I "think" that the Freedom of Association Act doesn't allow the school to discriminate against people that would like to associate with Greek organizations versus something else.
In this case the administration is singling out Greeks and not other organizations in delaying their right to associate.
Or at least thats the argument that the Executive Director of DKE was making when I spoke to him. He had something to do with the Act's passage.
Also related is the Supreme Court Case: Healey versus James
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/script...=408&invol=169
In this case the Supreme Court upheld the government's tendency to rule to not limit rights of association as applied to "unpopular organizations."
In this case these organiztions are already recognized but the administration is seeking to restrict the student's ability to associate because Greek life is currently unpopular.
One semester doesn't seem bad, but extended into a llogical absurdity the college could then defer Rush to sophomore year or even senior year.
Everyone needs to step up and just say . . thank you for the input but no.
Not that I expect the organizations in question to have the courage to do so.
They will probably release some statement about how eager they are to work with the administration and in a semester or two have some rationalization about how they are better off with deferred recruitment.
In other words they will just keep their heads down and hope someone else gets chopped.