Rush based on religion?

[Nhfulmer]

Originally posted by Peaches-n-Cream
I am sure that religion and race play a role in the recruitment process at some schools and some chapters. It is unfortunate. I don't think that anyone is saying it doesn't happen or is advocating it.

I asked a question and appreciate Nhfulmer's honest response about her experience with rush.

I'm glad to be of help. After the policies had changed somewhat and I was involved in an advisory position, I truly believe that it was not so much discrimination as a deference to the individual rushee's beliefs. Since our rituals are New Testament based, we did not want her to feel as though she had to accept something that she did not believe. I've been associated with a number of Jewish sisters over the years as well as at least one of the Hindu religion and there has never been any discrimination either during rush or after.

I might add that in the 60's even though there were Jewish GLO's, the groups all held mixers without regard to the religious beliefs. Alabama has had a large population of Jewish students for a long time. Many families have attended there for generations. The reason is that a former President, Dr. Denny, recognized that there were students in the North who presented a pool that had not been tapped. Although some universities discriminated, he took out a full page ad in the New York Times saying that the University of Alabama had no quotas. It worked and there have been Jewish families sending their children there ever since.

[AEPhiSierra]

Originally posted by Nhfulmer
I personally have Jewish heritage and had it been known, I would not have been accepted at the time I pledged. (In fact, it was kept from me because of discrimination. I learned of it while I was in college.)

From reading your post I would figure you weren't brought up in the Jewish religion but consider yourself partially Jewish in the ethnic sense. And I can understand if an organization is religious in nature (i.e. partipation in ritual would require belief in the new testament or at least placing value in its message) that they would expect the membership to prescribe to similar beliefs. And by desiring membership or agreeing to join such an organization a member expresses this, yet certain organizations would not in most/many cases extend bids to girls because of their ethnic background despite sharing the values of their organization. Knowing this and especially knowing that you would not have gotten a bid if they knew the "truth" about you (a truth which had little or no affect on you as a person) how could you join/remain a member of this organization.

And while this question was raised by nhfulmer's post it is directed to anyone who joined a GLO's when it had an active discrimination policy (written or unwritten)

[Nhfulmer]

At the time I pledged, I was unaware of any discrimination policy (naive?) and I was not aware of any Jewish heritage. No, I was not raised in a Jewish family. As you know, rituals cannot be changed and, therefore, potential members (or their family) are asked if they could accept New Testament based rituals. I'm sure some have said no after being asked but most have gone ahead and accepted the bid. Times were very different when I pledged and I, for one, am glad that they have changed.

[Bama_Alumna]

I asked around and was told pretty much the same thing that nhfulmer wrote in her post. Jewish rushees attended parties at all houses for the first round, then were allowed to either continue rushing all the houses or were allowed to go back to only the houses they were interested in.

I would also like to interject that in the 10+ years I have been involved with sorority rush at UA, I have witnessed no discrimination based on religion in my chapter, nor have I heard anything about it in any other chapter. There are women of many faiths involved in sororities at Alabama.

[PhiPsiRuss]

When I went to FSU (1985-1989) there were no Jewish sororities, until SDT started in 1989. They folded a few years later mostly because they didn't invest the money in a competitive house, but also, in my opinion, because there was no strong demand for a Jewish sorority. All of the 16 NPC houses had Jewish members.

On the fraternity side, there was only AEPi, and they were very small. All of the fraternities had Jewish members, and there was no strong demand for a Jewish fraternity. I remember that Sigma Chi had a huge stone cross on their front lawn, when I went through rush, and they had a Jewish vice president.

I just went to the fraternity that fit me best, and no one cared that I was Jewish. Some of my most religous Christian brothers would go with me to the Hillel center for holiday services, and I would sometimes go with them to theirs.

My guess is that religion during rush was a very big deal 40+ years ago, but that it hasn't been for quite some time.

[honeychile]

Originally posted by Nhfulmer
At the time I pledged, I was unaware of any discrimination policy (naive?) and I was not aware of any Jewish heritage. No, I was not raised in a Jewish family. As you know, rituals cannot be changed and, therefore, potential members (or their family) are asked if they could accept New Testament based rituals. I'm sure some have said no after being asked but most have gone ahead and accepted the bid. Times were very different when I pledged and I, for one, am glad that they have changed.

I need to say that I was completely naive when I rushed, too - although I did return to one of the "Jewish" sororities for the second round and didn't think twice about it.

When I was a sophmore, and was assisting the Rush Chairman, she started crossing out "Jewish" names before even giving the list out to the sisters. I got angry with her (because I had read our manual and knew this was not policy), and tattled to the Chaper Advisor, who read her the riot act! This was after any official policy, and the Rush Chairman was completely out of line!

[Jill1228]

honeychile, I got 3 words:
YOU GO GIRL!

Originally posted by honeychile
I need to say that I was completely naive when I rushed, too - although I did return to one of the "Jewish" sororities for the second round and didn't think twice about it.

When I was a sophmore, and was assisting the Rush Chairman, she started crossing out "Jewish" names before even giving the list out to the sisters. I got angry with her (because I had read our manual and knew this was not policy), and tattled to the Chaper Advisor, who read her the riot act! This was after any official policy, and the Rush Chairman was completely out of line!

[Tom Earp]

Nan, thanks for the explanation!

I think most of us got it!

Yes, The Ago was The Ago!

Many things have changed over the period of education and time.

The Major Religion and Rasists Membership requirments have gone by the way side. Well, maybe in 99% of the Chapters.

History is history, we all learn from that for the betterment of us all.

And of Course, there were Religious and Racial persacution in many Greek Organizatiosn as of 1965! Oh, I forgot, this is ancient History to some!

[DolphinChicaDDD]

Originally posted by adduncan
I understand that Theta Phi Alpha was founded for similar reasons for Catholic women.

I received a copy of the 1925 edition of Ida Shaw Martin's Sorority Handbook as a gift for inspiration in AI. It's fascinating to see that with all of the "social progress" that had been made at the time, there are little asterisks scattered throughout with footnotes like, "for Catholic women" and "for Jewish women." And absolutely NO mention of AKA, DST, ZPhiB, or SGRho.

Adrienne

Hijack
Yeah Ida Shaw Martian (aka Sarah Ida Shaw, founder of Delta Delta Delta). I want to see a copy of that book, one of these days.
End Hijack


But seriously, I had no idea about the extent of anti-Semitism back in the day. I remember researching different sororities, and having a difficult time of imagining sororities excluding someone based on their religion. I guess I never even thought about it. I am amazed at some of these stories people are sharing about their lives, or their mother's lives.

[DaffyKD]

Originally posted by deadbear80
AUDeltaGam--

...From hearing her stories, she was not allowed to join any of the 'non-Jewish' sororities (limiting her choices to AEPhi, DPhiE, SDT, and PhiSig...they were all on campus at the time...and at that time those four were basically all Jewish there), but she did have to go through rush. What I think happened was that she had to go to all of the houses for the first round, and then was cut by all of the 'non-Jewish' ones. I don't know how the houses knew who was Jewish and who wasn't...but Mom then had her choice of the other 4. .

deadbear80, back in the '60's things were different during rush, especially in the early '60's before activist at schools demanded changes. Asking religion on rush applications was not unusual. Recs were required by most GLO and there was a question regarding religion on the form. HTH

DaffyKD

[Glitter650]

This is very interesting thread and it makes me proud of our lovely ten founders bringing women of different faiths together

I'm just curious ... if that was the policy back then and women could go back to only the "jewish" chapters or only "christian chapters" if they so desired... if there is a Phi Sig chapter on campus... did Phi Sig still participate in the rush with the "christian chpaters" as well..... because our ritual is completely non scripture based... we were founded with the intention of inclusiveness... so where would they put us ? Just out of curiousity since Phi Sig is one of the few NPC that was founded from the start like this....

[adduncan]

I had a talk last night via IM w/ one of my college classmates who was a sorority member during my unfortunate undergrad rush.

We talked about how I was pursuing AI, and she actually remembered my coming through. After this many years, she spilled as to why I was cut heavily:

I came from a predominantly Jewish town. Everyone, therefore ASSumed I was Jewish. According to her, there was a combination of things associated with that. 1) They thought I would object to Christianity in ritual and 2) the predominantly Jewish sororities called "Dibbs" on anyone thought to be Jewish. Imagine her shock when I told her that I was an outcast in that town for being goyim.......

If they had asked, they would have known what my background was - but they weren't allowed to.

This was the mid 1980s, folks.

(Didn't mean to hijak, I am just still reeling from that convo last night, and it fit the thread, so.....)

Adrienne

[wrigley]

Adduncan's rush experience doesn't surprise me. When my best friend from high school went through rush, during the late eighties at a Big Ten university, she was cut from certain houses because when they talked during rush parties about religious backgrounds my friend had to explain herself. She was raised Unitarian Universalist, her dad is Jewish and her mom wasn't. Yes change has come but not as quickly as you all might think.

[AUDeltaGam]

Originally posted by adduncan

(Didn't mean to hijak, I am just still reeling from that convo last night, and it fit the thread, so.....)

Adrienne

Don't worry, you're not hijacking!

[sugar and spice]

Originally posted by adduncan
I had a talk last night via IM w/ one of my college classmates who was a sorority member during my unfortunate undergrad rush.

We talked about how I was pursuing AI, and she actually remembered my coming through. After this many years, she spilled as to why I was cut heavily:

I came from a predominantly Jewish town. Everyone, therefore ASSumed I was Jewish. According to her, there was a combination of things associated with that. 1) They thought I would object to Christianity in ritual and 2) the predominantly Jewish sororities called "Dibbs" on anyone thought to be Jewish. Imagine her shock when I told her that I was an outcast in that town for being goyim.......

If they had asked, they would have known what my background was - but they weren't allowed to.

This was the mid 1980s, folks.

(Didn't mean to hijak, I am just still reeling from that convo last night, and it fit the thread, so.....)

Adrienne

Unfortunately I'm sure stuff like this still happens at some schools.

At my school, where lots of the girls going through rush are Jewish, you can pinpoint a number of them via some combination of last name, geography, looks, and other miscellaneous factors -- I remember during rush this year while we were reading through the recs that some of the girls had sent in and when one of the girls' extracurricular activities were read off, two of the Jewish girls in our house immediately squealed, "Yay, she's Jewish!" The rest of us had no idea what they were talking about, but apparently one of her activities was some sort of Jewish youth leadership group.

I think that at this point every house has at least a couple Jewish members so there's no way that blatant religious discrimination would take place. But I'm pretty sure that there was a point in our none-too-distant past where it did, probably much in the way you described your experience, Adrienne. And even these days if you're presumed to be Jewish and you don't look interested at a rush party, people will start to assume that you only want to go AEPhi or SDT and that that is your way of showing it -- so if you're clearly Jewish and you're not only interested in primarily Jewish houses, you usually have to go out of your way to show it.