Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Delta Zeta Sorority’s purpose, as dictated by its Web site is, “to unite its members in the bonds of sincere and lasting friendship, to stimulate one another in the pursuit of knowledge, to promote the moral and social culture of its members, and to develop plans for guidance and unity in action; objects worthy of the highest aim and purpose of associated effort.” This sorority’s mission statement is suddenly saturated with irony because of the recent scandal at DePauw University. Where 23 of the 35 sisters in the chapter were asked to leave. Hurt feelings soon turned into national news.
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Speculation that the 23 Delta Zeta sisters were kicked out of the sorority house because they weren’t popular or didn’t look like “America’s Next Top Model” has been raised by the national news.
Speculation that the 23 Delta Zeta sisters were kicked out of the sorority house because they weren’t popular or didn’t look like “America’s Next Top Model” has been raised by the national news. If these allegations prove true, then this sorority is procuring the stereotypes sororities are prone to; elitist women that value looks and possessions over content of character. Kicking girls out of a sorority house because they’re a size eight rather than a size four or have 100 friends on Facebook rather than 397 is wildly immature and reeks of a major backfire.
This idea of turning Delta Zeta into a “cool” sorority ended up making the remaining sisters, not the rejected ones, embarrassed. Hopefully this incident is an isolated one. Perhaps this can serve as a precautionary tale to other sororities nationwide that stomping on self-esteems and dismissing dignity will get you nowhere but the wrong end of a story on every national media outlet.
The University of Kansas boasts 3,500 Greek members in 40 different houses according to kugreek.org. There’s an organization for every type of person that accepts members for who they are, rather than who they supposedly should be. If a school like the University can run a Greek system that serves a large and diverse student body, then smaller schools like DePauw should take note.
— Tasha Riggins for the editorial board.
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Comments
Riggins: Delta Zeta learns a hard lesson
Tasha - You clearly have not done your research on the history of the greek system at KU. As a member of the Gamma Delta chapter of the Alpha Phi sorority (which no longer exists on the KU campus), I can attest that this sort of behaviour by national sororities has a long history. Unfortunately, not all Universities stand up for their students the way the administration did at DePauw. Nor do these situations all make national news. KU has nothing to be proud of in this department, I can assure you.
Riggins: Delta Zeta learns a hard lesson
It is puzzling to me to use an editorial to promote your own Greek system at the expense of DePauw's without anything but a precursory knowledge of DPU's system and the events . That DePauw's president has severed ties with the Delta Zeta national organization responsible for the evictions speaks to the anomalous nature of what happened: this kind of behavior is considered inapropriate by not only the 'national media' but by the campus community as a whole. The only reason that anyone beyond DePauw's campus has heard of the events is the extensive coverage of the issue by the independent student newspaper and the interest of concerned alumni, actions hardly symptomatic of the campus environment characterized in the editorial.
Next time do a little more research before patting yourself on the back.
Riggins: Delta Zeta learns a hard lesson
I don't think anyone is still reading this, but perhaps the person that wrote this article will read my comment. I actually GO do DePauw, so I can tell you firsthand this was not our school's decision. Nationals kicked the girls out without notifying our president, and that is one of the main reasons that Delta Zeta is no longer on our campus. We are number one in sorority life, beating out a lot of other schools, so obviously we have some sense of how to live Greek and good. It was nationals decision and fault to turn this into such a scandal. Other students were outraged, even faculty was outraged. We don't stand for that kind of stereotyping and acted accordingly, so next time do some more research before you decide to promote your own Greek life. All of our fraternities and sororities are amazing and set a great example. It's not Delta Zeta's, and ESPECIALLY not my school's fault for Nationals being materialistc and thoughtless.
And I'm really glad some people up there understand what truly happened and condone this article as well.
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