Historial Racial/Religious restriction research

[naraht]

Does anyone have any suggestions on research materials on the various *official* racial and religious membership restrictions for the various NIC, NPC and NPHC fraternities.

For example: Did Alpha Tau Omega ever require that members be Christian? If so, when did that end. Did it ever require that members be Northern European? If so, when did that end and did it expand to allowing all Europeans first?

If there wasn't a written policy, was it known but unwritten?

I'm not specifically looking for Alpha Tau Omega, but on all of the NIC/NPC/NPHC. However, someone has to have done this research before, right?

Randy

[33girl]

The best way to find it is to look in old Baird's Manuals. The older they are, the more likely they are to come straight out and say it.

[Kevin]

I believe we required members to be white until 1968. As you might recall, there was a rather public flap about it a few years ago between CNN President, Tom Johnson and Sen. Trent Lott. The latter opposed the measure removing the race clause and actually managed to be part of the movement which defeated it at the Grand Chapter prior to the Grand Chapter in which the race restriction was done away with. For a short time, our Dartmouth chapter left the organization because of this.

[naraht]

Originally Posted by Kevin

I believe we required members to be white until 1968. As you might recall, there was a rather public flap about it a few years ago between CNN President, Tom Johnson and Sen. Trent Lott. The latter opposed the measure removing the race clause and actually managed to be part of the movement which defeated it at the Grand Chapter prior to the Grand Chapter in which the race restriction was done away with. For a short time, our Dartmouth chapter left the organization because of this.

Thank you for the information on Sigma Nu. Sigma Nu actually has some history of its change in its entry in Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigma_nu#Civil_Rights_era). Wikipedia says the national conventions that changed it was in 1967. What I'd like to see is how the bylaws were written back in the 1950.

Randy

[Senusret I]

Randy, I will have to read through one of my history books for APhiA, but I'll post when I get to it.

[Preston327]

Phi Delta Theta originally restricted membership to "white persons of full Aryan blood" but after WWII there was strong opposition to this clause for obvious reasons. It finally got struck in 1954.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by naraht

Thank you for the information on Sigma Nu. Sigma Nu actually has some history of its change in its entry in Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigma_nu#Civil_Rights_era). Wikipedia says the national conventions that changed it was in 1967. What I'd like to see is how the bylaws were written back in the 1950.

Randy

You might send an email to our HQ requesting that information from the Grand Historian. He'd probably help you out. I know who that used to be, but I don't think he's doing that anymore.

Also, if you have access to a news article database, look for some news articles from a few years ago regarding Senator Trent Lott and Sigma Nu.

I did have the pleasure to meet and discuss the two conventions (the one where the new rules failed to pass and the one where they did) with one of our alums (who I think is now deceased) who attended those two Grand Chapters and every one since. If there's anything I can help you with on your research pertaining to my organization, I'd be delighted to help you out.

It's a subject which brings up mixed feelings for me. There was definitely a culture of racial exclusion back in those days and we were and are a fairly 'southern' oriented fraternity. It must have taken a lot of courage for some of those brothers in 1965 and 1967 to challenge the status quo and eventually succeed. I seem to recall that the 1967 vote only passed by either a single vote or an extremely slim margin (out of hundreds of delegates).

[Munchkin03]

I remember starting a thread years ago about discriminatory clauses, but I think it was specific to sororities. If I'm not mistaken, the basic jist of the thread was that the fraternities' clauses were explicit, but that most of the sororities did NOT have discriminatory clauses and they were indeed more implicit in their exclusion of Blacks/Jews/Catholics/fill-in-the-blank! than the fraternities were.

I've mentioned this before, but I wrote my senior thesis about the postwar architectural program of my college. Part of that involved moving the fraternities on-campus and one of the factors in that was the discriminatory clauses that forbade Jews and Catholics. I'll see what I can find on that and pass it your way.

[Gusteau]

Since you're interested in the language of by-laws:

"Male white students in any university or college having a chapter of the Delta Chi Fraternity, who are pursuing studies in, law, liberal arts, journalism, commerce, or finance, by whatever name such courses may be known, who have paid the "XX" per capita tax, Delta Chi Quarterly tax and one dollar for the Fraternity shingle, are eligible for membership in the Delta Chi Fraternity; provided such persons are not candidates for any degree in any subject other than those above named; and provided further that a chapter having 25 per cent of its active members in law or bona-fide pre-legal coursed, may initiate students into the Fraternity who are not eligible as above, to the extent that such members shall not, at any time exceed 25 per cent of the entire membership of the chapter." (1921)

This essentially made Delta Chi a generally fraternity, in 1922 they cut out the course limitations officially making us a general social fraternity: "Male white students in any university or college having a chapter of the Delta Chi Fraternity."

The "white" restriction was eliminated in 1954.