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Re copyright laws -- using brief quotes in a book review or in a journalistic/commentary piece is practically the definition of fair use. Point me to the page if I missed one, but I didn't notice any quotes from sorority publications that were longer than a paragraph, and most were only a sentence or two. That shouldn't cause the publisher any legal headaches.
It is a fact that this kind of global silence is very unusual for prominent organizations with thousands of members, be they corporations, universities, charitable foundations, churches, etc. Yes, rules that only certain high officers can speak to the press are very common in such organizations...but it is not common for those high officers to categorically refuse to grant interviews, the way sorority officers shut out Ms. Robbins. When officers DO refuse to speak, that decision, rightly or wrongly, often carries an aura of guilt. (Think about episodes of 20/20 where the story concludes: "Officers of Acme Tobacco refused to comment" or "Mr. Smith never returned our phone calls.")
I was trying to come up with a good comparison, and college admissions offices have a lot in common with GLOs when it comes to their relationship with the press, I think. Their selection procedures are confidential; they are acutely sensitive to the fact that negative press hurts recruitment; isolated scandals lead to a lot of bad press that hurts everyone; there's a great deal of public interest and controversy surrounding their operation; only the dean or chair is allowed to give interviews; etc. But unless reporters seek information about individual candidates, they will usually get an interview with someone authorized to speak and receive a lot of information about the requested topic. If Princeton admissions answered press inquiries with a curt "Membership selection is private," or worse, silence, they'd catch a lot of flak.
Needless to say, NPC organizations are private and they can speak or not speak as they wish. But it's inevitable that if you don't speak, people will wonder what you're hiding and pay more attention to detractors who try to speak for you. I think it's worth discussing the possibility that the policy of silence actually makes the problem of negative press worse.
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