Another Intersection of Fratnernalism and Politics: Good? Bad?
 

Fenty lays out the crimson carpet

The Kappas are in DC this week and our mayor is a member. The link above is what I consider to be a nice article about an event they had.

HOWEVER..... it was paid for with taxpayer money.

The District has been reimbursed for $37,000 in taxpayer money used to throw a posh welcome reception Monday night for Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's fraternity, after the attorney general determined that it was "not a proper use of government funds."



Please check out both articles and weigh in. I have several comments, including the witty, but quite serious "If it had been the Alphas, the city wouldn't have cared and would have spent more" lol

Bad. All bad.

messy/
Leave it to the Krappas to do this.
/messy

Now, if he wants to host a meeting of his national fraternity, good for him, but to use taxpayer money is the only thing I have wrong with it... But it was reimbursed so I really don't have much of a problem with it now.
And the title of your thread well I'm pretty sure I wont be the only one to say this but, fraternity and politics have been intermingled since the concept of fraternity began... it's something like all but three presidents were Greek, right? So the ties between fraternity men/ sorority women and working in government is probably NEVER going to go away.

The attorney general had to step in.

What would've been the outcome had the AG not called it out?


We have members everywhere. That is not to be confused with the intermingling of politics and fraternalism.

My mother sent me an email with the following subject: I didn't know Fenty was a Krappa!

Your mom is the homie.

Wrong, actually. That's a Greek urban legend. Think about it -- the first fraternity wasn't founded until 1825; it would be years after that before enough fraternity chapters had spread for there to be a good chance of a future president pledging and for college students who had joined fraternities to be old enough (legally and practically) to be elected president. Rutherford B. Hayes (president from 1877-1881) was the first Greek president. He was a Deke. Not quite half of the presidents (20, I think, out of 43) were Greek.

And it's beside the point -- just because a president was a member of a fraternity doesn't mean that fraternity and politics "intermingled," any more than religion and politics would be intermingled just because a president was a member of a church. So, yeah, I'm betting you will be the only one to say it. ;)


As for Fenty -- a proclamation was okay. Footing the bill was not, and he and any other government employees should have known that without having to be told. It wasn't clear to me from the article, though, whether Kappa Alpha Psi leaders knew the City was paying for the reception. They acknowledged and thanked fenty for footing the bill, but that can be read as thinking he did it personally (or arranged for it out of non-government funds.)

I think people who throw that one out are counting the Masons as a Greek organization.

How dare they!

I'm still humored that having Greeks in various institutions of society, by default, constitutes "intermingling." We are the Illuminati. :)

I know some people do that (at least counting it as a fraternal organization), but given that he then refers to "fraternity men/sorority women," I'm betting that's not the case here. And given that his other posts have been about selling his parents on Greek life (he's rushing this fall), I'm betting he picked this up from some well-meaning but overdone "Go Greek" literature.

I knew you'd catch on eventually. ;)

I think it's nice when a prominent person embraces and publicizes their Greek ties.

I don't think it's nice when something like this is paid for with public money. That never should have happened and was completely improper.

I think that it is a HUGE bust if the Kappas thought Fenty was paying for the event and later found out that the money wasn't his to spend...and that THEY would have to pick up the bill!

You know that sometimes people are eat more at dinner if they know you are paying : )