Precheck of Ritual by administration?
 

Has anyone heard of a situation where the administration/Student Life director require that the ritual of a group be checked by someone prior to the group being able to chartering the group on campus?

I would certainly hope not...

No and any NPC group would not go along so far as the "secret" parts goes. I would think that any public part would be OK to give them.

If it's a public school, they do not have the power to do this, no matter how well-intentioned they may be.

Our Greek Life advisor tried to get us to give her a copy of our pledge program. I am pretty sure we told her to go shit in her hat since APhiO is not a social Greek organization.

I'll say that a school that does this is not a school where APhiO needs to be.

We're fortunate enough to be a well-established national fraternity, by virtue of which, we have several brothers in the university faculty. If your organization is similar to mine int hat respect, it occurs to me that there is a nice middle ground between "go shit in a hat" and "here's our ritual," i.e., offer to invite that member of the faculty to your ritual so that they will be in a position to report anything inconsistent with the Student Code of Conduct. That might especially be a good middle ground if the school you are at is not a public school in that private schools aren't so bound by students' constitutional rights.

Emotionally, my response is the same as 33's--this is no business of the school, you are all consenting adults, they should not be sticking their nose in your business. If, however, you feel so inclined to cooperate, the above might be a more palatable option. This is also something you should involve someone from either your group's advisory board in or if you don't have one of those, contact your national HQ.

I have a friend who was the pledge director of her local sorority at Hope College, which only has local fraternities and sororities...and they're very old/well-established. She has told me that their pledge program and ritual had to be submitted and approved the year she was serving in that role, after the administration established stricter guidelines to prevent hazing. She said it was a lot of work to revise everything. I thought it was overstepping, but she didn't seem to think they were out of line in doing this. That's the only time I've ever heard of anything along these lines -- private school, local groups, so I don't think they had a lot of power to say no. However, I don't know how enforceable it was, or how the administration would know if what was approved was actually what happened behind closed doors.

I'm not sure that GSIHH is the best way to phrase it. Depends on how things are in the Student Life heirarchy. How much Alpha Phi Omega has to give the Greek Life office the time of day *really* varies from school to school. I've seen some (especially at the HBCUs) where the Greek Life office is the one that governs Alpha Phi Omega on campus. (One Council for the NPHC, another Council for the "others" APO, GSS, KKY, TBS, etc, both under the Greek Life office.

Also, there is a *lot* of difference to me between asking for the pledge program which I would give the Student Activities Director and the ritual...