Greek Discrimination

DRau · #1 11-04-2002, 10:25 PM

A horrible thing happened today and I just wanted some advice/thoughts from you guys.

For those of you who have been following the 'Rush at UCSC' thread, you know that Greeks are not supported at all at Santa Cruz. I could go on and on about this, but even though there are 14 groups encompassing 350 students (about 3% of UCSC Undergrads), they get no funding, no resources, no recognition outside 'student organization' and no full-time Greek Advisor. I am a grad. student who is serving as a Greek Affairs Intern part-time, and I knew that this bias existed when I started in July. Well, some great things have been happening and I was really starting to see things look up, and then I came into work today.

The newly formed Inter-Greek Council was granted cubicle space in the new Student Union, and for the first time the 'Office of Greek Affairs' had it's own phone line and computer. About 15 other orgs. have space in the Student Union (including 5 that actually have closed-door office space), as well the the Student Union Assembly which is the Student Government on campus so there is a lot of students flowing through at all times.

Anywat, our IGC President went by the cubicle this morning to leave me a message only to discover that someone had torn down all our posters, ripped down flyers and scattered my papers all over the desk. In addition, the one binder I have on the desk, the NPC Green Book, was thrown across the cubicle and a bunch of pages were bent.

I was irrate when I found out, and when I went looking to see if anyone had seen or heard anything, all I got were shrugged shoulders. Hello! How could someone trash an open cubicle and have no one see or hear?

This just makes me so angry because I have never seen a prejudice against Greeks like this! I mean, not everyone likes Greeks and thats fine, different strokes for different folks, but this is just flat out wrong. For a campus that everyone thinks is so liberal, some people are so closed-minded and so quick to judge it makes me sick.

Sorry for the vent, just had to get it out.

breathesgelatin · #2 11-04-2002, 10:45 PM

wow... i am so surprised that somone would resort to vandalism. boo.

33girl · #3 11-04-2002, 11:20 PM

that is the most psycho thing I've ever heard....

question is, has this ever been done to any other org on campus, and if so, what were the repercussions? I wouldn't let this one die till I got some answers.

Kevin · #4 11-05-2002, 01:33 AM

How childish. Perhaps they feel their way of life is being threatened or something. Perhaps you could focus on improving the external image of Greek Life. This seems to be an indication that people (or at least a person) has very STRONG negative perceptions about greek life.

QT Pie · #5 11-05-2002, 01:57 AM

I'm sorry to hear about what happened! Is there a campus security contact that you can talk to about this? It wouldn't hurt just to get a report written up about the vandalism. In the meanwhile, maybe you could round up a bunch of Greeks who can go by the dorms and some student orgs just to talk about who they are, what they do, and conduct a question/answer session. And maybe if the non-Greeks just got to know some of you, they would feel less intimidated by "people with letters" and this anti-Greek sentiment would die down. Good luck!

SATX*APhi · #6 11-05-2002, 02:34 AM

ooh, someone messed with one of my sisters! That is definitely not cool. I am sorry to hear that that happened. QT Pie gave some great advice. Hopefull you all can do something like that. I hope that things get better!

josh8o · #7 11-05-2002, 02:47 AM

oh my god. that is fucking retarded. i know how santa cruz can be, but you would think that people would have some respect for their fellow students. there are so many freaky people in sc and you would think that they would accept people who are different than them because they are so different than the majority of college students. anyway, that sucks, and i hope things get better for you.

LeslieAGD · #8 11-05-2002, 05:26 PM

This is so wrong and you have every right to be furious!

Does the Union have security cameras?

dzrose93 · #9 11-05-2002, 05:59 PM

I'm so sorry to hear about this!

Grown idiots never cease to amaze me.

I'd report the episode to the school newspaper and have them do a write-up about it. In addition to letting the whole campus know how small-minded some of your fellow students are, you may be able to get some free positive publicity about Greek Life from the article as well.