural like Longwood, Virginia Tech, it might be better off. But then it is a young university. Yeah, that law is pretty old-fashioned. It may be the law is just alot of talk and nobody has the patience/money to deal with it.

Kevin
Beta Theta Pi

In Michigan, or at least Dearborn and Detroit where my sorority and others are located, the Brothel law is in effect. So yeah, this thread is for real

All the greek orgs on my campus have an off campus house. From what I know there is a law in Clarion (dont remember when it went into effect) that a GLO cannot have letters on their house inside the borough. Which is why the new-old Phi Delt house didnt have letters, and the new one outside of borough limits does. And why some Theta Xi bros were worried because they didnt know if their house was in limits. And also why the TPA girls dont have letters. They can place a sheet or banner outside their house, but cannot have the letters painted or nailed or whatever to the house. Many orgs inside the borough fall under the grandfather clause, since we have had our houses since before the law went into effect. But if we would lose our house, then get it back, we would not be able to have the letters on it.

Thats my knowledge, any Clarion-ites want to contribute/correct?

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There are only a few good things that came out of Clarion- Chris Kirkpatrick of NSync, Kurt Angle (Pre WWF!) and any PHI SIGMA SIGMA!

Yeah, at EMU the Greek Houses also have to have a special zoning permit to be considered a Greek House and to be able to put letters up on your house/lawn.