Question About Old NPC Rules
 

Hi,

I'm part of a chapter which is only an associate member of my school's Panhellenic council. We've been told we can never be a full member/participate in formal recruitment (on our campus, let's not even consider national level here) because we double discriminate (meaning, we have major requirements for girls, other ones I know have religious requirements). Recently, I learned that Theta Phi Alpha, when it joined NPC, only allowed Catholic women. Does anyone know if Theta Phi Alpha was allowed to participate in formal recruitment before then? If so, did NPC not have the no double-discrimination rule back then? Does this rule even exist today?

Thank you! I'd be curious to see what any of you come up with.

Are you in a NPC group?

What are your requirements?

If the majority of women going through formal rush are not going to meet them, it would be a waste of both your and their time for your group to participate in the whole of formal rush. What's in or not in the rule books has very little to do with it.

I'm assuming she is in a group such as Alpha Delta Chi or Alpha Omega Epsilon (examples of religious/major requirements). At my campus the associate groups came to kickoff, but recruited separately after formal recruitment.

As far as TPA goes, I'm not sure what year you're basing the info on, but I believe almost all of the groups had religion restrictions at some point in their history (except for maybe DPhiE), though that has since fallen out of practice (essentially). If you're looking at info from the early 1900s or possibly even later, you have to remember it was a different time back then.

When I attended a Phi Sigma Simga extension presentation, the reps explained that their organization was founded by a group of women who would normally have had to rush separately due to their different religions. This is obviously not the case with NPC groups today. I believe Alpha Epsilon Phi and Sigma Delta Tau are the only ones which currently maintain an active religious identity (correct me if I'm wrong) although they still accept members of all religions. Based on your situation and like others have said, I wouldn't waste time participating fully in formal recruitment with NPC groups if the majority of PNMs are automatically ineligible for membership in your sorority.

If you are not an NPC group, NPC rules don't apply to you in any way. Some college panhellenics allow non-NPC groups to participate in recruitment in one way or another, and sometimes that is mandated by a greek life office, but there are pros and cons both for your group and the NPC chapters. Are you trying to participate like a full member? Or just trying to do an info session at some point?

Thank you for your responses! I know right when NPC was founded many sororities had religious restrictions, but Theta Phi Alpha didn't join NPC until the 50s and the restriction wasn't raised until the 60s. I was more wondering when NPC installed the double discrimination rule and where it is stated to fact-check our procedure. I expect the information we were told is correct, so I'm not really trying to change anything, but I do want to make sure this is the case. You're all right, in the case of major restriction (and religious, although that's less of an divisive factor at some schools) going through formal recruitment where many girls would be automatically cut doesn't really make sense. I was just surprised when I heard this about Theta Phi Alpha in relatively recent history.

Thank you!

Historically, recruitment was not always run the way it is today, with everyone attending the first round then the pool for each chapter getting narrowed in each invitation round after that. At many schools, parties were invitation-only from the start, with the rushee sending regrets if she had more invites than she could accept. Those who did not 'qualify' for membership due to a religious restriction would generally not receive an invitation at all to those sororities from the very start.

There are still campuses where the historically Jewish sororities maintain that identity with their membership even though at the national level they maintain open membership policies. In the situations I am aware of where this is the case, those chapters either participate in all rounds but winnow their invite list down dramatically by the first invitational round, or do not participate in recruitment at all (except possibly an infomational session during the first round or pre-recruitment tabling) then do informal after recruitment has ended. I also believe there might be some alternative membership sororities that are not religiously-based who participate at a similar level in formal recruitments. Perhaps the 4H sorority at Illinois?

As others have mentioned, it's a waste of time for both your members and the PNMs at your school for your organization to fully participate in recruitment. Perhaps your Greek Life office would be amenable to an information session or adding a page about you in the recruitment guide if they publish one?

What exactly do you mean by double discriminate?

No, 4H members are selected outside of the formal recruitment process, though they do have a full vote in the CPH for historical reasons.

Gender + something else.

Actually, NPC groups are double discriminating nowadays, because you have to be female, and a full time student. There are many other campus organizations that require neither.

And duhhhhh, I just realized that "major requirements" means what major they're in, not major as in enormous.

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!

^^^ why not contact NPC directly and ask? Go straight to the source.

Goat Brothers and Loose Change were books about, respectively, brothers of a fraternity and sisters of a Jewish sorority at Berkeley in the early 1960s. It's mentioned that only 3 sororities on campus accept Jewish women, and that there are 4 fraternities that still have "racial or creedal restrictions. "

But in answer to your question, I don't think there actually is such a rule passed by the NPC - that would be intruding on membership selection which is not what NPC is for. About the only things they agreed on were that members have to be female students of the college where the chapter is designated to exist. The sororities themselves are the ones who removed the religious clauses, probably because they realized it was hindering their progress. I think this no double discrimination business is solely a creation of your school.

I think the most telling statement in the Unanimous Agreements is the following

II Jurisdiction of Panhellenic Associations
...
1. College Panhellenic Associations ...
C. A College Panhellenic Council shall take no action that infringes on the sovereignty, rights or privileges of the individual NPC fraternities.

To me that means that should an NPC wish to have (not saying that they do or would) language that "double discriminates" in the membership selection criteria, that's their business and will not be regulated by NPC or by the CPC.

The only discrimination language in the Manual of Information is that which discusses remaining single sex organizations and Title IX.