New Greek Evaluation Piloting at U. of Florida
 

http://www.alligator.org/pt2/060131rules.php

The January 31 '06 Alligator reports that a new evaluation system is being piloted this spring. The article concentrates on a higher GPA requirement, but apparently there are many more criteria (42 of them!) that will be looked at. Should be interesting to see if there are positive results for chapters and for the Greek system.

It would depend on the Criterias and if there is a bottom cut line.

If that is the case, then it is extemely negative.

I don't think its a good idea. Does anyone think this is a good plan? why?

Penn State also implemented something like this. We don't have the rankings of excellent, above average, average, or does not meet expectations. But we do have Minimum and Reasonable Expectations, and then there's Rewards and Recognition for Fraternities and Sororities Meeting and Exceeding the Standards of Excellence. And if any org does not meet the Minimum and Reasonable Expectations, then there are consequences ranging from warnings/probation to loss of recognition by the university.

When we were going through this, we were told that a lot of other universities were doing similar things. I think it's a good thing to have certain standards and rules that all the GLO's on campus have to adhere to...as long as the Greek Life office tries to provide assistance and support for chapters that are struggling to meet the minimums (i.e. giving the chapters a chance to improve and not just automatically kicking them off campus). Yes, we are held to a much higher standard than the regular student clubs, but I think Greeks are always held to a much higher standard. People are always looking for us to mess up, so we always have to do that much more because we're always having to fight the stereotypes of Greeks. Plus, I'd rather have a university cover its ass by holding its Greeks to a higher standard than for the university to cover its ass by getting rid of all Greeks.

Penn State's Minimum and Reasonable Expectations Penn State's Standards of Excellence
Penn State's Rewards and Recognition for Meeting and Exceeding Standards of Excellence

San Diego State University also has a standards program for Greek organizations - ours is called Standards of Excellence. More information can be found via the following links.

http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/cfsl/InformationSheet.pdf

http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/cfsl/document...e2005-2006.doc


.....Kelly :)

Kelly, don't ALL student organizations have to do SOE? Or is it just Greeks?

Don't sell your souls.
Public universities have every right to reward organizations which dance to whatever tune the administration plays. They do NOT have the right to punish Greek organizations or any other student organization for failing to meet artificial and arbitrary "expectations". Civil rights law is very clear in that student organizations cannot be "de-recognized" for simply not fitting the template that some administrator dreams up.

Our university gives all chapters the opportunity to apply for recognition in a wide range of programming areas. The school even awards a "Fraternity of the Year" to someone in each greek council. However...the administrators who dream up the criteria are almost all women, and as a result the criteria for "Fraternity of the Year" is all about diversity and health issues and community service, etc. There are no points for sports, for rush, for any competitive, manly activity. I don't question their motives - they're nice people - but the effect is that they're trying to mold fraternities into what women think fraternities ought to be.

I don't care. But, I would be very disturbed if there was an effort to punish fraternities for not being like sororities. Administrationrs who deal with Greeks often tend to be bullies. maybe they're just tired of dealing with undergraduates. In any case, they have abslutely no rights whatsoever to impose, say, community servitude on student organizations. I'm not a Lambda Chi but one of their attorneys said it very well: "There are fraternities who don't want to do community service, who don't want to make their GPA the central focus of their lives. As long as they don't break the law they have the right to be lazy. Leave them alone."

THIS IS IMPORTANT: Once you agree to submit yourself to this sort of bullying, this sort of manipulation, you have lost the right to determine what standards they impose on you. Did the school tell you that you have to require each member of your chapter to do ten hours of community service? Next year, maybe they'll decide it needs to be 50. Do you have to have a chapter GPA of 2.8 to have a pary or get a pledge class or play intramurals? Why not a 3.0 or a 3.5? It's their decision now.
If you say, "well those are good things"...OK, then you focus your chapter on those achievements and win all the university recognition you can. But leave us alone if we don't want to. It's not your fraternity chapter; it's ours.
They HAVE NO ENFORCABLE RIGHT to threaten you with loss of recognition. Fraternity alumni on my campus stopped a version of this "Delaware Plan" dead in its tracks simply by visiting with the university Vice President and politely pointing out that these amounted to civil rights violations, and that they would be challenged as such if imposed.

>student organizations cannot be "de-recognized" for simply not fitting the template that some administrator dreams up.

Sure they can be. You can't expel students for fraternizing with each other, but you can choose to recognize or not recognize student groups as long as the criteria are not discriminatory. In other words, you can't recognize white fraternities but not black fraternities, but you CAN recognize only those groups which meet campus standards that are applied across the board (registering with Student Affairs, meeting with a faculty advisor, whatever). Your first amendment right to associate within a group is NOT an unconditional right to be "recognized" by the university irrespective of the group's behavior.

If you have are aware of a case holding otherwise, I'd certainly like to see it.

With respect, you are wrong. Bad behavior can be a reason for de-recognition, but not bad taste or other arbitrary reasons. Check with Fraternal Law and other related projects.
The Greeks are benefitting from efforts years ago by groups considered radicals then, generally mainstream now, demanding university recognition. Feminists, racial clubs and groups, homosexuals, all pushed for recognition.
A public institution cannot tell you your club the members has to do so much community service or achieve a given grade point or jump through a series of politically correct hoops.
I'm not an attorney. Check with a civil rights lawyer. We have, and I can assure you the schools powers are much more limited that they will admit. Why do you think schools prefer to go through the IFC instead of just imposing things directly? It's so they can say, "Well, it's not us. The students made these rules themselves."
The problem they run into with Greeks is that they DON'T apply the same campus standards across the board. They wouldn't dream of requiring, say, the Communist Revolutionary Youth Brigade to do so much community service or maintain a group GPA.

I AM an attorney, and I primarily do constitutional law.

Right, because they were denied recognition for DISCRIMINATORY REASONS -- because of their race, creed, or political beliefs. That's not what's going on here.

Yes, it can, as long as it (1) does not forbid the club from meeting off campus if de-recognized, and (2) it does not single out some clubs for punishment for discriminatory reasons. ASSOCIATING with the club members is your First Amendment right; RECOGNITION BY THE UNIVERSITY is a privilege. A public university is legally within its rights if it requires recognized groups that use the university name to meet administrative criteria.

Point me to a COURT CASE holding otherwise, and I will concede that I'm wrong.

Thnak you for your response; I'll defer to your expertise, but all the advice I (we've) gotten is somewhat contradictory to yours. It's possible we may be saying the same thing on at least one point. My understanding is that the school cannot single out Greeks as opposed to other student interest groups. In all the examples I've seen, that's exactly what has happened. I don't have access to case law, however, Fraternal Law is an excellent source. I do appreciate your pointing out the rule that they connot punish you for meeting off campus if de-recognized. I wasn't aware of that. The trend seems to be now that the U. will punish fraternities by threatening to never re-recognize the (national) organization again if the members meet off campus.
Thank you for the information you've provided; I appreciate it. I'll try to find some current case law to underscore the position other atorneys have advised.

Fraternal Law #69, September 1999, in "Assessments or Constitutional Violation?":

"... in Healy v. James, 408 U.S. 169 (1972), the Supreme Court refused to accept Centra Connecticut State College's justification for the denial of recognition to a local chapter of Students for a Democratic Society. Even recognizing that a university can impose reasonable regulations regarding time, place and manner of the use of its facilities, the Court held that a state university cannot deny recognition to student groups without substantial justification relating to actual disruption of the campus or illegal conduct. The Supreme Court stated, ... 'There can be no doubt that the denial of official recognition, without justification, to college organizations, burdens or abridges that [First Amendment] associational right.'"

A few other thoughts on these campus assessment/grading programs:

1. Most of them require a ridiculous amount of time to complete and monitor compliance with. Who in the world wants to be the chapter compliance officer?

2. Many universities (or coerced or uneducated IFCs) implement these programs with the justification that fraternities "espouse high values" and should be therefore held accountable. First, values are different than requirements. Second, if there was a duty to be accountable - it would be each fraternity's duty, not the school or IFC. Third, most schools have values and mission statements... what if we demanded that they expel any student with a 2.5 or below, or suspend any student who is not doing 10 hours of community service or not?

3. When values because requirements they lose all value. Fraternities create the greatest value when they encourage personal achievement and foster organizational advancement. When community services, grades or other such criteria become mandates - the merit is gone. I've seen plenty of guys on the side of the highway picking up trash... but I don't think the ones in orange jumpsuits are necessarily altruistic!

4. Many of these programs contain a feature whereby a chapter is "kicked off" if they fail to participate or score at a certain level. The extent of the school's authority is to recognize or not - that's it. They cannot regulate private behavior and association.

5. What about consideration?! I mean, what are we really getting in consideration of participating in these programs? Meeting space on campus - no big deal. Lists of incoming freshmen - subject to sunshine laws. IFC recruitment - who cares; that's like feeding off welfare anyway. Greek advisors - they are not advocates. Why sign off on your rights for that type of consideration? (Although, those of us who have houses on university land kinda have already sold our soul to the devil and may be compelled to comply.)

Let's get back to our TRUE founding values when these types of programs are shoved down our throats... let's become independent to flee this type of control. That's where is all began!

Also though, we bear some responsibility. Where are the local alumni volunteers and where are the chapter leaders when these programs are voted on at the campus level? (If they are.) We need to educate ourselves and others on why these are bad... and fight at every turn.

FratAmerica, in that case, SDS was denied recognition due to its political stance, not because it had violated any university policy related to an important government objective. That's a First Amendment violation.

"Substantial justification relating to actual disruption of the campus or illegal conduct" is exactly what UF is talking about regarding fraternities. Unfortunately, universities have very good reason to believe that fraternities left to establish and enforce their own standards will disrupt the campus (i.e. cause expensive lawsuits to be filed against the university) and commit illegal acts (i.e. hazing), and UF, in this case, has gone to great lengths to "substantially justify" the requirements fraternities must meet to retain recongition. The case you cite supports my point.

I, like Firehouse, am not an attorney either, but I think you could look at the Healy precedent in multiple ways.

SDS was a truly disruptive organization, espousing values and could be accurately described as anti-government and anti-American.

The University of Florida has 42 categories in its recognition / assessment program. I think a reasonable argument could be made that failing at those requirements doesn't make you necessarily disruptive - especially if you were a decent (i.e. law-abiding) if not lackluster (i.e. lazy) chapter.

Further...

These programs not only tread heavily on First Amendment protections, but possibly Fourteenth Amendment protections (equal treatment). There may be multiple ways for us to defend ourselves.

The Healy precedent cannot be read to state that universities are not entitled to de-recognize groups as long as they have "substantial justification." They ARE entitled to do so.

You can argue about what "substantial justification" is, but I don't believe that there has ever been a court case finding that a university withdrawing recognition from a fraternity that failed to meet university GPA standards (or the like) violated any Constitutional rights. Given that the Supreme Court recently stated that a university's stated educational goals are such a compelling government interest that they survive strict scrutiny (Grutter; Gratz); I'd be extremely surprised if there were any such case in the near future. Public universities are allowed to set all kinds of seemingly arbitrary standards for student conduct. (See the University of Virginia, which may expel you for lying to a fellow student: http://www.virginia.edu/honor/intro/explain.html). Heck, it's pretty arbitrary that UF won't give you a degree in Psychology unless you pass Statistics. But it's strongly related to a legitimate educational goal, so it's perfectly constitutional, even though it impedes your freedom of thought. It would be quite simple for UF to explain why its educational goals are impeded by recognizing fraternities that persistently failed to meet these standards over multiple years.

At any rate, at best, the issuance of these policies doesn't give anyone any federal right to sue (I can't speak for every state); there wouldn't be a cognizable injury until the de-recognition occurred, or at least was imminent.

You can be certain that UF has an excellent legal team advising it on these matters. To me, the standards look carefully drawn to survive scrutiny.

SOE is a program for Greeks - the other student organizations do not have a comparable program.


.....Kelly :)

I agree... there hasn't been a court case containing the situation we're describing. I still think it would be hard to prove that a 2.5 chapter grade point average caused "disruption" on a campus, regardless of the compelling educational interest. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Advancing our scenario, and assuming that schools do have this authority (or, more practically speaking, that fighting them through the courts would be prohibitively expensive and time consuming), the next logical step is to simply say, "thanks, but no thanks" if recognition comes tied to these programs.

There is still no statute, that I'm aware of, that requires a chapter or an interfraternity council to maintain (or even seek) campus recognition. The boys at Boulder have gone independent, and I believe that that situation will do more to affect us all than any court fight.

(Then again, and as I referenced previously, where the school - and/or town - can get you is on ground leases and zoning requirements. At Penn State, the zonig code allows for houses only if the resident chapter is "affiliated" with the school.)

At last, something we agree on. Private organizations that want to be in complete control of their membership and operation should go ahead and be fully private. Sink or swim without bringing the university's name (or liability) into the equation.

Are you saying that University should have control over which orgs. you can join or not? Are you saying that rituals should be public to University or not the orgs. shouldn't be affiliated at all? I'm not trying to put words in your mouth or read too much into what you said but it gives me that vibe.

I meant exactly what I said. The thread is about a university requiring recognized fraternities to keep high GPA's, do community service, etc. If you don't want the university controlling the standards of your organization that way, then go independent.

Interesting theory, but to point out the obvious...not many (if any) national GLO's could disaffiliate with their host institutions and remain chartered. I believe in nearly all cases it is required that chapters be recognized by their respective universities or colleges in order to say open. I do agree that if the Ad club doesn't have to have a certain collective GPA, or do so many hours of service to stay recognized by the administration then Greek house's shouldn't have to either.
Besides, again in the case of national organizations we have our own expectations and standards for recognition that cover those areas. Those standards are based on the priorities of our orgs as a whole, which naturally fall in line with the priorities of higher education: leadership, academics, service, etc.

The University of Colorado's Greek system seems to think different.

-Rudey

Sure, but let's get real -- the national organization can't be everywhere at once. Let's get real some more -- all over the country, chapters of national orgs with high standards and expectations violate the rules all the time. And when a university-recognized chapter does something stupid and someone dies, it's the university's butt on the line as well as the national group's. If the university has to accept that liability when it recognizes a group, it seems only fair that it should be able to keep an eye on the chapter, too (for its own sake).

National organizations that require university recognition of chapters are making a choice, and they can choose to change their minds if they want to keep those chapters. Some national orgs have been quite willing to overlook that rule when they got the opportunity to open a chapter at Harvard.

Question for the legal experts
 

Can a college/university legally require a different set of standards for students? Basically one set for those who wish to associate via an organization and one set for those who do not?

For example, if you are not involved in any extracurricular activities, then to graduate you would only need say a 2.0 GPA and you would not be required to perform any community service. However, if you elect to be involved (be it a GLO or the AV Club) you are required to have a 3.0 GPA and perform 10 hours of community service. Thus to graduate, a different set of standards are applied to a select few. The higher GPA and the requirement to perform community service. Frankly, that seems like a double standard and would not (should not) be legal.

And are there any legal precedents for this - one way or the other?