I think this article from NMSU says it best about both fraternities reasonings to leave the NIC. As a side note, because of PDT and KS's withdrawl, this would leave 1 of 4 fraternities on campus eligible for IFC membership if the NIC-only rule was in place...we have one local, KappaSig, PhiDelt, and SigEp.
http://www.nmsu.edu/Campus_Life/Stud.../gs/011903.pdf
Two members of the North-American Interfraternity Conference (NIC) have withdrawn their membership effective December 9, 2002. The national councils of Phi Delta Theta and Kappa Sigma decided upon the action mainly because of seriousconcerns about dues and philosophical differences about the direction of the NIC.
According to Charley Pride, Phi Delta Theta National President, "there has been substantial debate over the past six years within the fraternity world, and internally within Phi Delta Theta, about the focus and direction of the North-American Interfraternity Conference. Phi Delta Theta, as a founding member of the NIC, has been passionately involved in that debate. It has been the view of the General Council that NIC has drifted from its primary mission of serving as an advocate for the American college fraternity movement toward one whose central function is to provide educational programming to ou rundergraduates."
The Kappa Sigma Fraternity has withdrawn for similar reasons. Kappa Sigma Executive Director, Mitchell B. Wilson, commented, "It is our belief that the North-American Interfraternity Conference should have focused on serving the member organizations instead of the undergraduate members of the member organizations. As you know, men's college fraternities need a strong advocate who will focus strictly on the establishment of relations with government agencies, to conduct a successful public relations program, to protect the right of association and other constitutional privileges and to assist in supporting men's college fraternities in projects such as acquiring insurance at a reasonable cost."
Another issue for the two fraternities is the decision made at the 2001 NIC meeting to drastically raise dues. Phi Delta Theta dues went from $4,500 to $14,000 a year and the increase came at a time when the fraternity was already unhappy with the direction of the organization. Kappa Sigma's dues were also at least tripled, and Wilson said, "The recent increase in the dues structure of the North-American Interfraternity Conference did not provide equity in services back to our Fraternity and therefore we made the decisionto withdraw from the conference."
Perhaps the biggest concern about the withdrawal of these fraternities from the NICis how it will affect individual chapters and their ability to participate in local IFCs. According to Price, "We will continue to expect all of our chapters to remain membersof their local IFC and we will communicate that message strongly to all of our chapter presidents.While some IFC's may have bylaws that require NIC membership, we feel confident that we can provide language for inclusion in those bylaws that will alleviate those concerns. We don't feel that we should be excluded fromI FC's simply because we have removed the letters NIC from our resume."
The status of Kappa Sigma in the NMSUIFC will not be effected as the IFC removed a clause requiring NIC membership last Spring.
Information for this story was taken from statements released by Phi Delta Theta and Kappa Sigma. The North-American Interfraternity Conference has not released any statement and no information regarding the split was found on its webpage, though both fraternities have been removed from the list of member organizations.