Question About Old NPC Rules

[Titchou]

Originally Posted by lake

Did a Jewish woman have the option to go through "regular" recruitment at that time, or was that discouraged? Or was it something that just had never been done? Do you know of any Jewish women who may have attempted to go through "regular" rush and were/were not successful?

No, not at that time. Only the Jewish women went thru theirs and none went thru ours. I don't know if it was a written rule. It's just the way it happened - at least while I was there in the mid 60's...

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by sugar and spice

Nobody's hands are clean in this--even the historically Jewish groups tended to discriminate against less assimilated, more "foreign" Jewish girls.

Typically, the German Jews thought they were better than the Eastern European Jews. On some campuses, there were two historically Jewish groups, and there was a stark divide in their memberships.

[naraht]

OK, I missed the word officially in the FYP.

Note:
I personally group the historical membership requirements into two different categories. The "Dominant" ones (Anglo-Saxon, White, Protestant, Christian) and "Non-Dominant" ones (Black, Hispanic, Asian, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim). I *guess* it would be possible for a group to flip from "Non-Dominant" to "Dominant" if a Catholic group changed to allow all Christians, or a Hispanic group to allow all Whites, but I'm not aware of it. And yes, subsets of groups as well, "More and less foreign looking Jews" and the entire concept of the "Gamma Rays" in School Daze.

I'm curious as to whether any of these membership requirements were written into their national bylaws and then the national bylaws being kept private...

Alpha Phi Omega actually had a *very* different problem in terms of discrimination which local chapters imposed. From its founding until 1967, Alpha Phi Omega required that a brother have been a member of Scouting (boy scouting since we were all-male until 1976). At least 3 times, reminders were placed into the national magazine that chapters were *not* allowed to require that brother reach a specific rank (Become an Eagle scout, reach "First Class" etc.)

[honeychile]

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

Typically, the German Jews thought they were better than the Eastern European Jews. On some campuses, there were two historically Jewish groups, and there was a stark divide in their memberships.

Wow, this blows my mind!


I went to Pitt in the 1970s, when the student population was roughly one-third Catholic, one-third Jewish, and one-third "other" (I was an "other"). I mentioned in my recruitment thread how sororities managed to discriminate by asking, "my fiance gave me a Sedar Plate, would you like to see it?"; "Which mass do you prefer?"; or "do you need tickets for the High Holy Days?" This happened during the Open Houses/chat-dating part of rush. Depending on your response, you were either cut or given a pass to the next round.

While I was an active, I don't think I ever saw a non-Jewish woman pledge a Jewish sorority, nor a non-Catholic pledge TPA. That said, they had a very large pool of interested parties who met their standards available to them.

[sugar and spice]

Originally Posted by tcsparky

I would guess that many organizations don't reveal past membership criteria because, even if it is in the past, it is still membership selection information. This would have been shared only with initiated sisters then, and would most likely only be shared with initiates now.

Another poster here once said that sororities' racial/religious restrictions were printed in some copies of Baird's Manual, which, if true, makes this theory unlikely. But I admit I've never seen a Baird's in which this was the case, at least for the Protestant-only groups. (A number of Bairds list membership restrictions for Jewish-only or Catholic-only groups.) Granted, I've never seen a Baird's from the '30s or '40s, which is when I'm guessing this stuff would have been most explicitly spelled out.

[naraht]

Originally Posted by sugar and spice

Another poster here once said that sororities' racial/religious restrictions were printed in some copies of Baird's Manual, which, if true, makes this theory unlikely. But I admit I've never seen a Baird's in which this was the case, at least for the Protestant-only groups. (A number of Bairds list membership restrictions for Jewish-only or Catholic-only groups.) Granted, I've never seen a Baird's from the '30s or '40s, which is when I'm guessing this stuff would have been most explicitly spelled out.

Unlikely, remember Baird's was written from the inside of the fraternal movement.