No privacy or freedom of expression issue here. No privacy issue because they aren't intruding into things that you'd like to keep private, they are asking you to be more private (and you don't have a good argument that a person has a reasonable expectation to keep a public facebook profile private FROM the sorority). No freedom of expression issue because your sorority is not the government. Private companies and associations can create terms of membership or employment that require you to refrain from doing something they don't like as a term of membership or employment. They only cross the line into something that is possibly against the law when they discriminate based on a protected right or class (e.g. they tell you not to vote, they tell you that you cannot go to your church, etc.). For better or worse, the right to consume a substance and publicize that use, whether legal or illegal, has never been given the type of legal protection that race, gender, religion, or the right to vote has. (Caveat: some peyote users in Oregon who tried to say their use (non-publicized) was protected as a religious practice made a particularly good argument about it... but they lost).
I think that your best bet is to appeal the issue with your sorority. Talk to them about the hassle of making sure everyone is complying with the rules in a world of daily/weekly updates to profiles. Also, think of what it will sound like to PNMs that hear that the sorority will tell you what you can put on your facebook profile. You won't be able to tell them exactly what rules exist and why if the gossip is out there (they'll just believe it). Perhaps a compromise is to require that IF your profile publicly mentions the GLO name that then any other PUBLIC photos (not ones hidden to friends only) will contain no alcohol.
Last edited by skylark; 02-25-2008 at 03:41 PM.
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