Judge Amy Coney Barrett and Kappa Delta
 

https://www.thecollegefix.com/sorori...rt-nomination/

Thoughts?

People were offended even though it was made clear that it didn't indicate support? What a bunch of loser snowflakes. If I were a KD, I would be burning up the lines to nationals.

I don't agree with the political ideologies of all of my sisters.
Personally, I feel KD should have left the tweet - a nomination to the Supreme Court is something worthy of congratulations...even if I don't agree with ACB on...a lot. My two KD aunts have different views on ACB and her record, but neither are horrified/ashamed to be in sisterhood with her. Pulled from my response on the previous (locked) thread about her nomination - "Two of my aunts are Southern, Catholic, and KD (sisters twice!) - on opposite ends of the political spectrum - they are both pleased to see a KD sister nominated, but one has had personal experience with the nominee's church and that colors her view of the nomination and ACB as a potential justice. The other is a lawyer and has been encouraging family on both ends of the spectrum to look into her actual ruling history and legal writings, before deciding she'll either be a boon to conservative causes or demonizing her as the end to all rights."

Ditto!

The cancel culture is a real issue on college campuses (and beyond) today. Many kids don't know how to tolerate a different viewpoint of any type so they get things cancelled. Happened to Condoleeza Rice a few years ago - she was the graduation speaker at Dartmouth until students pushed back and got her cancelled. Why? The war. I guess her background of growing up in the segregated Deep South, becoming a concert pianist, a provost at Stanford and yes, holding one of the highest offices in our government didn't offer them anything to learn from....

What's worse about this incident, to me, are the officers who fell prey to this cancel mindset. They weren't agreeing with Barrett's policy views, simply acknowledging what it took to achieve the nomination. Geez.

Cancel culture isn't real.

Neither Kappa Delta nor ACB lose any significant power or trajectory-altering opportunity by the tweet being deleted.

What's actually happening is criticism and critique, at some turns outrage, and mostly people getting on the internet with an opinion.

People in power are concerned about cancel culture because they don't want to be critiqued. People who are not in power are concerned about cancel culture because they think they are on the same level of the people being canceled.

It's sort of like people voting against their own self-interests.

Further reading: https://time.com/5735403/cancel-culture-is-not-real/

Kappa Delta should not have deleted the tweet. The organization should be supportive of a sister who is about to reach the pinnacle of success in her profession.

Deleting the tweet was a dumb move as it invalidated the argument that we're just supporting a successful sister and made it about politics. Organizations should avoid politics.

Outrage is premature as ACB has yet to cast a vote from the bench. We really don't know much about her. She hasn't been on the bench that long. She's young. Her views may change completely after settling in.

Fixed it for you.

They should have just stopped with the first sentence of the first tweet instead of going out of their way to say they acknowledge all members have a right to their beliefs. That should be a given, but as usual, people don’t know when to shut up.

I’m sure there are AEPhis who didn’t agree with RBG...or A Xi Ds who think Betsey Johnson makes the ugliest clothes imaginable...or Thetas who would rather get a root canal than listen to Sheryl Crow. But when these alumnae are brought up, the groups don’t go out of their way to say everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Why start now? It’s about pride in a member achieving success and being well known outside of the sorority...not agreeing with everything they do.

Being nominated to serve on the Supreme Court is a high achievement. Congratulate her on that. Then drop it.

So that's pretty standard and not answering questions regarding cases which may come before her follows with the judicial canons. My cousin is the Oklahoma Supreme Court Chief Justice right now. I am fine to discuss my own cases with her at family gatherings as whenever I appeal, she recuses, so those cases are definitely not going before her. Literally any other case, I know better than to bring up, even in a private conversation.

And the last Justice appointed by either party who really did answer questions and invited a spirited discussion with the opposing Senators was Robert Bork, and you remember how that went.

I don't like that she is being appointed. I disagree with textualism. I think it's a hoax. They claim these philosophies so they can seem all pure and idealistic, but I've seen the hyper-textualist Scalia do some pretty great mental gymnastics to try and tell us that the interstate commerce clause gave the federal government the power to regulate marijuana grown entirely within a state using implements and materials only from within the state to be sold only within the state because in his view, it would have an indirect effect on interstate commerce and therefore, the feds can list it as a schedule 1 susbtance.

IMO, it's Trump's last Hail Mary to either win more votes from a specific demographic OR to get even with all who vote against him.

The sad part about it is Trump doesn't even understand what she stands for. Additionally, deep down probably doesn't agree with much of what she believes.

/lane swerve

Excellent!

My son's godmother is a KD and she and her sister (also KD) are doing just that.
And they're neither Catholic or hard right in their views.

Ditto

This SCOTUS issue has divided the KΔ sisterhood, that’s for sure. Many on both sides are claiming they’ll turn in their pins or never donate again.

Was KΔ HQ right or wrong with their public statements? Given the political climate, they should’ve held off on saying anything, and wait to see how it played out. Either way, they were bound to be criticized.
In addition, this nomination happened at a critical time for KΔ, because most recently, theyve been touting their new diversity committee.

Anyway, what’s done is done.

Finally, as we all know: if you want to change your organization, abandoning it is not how you do it. Posting on the internet is easy, but it’s slack. Get in, and get involved.

If I had turned in my pin the first time I encountered a sister whose values were different from mine and contradictory to what I expected of an ASA, I would have stopped being Greek around the time Bush the Elder took office. I absolutely fail to see how grown adults with decades of sorority membership can behave in this manner.

You take that back right now. I will not have anyone disparaging the Pride of Kennett, Missouri.

I'm still grappling with this.

There is a Republican candidate for an office in Michigan. He's a member of my fraternity. There has been no coverage of him in my fraternity's social media (that I have seen--I could be wrong).

There is also a PAC established by members of my fraternity. They are backing several members who are "progressive" more or less. I don't closely follow the PAC.

The fraternity, especially this administration, makes a huge point to highlight brothers seeking office. But this brother has not received the same level of attention.

I don't support this brother's ambitions and I hope he loses, but fair is fair. I shouldn't have had to find out from a weirdo on GC that my own fraternity brother was seeking office.

^^

Unfortunately (in my opinion), the current chief of staff to the president is a member of Sigma Chi; as is the undersecretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment.

Outside of initially congratulating them on getting those positions, there has been very little to no discussion of either gentlemen on our public or brothers only social media.

It would be pretty blatantly one sided to jump up and down and give a sorority magazine cover to ASA Agatha who gets a spot as Harry Truman’s Secretary of State, and then a few decades later contain ASA Audrey’s nomination as Richard Nixon’s new VP to a tiny blurb in the “alumnae news” section beside the alumna who achieved regional fame with her bakery that sells cookies shaped like musical instruments.

You’re basically saying that you only want members with a certain belief. It’s as bad as expecting collegiate chapters of varying sizes to compete against each other and always reprimanding the smaller chapters - even if they are the exact same size as other chapters on their campus.

Either give everyone the same coverage, or decide that anything even vaguely political is just too touchy of a subject to mention at all.

Some "famous" or distinguished persons prefer no special or congratulatory recognition of any kind despite their position/title in life. I like the idea of a greek org headquarters asking their "famous" greek members whether they would prefer NOT to be mentioned by their organization in any congratulatory manner.

As an example, our local high school names multiple "famous" former graduates to a special Milestone Members list, and invites them to their own awards dinner, every year. To even nominate a former grad for this award, you must have their signed permission to enter their name to be considered for the recognition. Granted, being recognized by your former HS for winning a Tony Award isn't quite the same as winning a Tony Award. But some "famous" people are bigger sports about their fame than others, and everyone has their right to privacy.

And now, let’s take a look at the Girl Scouts of America, who just retracted a tweet recognizing ACB..
I guess they didn’t see the PR debacle that KΔ is experiencing.

For what it's worth, the same guy showed me I have a Sigma Nu brother running in Montana. I also hope he loses and I don't have to know anything about him other than he's an (R) this year. And my organization probably tends to skew (R) more than not.

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with individal members forming a PAC so long as it is not the fraternity itself.

That said, I really hope Greek organizations do a better job in the future at steering clear of politics. Those of us in the housing business are still looking for tax reform making donations to our house corps deductible. That should be a bipartisan issue.

It's more money for the lobbyists to NOT have the issue settled by congress in the Greek organizations favor. I for one stopped giving unrestricted funds to my org just so those funds could not continue to be wasted decade upon decade in the futile attempt at house corp donation tax reform.



(end lane swerve)

I just saw that. I have been a Scout for over 50 years. End of support.

The way I feel about Kelly Loeffler except I know so much about her that I have nothing nice to say about her.

My alma mater is, unfortunately, the same as Trump's. If anyone else were the first president from our school, there would be banners announcing that flying over the campus, but there hasn't been any public acknowledgment. The alumni magazine hasn't published any articles about him, mostly short ones by faculty on his policies and their effects. There was a war in the letters section for a while in 2017--some, mostly older, alumni thought it was wrong not to cover him and were angry about it, but some were unhappy that he was elected.

I think that Penn can get away with doing nothing because probably most alumni, faculty, and students are not Trump supporters, but KD is in a bind because there are many sisters on all points of the political spectrum, and it's tough not to acknowledge what is a huge honor for a sister, especially for an organization that encourages women's accomplishments. I thought that the initial post walked that line, for what it's worth.

IMO the panic of the pandemic and the stress of the political times have people losing perspective on what really matters in life. People need to remember to take a breath.

Amy being nominated doesn't make the situation All About You, it's All About Her. Belonging to the same sorority doesn't mean each member of the sorority is exactly like Amy in thought, word and deed.

Differences between people can be celebrated. Just think of all the U.S. citizens who think/act like Amy who are now finally represented by her membership to the Supreme Court.

"Finally"???

What views of hers aren’t currently represented?

Kappa Delta posted earlier today a message on Facebook (and perhaps other social media platforms?) saying, "You haven't heard from us much lately. We'd like to tell you why..." and continues on from there.

The comments seem to be a mixed bag of sisters either doubling down on how KD f'd up or saying they're looking forward to seeing how the organization can do better.

Meanwhile, a post from late July is flagged at the top of the page and introduces the Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Everyone clearly jumped in there and talked about the irony and hypocritical nature of creating such a committee and then not supporting a sister on an accomplishment because of her beliefs, values, religion, politics, etc.

Yikes.

Right now it almost feels like KD is actively trying to create MORE of a PR debacle. It’s a hot mess of epic proportions. I feel awful because I know a few women on National Council, including being in college with one of them. These are smart people who somehow just keep digging a hole deeper and deeper.

Yes, exactly. There really is no winning here for them. People are now criticizing either the fact they congratulated ACB in the first place, the fact that they retracted their statement, they're mad at KD's statement from today, they're annoyed that they went radio silent for a while, etc.

I think at this point KD just needs to let it go and move on. They really shouldn't have said any more publicly than they already had prior to today. But hey, I'm no PR expert.

I’m not even going to look at this because I don’t want to create a permanent indentation in my forehead from all the face palming.

I moved a few posts debating the merit of ACB to the News & Politics forum merging them into the same thread. I think it's appropriate to discuss KD's response to the issue here and the political merits in the politics forum.

I don't see why KD should have to apologise for congratulating a member on gaining such as prestigious position. One of our purposes as women's organisations is to grow strong women to be leaders. She has done this. KD should be proud, and should not have retracted their statement.