In December, 23 members of the Delta Zeta sorority at DePauw University were asked to move out of the sorority house and were put on "alumnae status."
The reason the national officers of the sorority gave for this? They said that the women demonstrated “a lack of commitment to recruitment goals.” Only twelve members of the sorority were allowed to stay.
It seems absurd that the remedy for a dwindling membership would be to throw almost two thirds of the members out onto the street. A salient point in this discussion is that there appears to be an obvious distinction between those allowed to stay and those asked to leave. The women kicked out included “every woman who was overweight” as well as “the only black, Korean, and Vietnamese members.” Those who were deemed fit to remain were described as “conventionally pretty women the sorority hoped could attract new recruits.” (Quotes from a New York Times story on this issue.)
National officers for the sorority visited during the fall semester to interview the girls regarding their commitment to the organization in the midst of a recruitment effort intended to pump up membership in preparation for the DePauw chapter’s 100th anniversary in 2009. During this time, they held a recruitment event at the sorority house.
The bizarre thing about this particular event was that most of the members were banished to their bedrooms for the duration. A team was assembled consisting of a select few DePauw members who managed to pass muster, along with some handpicked women from the Indiana University chapter of the sorority. This pseudo-representation of the chapter welcomed potential recruits while those deemed unfit were asked to remain out of sight.
Several weeks later, the women received form letters telling them to move out of the sorority house. This group included the club’s president, which further calls into question the validity of the given reason for the group ax. Six of the 12 remaining women quit the sorority in support of their sisters. Since then, there have been angry phone calls, accusations, rallies, and the circulation of a faculty petition protesting the action.
Prior to this event, the women appear to have been proud of the fact that their sorority comprised such a mix of women of diverse backgrounds and interests. To the national reps, however, this was not sufficient. Apparently, the majority of the women lacked some quality that proved mandatory for the meeting of their “recruitment” goals. To anyone with active thought processes, the fact that they didn’t all look like Barbie dolls appears to have been the key factor.
It’s hard to fathom teaching girls self respect in a world where things like this still happen. How do we get them to believe that their looks are secondary to who they are and what they can do when such brazen, transparent acts of bias and disrespect can happen in a university setting, the one place where a young woman might reasonably expect brains and substance to triumph? I commend these women for their strength and protest, and I empathize with their outrage. They sound like the kind of women I would be proud to call my sisters.
I hope another sorority, one more concerned with who these women are and what they can contribute to the world, will extend an offer of membership to them. And as for Delta Zeta, shame on them. They need to look up the word “sisterhood” in the dictionary.
For more on this issue, please check out the blog News Stories That Make Me Mad. For an update on the situation, please see Sorority Gets the Boot.
Please start a discussion and share your thoughts about what happened to these women!
For related articles, please check out Girls and Positive Body Image, Encouraging Female Friendships, and Models, Teens, and Self-Esteem
