Our chapter was closed down shortly after I graduated. (Probably by the same harpies involved in the DePauw mess and for much the same reasons.) I have decided to give up my alumnae membership in DZ over this despicable mess, and I’ll bet I’m not the first person to do this. I don’t like to see young women treated this way, and as for the racist element involved in this, THAT is utterly inexcusable and unforgivable!

I lasted less than a year. By the end of the second semester, the alumnae sponsors requested that I deactivate and I agreed that it was a fine idea. The women in the chapter didn’t want me to leave. I think they got a kick out of the fact that I staged a silent protest during chapter meeting because of a stupid rule (especially scandalous since I was an officer) and routinely rolled my eyes at the too serious and full of themselves alums who were told by nationals to make us into the mainstream. But they understood that it wasn’t going to work and we all remained friends. Hell, almost all of them lived on the residence hall floor that I was an RA on.

The part of this story that hasn’t gotten much attention is the role that homophobia plays into all of this. The young women that were booted were kicked out, in part, because they did not fit the “traditional” image of a woman. In other words, they transgressed. And although it is not clear whether any of them were dykes, it is clear that there is no greater transgression in that system than to be a lesbian. Funny since our DZ chapter was full of so many dykes. Hell, when I was a freshman the president and the secretary were a hot couple and regularly sleeping together. They went on to have a ten year relationship. So much for the status quo.

Potatoe! Hee!

“What on earth were they thinking, that being overweight or a racial minority amounts to a negative image?”

As - soooo ironically - a biracial woman, a sorority woman, and an IU graduate, I’d like to share that I’m SURE that that’s exactly what DZ Nationals were thinking.

What amuses me deeply about this horrific situation, all its negative ramifications aside in the current cultural climate, is the narrow thinking of the DZ National officers on what constitutes a “socially awkward” state, and their hideously limited thinking as to how to effectively wage a PR campaign to combat that stereotype on campus, if they were in fact concerned with how it was affecting their recruitment (assuming that their financial concerns were, in fact, the “bottom line”, and not a smokescreen for something more scurrilous).

It’s clear to me that, either they had no PR professionals within their alumna sisterhood they could call on, that they didn’t call on the ones they could have (Grabapple much?) or the ones they did have weren’t any good. Searing irony for a sorority full of “smart ” girls. (As a DST with a couple of graduate degrees, I continue to smirk and postulate that the meek may yet perhaps inherit.)

In closing - with apologies to Erin - let’s all remember that Dan Quayle too was a DePauw graduate.

P-O-T-A-T-O-E.

You and I had the same ideals about sororities. I’m sorry for both of us and the rest of the women in similar situations that we were wrong.

I guess what I want more than anything is for such judgements in and out of the Greek system to stop. What should it matter what size or shape a person is? What should it matter what other people think of me? It doesn’t lessen my value as a person.

Thank you for posting. Let’s hope this helps stop this senselessness.