STOP BEING SO STUPID!
 

I couldn't think of another way to title this thread.

Alpha Delta Pi at California State University-Fullerton is being sanctioned for holding a "Taco Tuesday" recruiting event.

Now, it sounds all nice and innocent (and delicious), except when members carry the idea too far. Like showing up wearing sarapes or sombreros and, in some cases, dressing like gang members.

http://www.dailytitan.com/2014/09/so...nsitive-event/

I actually can understand a serape (not a sarape, as in the article), or other tasteful traditional dress - it's the gang references that were simply wrong.

Question for those who have a Green Book: I thought that, no matter the infraction, not allowing recruitment could not be used as a punishment. Is that still true?

From Section 5A, page 37 of the 2014 NPC MOI:

"Sanctions shall not:
• Forbid formal or informal recruitment activities or the observance of an inter/national
fraternity event such as an educational program, ritual ceremony or historical celebration.
• Affect a fraternity chapter’s quota or total.
• Affect the time of new member acceptance and/or initiation.
• Forbid the right of an NPC fraternity to vote in College Panhellenic meetings.
• Include removal from the College Panhellenic. "

These sanctions are not legal, then, according to the MOI. If they want the chapter to not take new members, the chapter should be suspended from all activities.

Not being argumentative here, but selling tacos isn't honoring Mexican heritage -- why is it necessary for them to dress up for it?

I would kind of understand traditional dress if they were hosting some sort of educational program, but a taco sale? Nah.

Yikes...that's embarrassing.

I'm never surprised at the whole "race/ethnicity as a costume" issue. Nothing wrong with a Taco Night, or even showing/discussing some items of cultural significance, but if it is just an excuse to dress like (what they thought) a Mexican person, they needed to stop right there.

Well then it's going to go one of two ways. Either the college will suspend the chapter from all activities, or they will permit the chapter to participate in recruitment.

Where the HELL were the advisors? And as for no one speaking up, well, that's endemic. You can train people all you want in bystander behavior. Still going to have these situations.

I was intrigued to see that sanction being included as I had never seen it before. Usually, the campus "just" makes the chapter take cultural awareness training, but not bystander intervention training.

Depending on how it's presented, I feel that bystander intervention training can have a much better impact than cultural diversity training in this particular circumstance. Here's why I say that: if you don't know that dressing in offensive costumes is offensive, then yeah, it's hard to fix stupid and cultural diversity training will probably go in one ear and out the other. On the other hand, bystander intervention presupposes that you know that something is wrong, but you struggle with how to speak up or communicate your concern. In my opinion, that dilemma can be more readily fixed with training.

A few years ago, I sat for training called "Group Dynamics for High Risk Teams" (such as military, firefighting, police, nuclear plant employees, airline employees, medical/surgical staff, etc). A good portion of the training involved what you would know as bystander training - members of the group speaking up before something goes wrong, even if it means speaking up against your supervisor. I can't tell you how many times in my personal and professional life I have used the skills I was taught in that class to intervene when my supervisor or the group wanted to do something unwise or unsafe.

With the article reporting that 93% of the chapter participated in the taco sale, I have to believe that at least one of the members felt uncomfortable with the idea of costumes and knew it was a bad idea. Had she spoken up, she might have rallied another handful of members who were thinking the same thing and they could have redirected the idea before the incident occurred.

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/i...CGDg11LQnr5lw0
Somebody should warn them.

Just love the title of this thread. Would like to make a t-shirt that says this for some (certainly not all) of the college students I encounter.

It's a university sanction
 

The MOI guides and binds the NPC member groups and the Panhellenic councils they form. As I understand it, these sanctions are coming straight from the University, and forbidding recruitment is something they can do and certainly DO do from time to time.

While this one crossed a line, it's getting hard to provide chapters with concrete guidance more nuanced than "Stay away from any theme or location that could possibly be construed as, or [as this situation shows] evolve into, anything disrespectful of a culture, ethnicity, or race."

Sorority dreamcatchers are popping up lately, and "senioritas" shirts, and Aztec prints/fonts. What to do?

Send in Stacey and Clinton. You have no idea how much I want to kiss the Pitt AEPhis over in the rush forum for just having plain old classic white t-shirts on bid day. Some of this stuff isn't just questionable re ethnic issues, it's plain old ghastly fashion-wise.

The worst fashion crimes we committed were the Coca-Cola clothing knockoffs.

I am not agreeing with what the chapter did, but not allowing them to participate in formal recruitment while allowing them to hold COB events in the spring, but limiting the number of new members to no more than 30, is encroachment on membership matters by the university. That is worrisome.

I think it would be more appropriate for the chapter to have social sanctions, the exception being events that support their philanthropy, as well as sensitivity/diversity training.

Those sanctions could mean the death of that chapter. When their probation ends, they will be far behind the other groups who will get far more than the usual number of NMs during fall recruitment because the PNMs will be divided by fewer groups.

That's the point. Although, they should be allowed to bid up to total, whatever total is, instead of being limited to 30 people.

As with most things, if the student body at large finds these actions repugnant, it will show in their recruiting. If the student body doesn't give a crap or approves, it might actually up their numbers after they get off probation by giving them an "outlaw" reputation. In other words, these sanctions don't always work the way the university or GLO thinks they will.