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Old 08-14-2007, 11:10 AM
UGATammy UGATammy is offline
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Location: St. Simons Island, GA
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From a DPhiE at UGA alum

I was a DPhiE at UGA (2001-2005) and I can't tell you how sad I am to see that my chapter closed. It was the only remaining single letter chapter left that hadn't closed. To clear up everything, DPhiE is historically not Jewish. The founders were indeed Jewish and the membership during that time was Jewish but that is because at the time of our society, Jewish people were being discriminated against. Thus, these women decided to form their own sorority that was non-sectarian. When it was founded at UGA (1935), Jewish women on campus were being discriminated and they treasured what DPhiE nationally had promoted and thus brought DPhiE here. DPhiE at UGA couldn’t help that it attracted Jewish members, but one goes where one feels comfortable and where their friends are. Basically the same reason why we all find our own niche in our respective sorority. There’s something in a sorority that appeals to us because of what they have to offer. In this case, DPhiE offered this chance to Jewish women. Not all chapters of DPhiE were founded by Jewish women. Each of our chapters is different.

I came into DPhiE when it was reorganizing. There are a lot of opinions that state that DPhiE was stronger when it was Jewish (meaning before they “open” its doors to others), but I say that it may have been bigger and stronger during that time period of our society, but things have changed and a different society has emerged. Chapters that used to be smaller back in the day are strong and big today and vice versa. I’m half Pakistani and half Korean and I joined what most people on UGA campus and probably over the nation claim to be historically Jewish. There’s nothing historically Jewish about DPhiE other than it was founded by women who happened to be Jewish because they were being discriminated against. How can one assume that UGA DPhiE was Jewish when they can clearly see that I am not Jewish as well as see that other members in the chapter were clearly not Jewish. I have nothing against the Jewish population. Some of my closest friends are Jewish. I love DPhiE and joined it because of its non-sectarian beliefs. Yes, we can’t be discriminative to our membership these days, but DPhiE really promoted the non-sectarian principles. When I was an active sister, we had 3 sisters (including myself who were half Korean), one Polynesian, one Lebanonese, 3 or 4 Jewish sisters and the rest were Caucasian. Now how can you label us as being totally Jewish?

What is going to happen when a lot of Jewish women start going to other houses? Are those houses going to be called Jewish then and then will they start facing problems like we did?

I think that everyone tends to forget that this sort of thing “labeling” happens to all sororities and affects sororities differently across campus. It is really devastating to see that we tried so hard to keep our chapter running, but it was constant rumors and labeling that pushed us against from moving forward. There have been numerous chapters on UGA that had to go through a reorganization and now they are very strong on campus as well as nationally. I just don’t understand why it couldn’t happen to DPhiE. People tend to underestimate the power of words when it comes to labeling because it can definitely do damage.
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University of Georgia

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