August 4, 2009

Freedom of Association: Why Multicultural Greeks Should Be Concerned

The information session turned up a few surprises for me. The biggest one is that most of the participants were not unaffiliated women; but rather they were current sorority members looking for tips and insights. To prepare for the session, I ordered a presentation from the Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisors entitled "Founders Fever". This presentation was very interesting, and far too short. Also it was from 2005, so surely, things have changed just a bit since then. But I am getting ahead of myself here.

Like I mentioned before, many of the "Starting a Sorority" information session participants were already sorority members. So I needed to change my agenda considerably on the fly (I guess I deserve that; in that I did not surey my audience ahead of time). In attendance was a sister from a NMGC sorority (which I will not name). She herself was a founder of her particular chapter and after two years, found very little support from her host university. Not only was there no support, but there are barriers to their existence on campus. This is because they are not eligible to join any of the Greek councils presently on campus. And since they are the only multicultural Greek organization on campus, they cannot form their own council (my guess is that a council needs to have more than one organization...makes sense). Anyway, she is moving towards joining a service sorority; something that is not so daunting and is in a better functional position on campus.

There are quite a few things wrong with this picture. And before I get started, let me be the first to say that this is not about demonizing the colleges and universities out there. In my short tenure so far as a university employee, I have found that administrative changes at colleges and universities take time. In a college, you do not have the operational pressures that you have in regular businesses. Rather you have goals, priorities, and initatives -- things that may not always trickle down to the Greek community. Also, let's face it; Greek Life is something that students are concerned about. Not the host community of the school (even though they may benefit from the volunteer work of Greeks), not the faculty of the school, and not even the alumni of the school. The only way that Greek Life becomes a priority for a university is from a competitive marketing standpoint; where they may see that another, competing university offers various options in Greek Life where they do not.

But this lack of support from schools may be a deathblow to Multicultural Greeks. As Multicultural Greeks ourselves, we see firsthand the benefits to having us on campus; we add a new dimension to Greek life. But we are not in the same boat with other Greek organizations from an organizational, and operational standpoint. In the "Founders Fever" presentation, you had discussion between Multicultural Greek board members and campus-staff and administration that was pretty enlightening. For the most part, the campus-staff members just did not know how to handle the expansion of multicultural greek organizations on their campus. To some of them, they felt that someone coming up to them requesting to start a new chapter of a national MC Greek organization was pretty much along the same lines as someone coming up to them and saying that they wanted to start a new organization from scratch. If there were not already rules for recognizing new Greeks on campus, then the school comes up with them, largely so that they will not open themselves up to liability.

However this fear of liability may get in the way of freedom of association. One of the attendees of the "Founder's Fever" session was an attorney who was very supportive of MC Greeks. He basically said that while a school can place requirements on a group in order for them to be recognized, the requirements must be reasonable, and certain requirements can mean that the university is infringing on the student's right to freely associate with a particular group. It had some very deep points (many of which I can't elucidate on, since I am not an expert in law); but basically, a school's concern for liability issues is a responsible, and rightful move. However university students have certain rights afforded to them as well; and those rights do not deserve to be infringed upon.

Of course theory and reality are two different things. Few, if any, Multicultural Greek organizations possess the resources to launch lawsuits against expansion unfriendly universities. Even so, who can wait to go through the long court process? It would seem that any lawsuit would need to be between the slighted student, and the school; not necessarily the Greek organization and the school (or maybe I am wrong on this). It also seems to be excessive; what school would not just change their Greek Life policy, instead of trekking through courts? But that is the school; what about the students? Students are much more whimsical; and if they get the air that the school is (or wants) to make things difficult for them, then they are more likely to just move on from it.

A bigger point of concern here is the disconnect between Multicultural Greek organizations and schools. In many ways, we think we are on the same page but we are not. They called for a national council; the NMGC was created...but somehow it is still not enough. They called for insurance policies; no problem, many groups put the policies in place...yet there are still other logistical requirements that are harder to deal with (such as alumni who live near to the university). The final result are many young people who get discouraged and feel like they failed. This is not the case, they did not fail. They are just dealing with a system that is not equipped to properly fuel their success.