Dual Membership?

[Senusret I]

We're all here to learn.

If anyone has any specific resources that they feel I should turn to, feel free to send me a private message with some starting points.

In turn, I can direct anyone who is interested to the specific wording of Title IX.

peace

[SoTrue1920]

Fuzzie and Kelli -

Yes, Iota and Kappa are members of both the NPHC and NIC - but those are entire organizations. I was referring to individual members.

Dardenr: Interesting theory about Zeta and Sigma, but I'm fairly certain that isn't the case. Hopefully a soror or Sigma brother will correct me if I'm mistaken.

Now, from my reading of the TitleIX regulations, I saw this:
http://www.dol.gov/dol/oasam/public/...es/titleix.htm


Section 1681. Sex

(a) Prohibition against discrimination; exceptions. No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance, except that:


(6) Social fraternities or sororities; voluntary youth service organizations

this section shall not apply to membership practices --

(A) of a social fraternity or social sorority which is exempt from taxation under section 501(a) of Title 26, the active membership of which consists primarily of students in attendance at an institution of higher education, or

(B) of the Young Men's Christian Association, Young Women's Christian Association; Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, and voluntary youth service organizations which are so exempt, the membership of which has traditionally been limited to persons of one sex and principally to persons of less than nineteen years of age;

----
So it would seem that NPHC organizations might fall under Section 6B of Title IX, because we are voluntary youth service organizations (at the collegiate level). This is such a gray area. What probably happens on most college campuses is that in order to keep NPHC organizations exempt from Title IX, University administrations think of them as social organizations. However, all NPHC organizations were founded upon a rubric of community service. How the university thinks of us and how we think of ourselves are two separate arguments.

[SoTrue1920]

Originally posted by FuzzieAlum
Well, whether or not any of the orgs have rules strictly to this effect, would you as a member of a NPHC, NPC or NIC group even consider pledging someone who was a member or another one of those groups? I don't think many of us would - for any number of reasons. If nothing else, being a good member of any of these groups puts a lot of constraint on a member's time, and it would be difficult to live up to both obligations.

I think I'd consider extending membership to a person to whom this applied, but then, I can actually see the reasons why someone might want to do this in the first place.

Being in a band or arts fraternity or sorority is every bit as much as a time constraint as being in a service/social sorority or fraternity, but no one thinks twice of extending membership to someone who's really involved in such an organization. Additionally, what if someone wanted to join an NPC/NIC or an NPHC organization as an alumnus? Would it be as big of an issue then?

[CutiePie2000]

Originally posted by SoTrue1920
Additionally, what if someone wanted to join an NPC/NIC or an NPHC organization as an alumnus? Would it be as big of an issue then?

From the NPC perspective, generally speaking, alumnae initiations are pretty rare. Also, I should emphasize that for an NPC Prospective alumna initiate, the woman in question must be sponsored by an alumna member in good standing (or the local alumnae chapter) and then be extended an invitation to join.

Once initiated, an NPC alumna initiate has the same rights and privileges that she would have had, if she'd been initiated as a collegian.

I don't know if it would be as big of an issue joining as an alum.
Is it a regular occurence for NPHC women to be initiated as alums? I can tell you that for NPC alum ladies, most of them are like, "Alumnae Initiates? What's that?", but then often times, the women who are serving as the House Mothers will be alumnae initiated.


I would be interested in emailing both the NPC and the NPHC to get the definitive answer. I do know where the NPC website is. Can someone please post the link to the NPHC website? I looked on the each of the Divine 9 websites to see if there was a link to the Central NPHC website and did not have any luck (unless I missed it and did not see it). www.nphc.com is North Phoenix Heart Center and www.nphc.org is an empty domain. Going to Yahoo and typing in "National Pan-Hellenic Council" did not bear fruit either.

If I get the definitive, official answer, I would be pleased to share it.

[FuzzieAlum]

Being in a band or arts fraternity or sorority is every bit as much as a time constraint as being in a service/social sorority or fraternity, but no one thinks twice of extending membership to someone who's really involved in such an organization. Additionally, what if someone wanted to join an NPC/NIC or an NPHC organization as an alumnus? Would it be as big of an issue then?

You're right, and there are Greeks who are in sports, etc. But I think that NPHC and NPC/NIC groups, despite their differences, make fairly similar demands on one's time. Sororities and fraternities schedule their events around the events of the members (one reason the chapters on my campus had chapter meetings on Sunday nights - no one's at a track meet, or meeting with the young democrats, or putting on a school play then) and thus end up doing things at the same time as each other. I would imagine that a member, say, of an NPHC group and an NPC group would frequently find herself expected to be in two places at once.

So I guess I didnt' mean the total time so much as how it was allocated.

Plus, there are other things - as an AXD, I am expected to wear "no other badge" higher than my Quill or at the same height. I don't know, do NPHC groups have similar policies? What would the member do with her badges, never wear them at the same time?

Is it a regular occurence for NPHC women to be initiated as alums? I can tell you that for NPC alum ladies, most of them are like, "Alumnae Initiates? What's that?", but then often times, the women who are serving as the House Mothers will be alumnae initiated.

NPHC groups don't have alumni initiation in the same way NPC and NIC groups do. Once you graduate college, you join a grad chapter, and being active is more expected than it is with NIC/NPC groups. You can join a grad chapter post-graduation, but it wouldn't be called "joining as an alum," and it's way more common.

Does that help? I'm not an expert on NPHC groups myself, so forgive me if I got something wrong.

[Texas_Dove]

The link to the National Pan-Hellenic Council website is http://www.nphchq.org

I hope this helps.


Texas_Dove

[CutiePie2000]

Originally posted by Texas_Dove
The link to the National Pan-Hellenic Council website is http://www.nphchq.org
I hope this helps.
Texas_Dove

Terrific! Thank you! Will compose the emails tonight when I have a moment to reflect how I want to word them....

[Shelacious]

Statement of Purpose

The purpose of the NPHC shall be to foster cooperative actions of its members in dealing with matters of mutual concern. To this end, the NPHC promotes the well-being of its affiliate fraternities and sororities, facilitates the establishment and development of local councils of the NPHC and provides leadership training for its constituents.


The NPHC is not a regulatory arm. It is a collaborative entity created to facilitate communication between the historically black Greek lettered organizations. As such, the NPHC would not (or rather should not) necessarily have an official position on dual NPHC/NIC/NPC membership, because it would be the individual organizations that would determine that for their individual organization. For example, even when the eight (then) members of the NPHC decided to institute the MIP (membership intake process) and abandon the activities surrounding pledging, the NPHC had no control over what activities each individual member organization did to constitute its MIP. Therefore, what Kappa Alpha Psi does for its MIP is very different than what Phi Beta Sigma does to initiate new members, but both are considered MIPs.

Fuzzie Alum and CutiePie:
I would actually think that SoTrue's hypothetical would be more relevant the other way around: What if a black, white, Asian or Latina woman had pledged Alpha Gamma Delta, for example as an undergrad, and maybe 10, 15 years after graduation was sponsored and decided to join Zeta Phi Beta (since most NPHC groups have folks joining in their 20-70s, it's not uncommon for a new member to join decades after their undergrad experiences). While I assume that once you're an Alpha Gam, you're always an Alpha Gam, maybe you've since decided to be now very active in a sorority, and you decide that Zeta is active in your community, you like the women, yada, yada. The question she was asking, I guess: do the "rules" prohibit you as an Alpha Gam from joining Zeta without "depledging" or "denouncing" your Alpha Gam membership?

[dzrose93]

Originally posted by Shelacious
[B] The question she was asking, I guess: do the "rules" prohibit you as an Alpha Gam from joining Zeta without "depledging" or "denouncing" your Alpha Gam membership? [/color]

I'm fairly certain that an Alpha Gam sister wanting to join Zeta Phi Beta would be frowned upon. The reason I say this is because, once initiated, a member of an NPC sorority is not allowed to join another NPC sorority, regardless of whether or not she denounces her membership in her original organization. Now, I know that Zeta is an NPHC org and not an NPC one, but to me the rules should still apply...

My rationalization for saying this is because, basically, when you get initiated into an NPC organization you are considered to be a lifelong member of that group. Should you at any time decide to leave the organization, you are not allowed to join another NPC sorority -- not as an alumna or a collegiate.

I would think that the same would hold true of an NPHC organization also if a situation ever came up where an initiated NPC member pursued membership in an NPHC group (or vice versa). There may not be a written rule in Panhellenic currently outlawing that from happening, but it's probably because the issue has never been brought to the National Panhellenic Council's attention. (I'd really like to know if this has ever come up!)

This is a really interesting thread! I've always considered NPHC and NPC sororities to be equal entities, so it never entered my mind that someone might want to join one organization of each group.

[CutiePie2000]

Originally posted by Shelacious
The question she was asking, I guess: do the "rules" prohibit you as an Alpha Gam from joining Zeta without "depledging" or "denouncing" your Alpha Gam membership? [/color]

Shelacious,
Since the NPC rules only apply to the 26 NPC groups, I have never read anything that states that it is not permissible to be initiated as an Alpha Gamma Delta collegian and they say, 15, 20 years later be permitted to join Zeta Phi Beta (if invited), since ZPhiB is not in the 26 NPC roups.
Since Zeta Phi Beta is not one of the NPC 26, I don't think a woman would have to renounce her AGD vows as she wouldn't really be breaking an NPC rule of being iniated into a 2nd NPC org.
(I should emphasize that if a woman renounces her membership in AGD, she can never re-join AGD, nor any other NPC org. Once you've borne witness to an Initiation Ceremony, that's it, you've used up your 1 NPC "chance").

The only explicit "no-no" that I know of and have read about would, again, to be initiated into Alpha Gamma Delta and then say, try to join Chi Omega or Kappa Kappa Gamma or something, because you can only be permitted to be initiated into 1 and 1 only, of the 26 NPC groups. But that's not what we are talking about, so I will jump back to the topic at hand....

I guess since there is this absence of things being explicitly written down vis a vis the NPC + NPHC membership quandry, we have to sort of draw conclusions about being an initiate of an NPC and an NPHC. There is a lot of grey area here, for sure...
This is a good thread....good discussion

[12dn94dst]

Since, as Shelacious said, the NPHC is not a regualtory arm, there is no "NPHC rule" that would be broken per se. HOWEVER, as I stated (I thought) when I replied, it is against the rules of Delta for a woman to be a member of an NPC group AND Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. IN OTHER WORDS, it would be up to the rules of the individual NPHC orgs whether or not this is permitted.

SoTrue1920, I know u meant individuals.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

There is a lot of debate on this thread about rules and technicalities, but IMHO it boils down to one simple thing:

I took an oath of allegiance to my sorority. Period.

[SoTrue1920]

Originally posted by FuzzieAlum

Plus, there are other things - as an AXD, I am expected to wear "no other badge" higher than my Quill or at the same height. I don't know, do NPHC groups have similar policies? What would the member do with her badges, never wear them at the same time?


NPHC groups don't have alumni initiation in the same way NPC and NIC groups do. Once you graduate college, you join a grad chapter, and being active is more expected than it is with NIC/NPC groups. You can join a grad chapter post-graduation, but it wouldn't be called "joining as an alum," and it's way more common.

Without going into too much detail, I'll use my experience as an example: I was told there are only very specific times that we are ever to wear our official badge, and since those times would never coincide, this wouldn't be an issue.

And a slight correction: joining an NPHC sorority post-collegiate is called "going grad" or "joining a grad chapter", but it has the same meaning as "joining as an alum", even though the words are different. Potato, potahto.

[AKA2D '91]

SOME of the NPHCers use "alumnae" which is like saying "grad" or "joining a grad"

"Grad" equals graduate

[SoTrue1920]

No one's questioning your allegiance, DeltaBetaBaby, or anyone else's. This isn't a matter of allegiance (at least I didn't think of it that way when I initally posed the question).

Just because you swear allegiance to one entity, it doesn't mean you can't swear allegiance to another. Think of immigrants who hold dual citizenship - when I become a Canadian citizen in four years, I'll have to swear allegiance to Canada, but it doesn't mean that I've given up my rights and freedoms as an American.

Originally posted by DeltaBetaBaby
There is a lot of debate on this thread about rules and technicalities, but IMHO it boils down to one simple thing:

I took an oath of allegiance to my sorority. Period.