Question About Old NPC Rules

[amIblue?]

Perhaps if you explained what you're trying to accomplish, we could give you a better answer.

[IndianaSigKap]

Originally Posted by sororitygirll

Potentially they would be willing to help promote us with a page in a recruitment guide, and I guess that's a conversation for another thread. Thank you!

Actually, this is a very good idea. I believe that the Alabama recruitment guide gives a two page spread to both Alpha Delta Chi and Sigma Delta Tau, neither of which participates in formal recruitment. I wouldn't see why the Panhellenic recruitment information couldn't include your chapter information and mention that you hold recruitment separately. Contact your school's Panhellenic and see if this is possible.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by sororitygirll

All that is true, and I don't deny that formal recruitment when you can only take 1/3 of the PNMs anyway is silly. Potentially they would be willing to help promote us with a page in a recruitment guide, and I guess that's a conversation for another thread, but I'm actually interested in the history: when did NPC establish the rule that no nationally-/offically-double discriminatory (let's just call it that and consider being female and fulltime to be a single requirement since it's the standard now) organization can participate in formal recruitment? I would have thought it would have been earlier than the 1960s, but I guess not.

Thank you!

At Illinois, some of the non-NPC groups had info sessions during open houses. So, there were 20 chapters, but 23 rounds, and the last three rounds were info sessions for six chapters (they split them up) in rooms in the union. But that's a LOT of time to put into talking to women who are probably pretty set on NPC.

[naraht]

Theta Phi Alpha was the *last* of the NPC members to discriminate. (On non-Catholic campuses they only took Catholic Women). This was removed in 1968.

I'm not familiar with any NPC sororities that discriminated by Major.

[AZTheta]

Originally Posted by naraht

Theta Phi Alpha was the *last* of the NPC members to discriminate. (On non-Catholic campuses they only took Catholic Women). This was removed in 1968.

I'm not familiar with any NPC sororities that discriminated by Major.

You need to go way, way back (to the 1870-1900 years).

[Titchou]

In 1963 AEPhi, DPhiE and SDT all had their own recruitments at Alabama. Everyone would go to all the houses on the first day and then all the Jewish women would go only to those 3 houses for the remainder of recruitment. I don't know when that changed but would imagine by 1970 or so

[33girl]

Originally Posted by naraht

Theta Phi Alpha was the *last* of the NPC members to officially discriminate. (On non-Catholic campuses they only took Catholic Women). This was removed in 1968.

I'm not familiar with any NPC sororities that discriminated by Major.

FYP.

Also, does that mean if a non-Catholic was attending a Catholic college, they could join?

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by 33girl

FYP.

Also, does that mean if a non-Catholic was attending a Catholic college, they could join?

How many officially discriminated? I know it wasn't uncommon among the fraternities, and many of them only removed discriminatory clauses within the last 50-75 years.

[lake]

Originally Posted by Titchou

In 1963 AEPhi, DPhiE and SDT all had their own recruitments at Alabama. Everyone would go to all the houses on the first day and then all the Jewish women would go only to those 3 houses for the remainder of recruitment. I don't know when that changed but would imagine by 1970 or so

Did a Jewish woman have the option to go through "regular" recruitment at that time, or was that discouraged? Or was it something that just had never been done? Do you know of any Jewish women who may have attempted to go through "regular" rush and were/were not successful?

[glittergal1985]

Originally Posted by 33girl

FYP.

Also, does that mean if a non-Catholic was attending a Catholic college, they could join?

Only Catholic women were considered for membership, regardless of the college's religious affiliation.

[naraht]

Originally Posted by 33girl

FYP.

Also, does that mean if a non-Catholic was attending a Catholic college, they could join?

Not sure in which way you fixed my post. Please explain further.

[naraht]

Originally Posted by glittergal1985

Only Catholic women were considered for membership, regardless of the college's religious affiliation.

Theta Phi Alpha had a time where due to the President of Creighton University's insistence they allowed non-Catholic women at Catholic Universities and only Catholic women at non-Catholic Universities. So all women at Creighton and only Catholics at U of Michigan. This ended in 1968. I'm working from the Theta Phi Alpha history book here.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by naraht

Not sure in which way you fixed my post. Please explain further.

TPA may have been the last to have something in their policies but I'm sure there were chapters out there where it was an unwritten rule that this or that religion was not welcome long after that.

[sugar and spice]

Originally Posted by naraht

Not sure in which way you fixed my post. Please explain further.

She added the word "officially," meaning that discrimination in many organizations went on past the point where official clauses were removed. (I know that a former poster here talked about a family friend who was African-American and pledged an organization in the early '70s where there was pressure from nationals to depledge her, for example.) For some organizations, there's a difference between the years when organizations removed their discriminatory clauses and the years where the national board actually stopped trying to enforce it.

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

How many officially discriminated? I know it wasn't uncommon among the fraternities, and many of them only removed discriminatory clauses within the last 50-75 years.

I've been trying to find this information for years, and it's surprisingly hard to dig up unless you've got access to all the official documents at headquarters. I know that in the book Bound by a Mighty Vow, the author said that Theta didn't have any written policies (but of course they had unwritten ones). She also cited a 1926 survey of the 17 NPC members stated that 5 of them had official Protestants-only policies. She even mentions that a few chapters kept non-Christians to a percentage of the chapter or even an actual number limit! And information on which organizations had official race-related discrimination policies is even harder to find.

I think a lot of the sororities have refused to confess their previous whites-only/Protestants-only policies out of embarrassment. And they should be embarrassed about it--but I don't think there's any reason why they should be more embarrassed than the organizations who didn't have written policies but did have unwritten ones. (Which, uh, is basically all of them.) Nobody's hands are clean in this--even the historically Jewish groups tended to discriminate against less assimilated, more "foreign" Jewish girls. I don't think that the existence of official policies signifies much--I'm just interested in it from the standpoint of historical curiosity. I wish the groups would put it out there.

[tcsparky]

I would guess that many organizations don't reveal past membership criteria because, even if it is in the past, it is still membership selection information. This would have been shared only with initiated sisters then, and would most likely only be shared with initiates now.