Students with Disabilities and Greek life acceptance and access

[33girl]

Most people don't get bids when they're going through rush a third time as a senior.

Saying that you were "denied" a bid shows an unwillingness to understand that rush is a mutual selection process - as if a bid is something that someone owes you. We have no idea how she conducted herself during rush or anything like that. This article is completely one-sided.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by 33girl

Most people don't get bids when they're going through rush a third time as a senior.

Saying that you were "denied" a bid shows an unwillingness to understand that rush is a mutual selection process - as if a bid is something that someone owes you. We have no idea how she conducted herself during rush or anything like that. This article is completely one-sided.

Actually, the last half of it is quite the opposite. There's one person's belief that her lack of a bid is based on her disability, a discussion of the difficulties she had with Rush due to the inaccessibility (which is the school's/panhel's fault IMO), why ADA doesn't apply to Greek houses, how they're working to upgrade them anyway, and one person's experience as a fraternity brother with a disability- he still has trouble sometimes, and awkward moments, but his brothers are supportive of him.

[dukedg]

I find this article to be poorly investigated. The Delta Gamma house at UC Berkeley is wheelchair-accessible and has been since a DG member became disabled after joining. (This happened some time prior to 2000, when I started advising there.) The house has a ramp to the front door and has a bedroom on the main floor of the house that was especially built for that member and available for use by any member or guest who cannot make it up the stairs to the two higher floors.

Furthermore, I distinctly remember a PNM coming through recruitment while I was an adviser there (so some time between 2000 and 2006) who was in a wheelchair. She made it very far in the recruitment process with DG and I believe she did receive a bid to a sorority (though I'm not sure if she accepted/initiated/later deactivated, since she did not join DG).

It is much more likely in my opinion, and this is coming from someone who sat in on those MS meetings for the other PNM, that this girl was not a good fit for any of the sororities on campus, with or without her disability. The conclusion reached by this PNM (and minimally implied by the article) -- that by not receiving a bid the third time through recruitment shows the sororities discrimination against her -- shows poor logic.