In a recent meeting of the WSA, Wesleyan students met to address issues facing fraternities and sororities on the Wesleyan campus. Though a resolution was passed at the meeting outlining the WSA’s tentative support of fraternities and sororities, it appears as though a greater issue is at hand. The Administration is attempting to strong-arm organizations on campus in what they call “an attempt to create a more inclusive environment.” The issue, though not isolated to residential fraternities, seems to have scapegoat fraternities as the root of some sort of female-hating, misogynistic, “Animal-House” type environment. We are writing to dispel the rumors that somehow, the residential fraternities discriminate against women. The idea of a fraternity is based on the foundation of the brotherhood of a group of men that have come together for a common purpose. This brotherhood is comprised of men. Speaking from a national perspective, and fraternities are national organizations, these groups were founded on the basis of male-only inclusion. That is not to say that women are not welcome in their houses or around their events but rather that the pledging and brotherhood is reserved for male participants in a long-standing brotherhood. The idea that Wesleyan’s residential fraternities should be blocked from “on-campus” status if they refuse to allow women to live in their houses seems ludicrous. Women are never essentially going to be a part of the “brotherhood” of fraternities, much in the same way that men are not included in the sororities.
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits the discrimination of any person based on sex explicitly makes exceptions for fraternities and sororities, stating that social fraternities or social sororities “which are exempt from taxation under section 501(a) of Title 26, whose active membership of which consists primarily of students in attendance at an institution of higher education” shall be exempt from Title IX. The recognition in the Amendment of the longstanding tradition of such organizations as fraternities, sororities, boy scouts, girl scouts, and others and the nature of these organizations as based in a foundation of, not exclusion, but rather single-sex membership demonstrates that it is not discrimination against one group towards another but rather grouping based on commonality and one of those commonalities happens to be gender. Interestingly, Residential Life and the Administration don’t seem to have the same qualms with single-sex floors which are based on the same principle of housing groups of people sharing something in common, their gender. Nor are they forcing Womanist house to actively recruit and house men in order to maintain their program-house status. In addition, forcing the Wesleyan chapters of these national Greek organizations to admit women into their housing will force their chapters to lose their national recognition, and thus put their existence in jeopardy. We write this to ask the WSA and the students to stand with the residential fraternities which are being railroaded by the Administration as well as Residential Life on the basis of a false claim. This issue is greater than Greek life; it is an attack by the Administration on the fundamental right of individuals and self-governance on campus.
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