By Kayla Walker
Dorothy Parker once wrote, “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.” This sentiment seems to be supported by the goings on at DePauw University in Indiana.According to a report in The New York Times, the sorority Delta Zeta at DePauw released all of its overweight sisters as well as the organization’s only black, Korean and Vietnamese members of active membership duties.
According to a statement on Delta Zeta’s national website, the DePauw chapter, which had existed on campus for 98 years, voted last August to close the chapter at the end of this academic year because of low recruitment. After an effort to reorganize was denied by the university, the sorority was asked to undergo a membership review.
All 35 members were interviewed and the end result was the release of 23 of its members. According to the Times, the remaining 12 were thin, conventionally pretty and “popular with fraternity members.” Six of the remaining 12 resigned in outrage of their sisters’ release.
According to Delta Zeta’s National President Debbie Raziano, membership is based on merit. “We are proud of the diversity of our members and alumnae nationwide, which reflect the mandate in our Constitution that members will be selected solely on their merits and without regard to their race, color religion, national origin or handicap.” To that I ask, then why were their more racially diverse sisters relieved? And why aren’t the overweight sisters protected under the sorority’s constitution? Surely, they’re not implying that being overweight is the equivalent of being handicapped?
I’ve never bought into the idea of Greek life but I do understand its appeal. If I wasn’t attending Hofstra I would be enrolled in the University of Oregon, a campus who’s Greek life is so ubiquitous that it was the inspiration and location of National Lampoon’s Animal House. I have many friends at Oregon that participate in Greek life and all of them praise their respective organizations for providing life-long relationships that are more familial than friendly. That said, if Delta Zeta was founded on the same principles, then I fail to understand why they would be so quick to release members that do not fit certain standards.
Delta Zeta’s website declares that the sorority provides “an enduring sisterhood based on a heritage of core values, academic excellence, leadership development, and service to others.” What kind of sisterhood that is based on a heritage of “core values” turns their backs on what they call sisters because of something so inconsequential as their race or weight?
Although the sorority’s statement addresses the allegations that it released certain members because of their race are false, it does not address the issue that members were released because of their level of fitness or physical appearance.
I’ve heard the rumors about Greek organizations here that are looking for a certain type and believe that those rumors are not unique to Hofstra. I am aghast at the idea that a sorority’s national organization would be so foolhardy as to publicly play into those stereotypes.
What I find even more appalling is that the sorority released the more academically minded of its members. In the Times article, Robert Hershberger, chairman of the modern languages department who sent around a faculty petition against Delta Zeta’s actions, was quoted as saying, “We were especially troubled that the women they expelled were less about image and more about academic achievement and social service.”
I cannot fathom why an organization like Delta Zeta that previously had the reputation of being a more merit-based sorority at DePauw would cater to negative stereotypes that follow sororities.
Truly, the six girls who resigned because of the release of their sisters are genuine role models. Senior Kate Holloway, one of the girls that resigned, was quoted as saying, “I sensed the disrespect with which this was to be carried out and got fed up. I didn’t have room in my life for these women to come in and tell my sisters of three years that they weren’t needed.”
Perhaps Holloway, like myself, could be consoled by another of Dorothy Parker’s famous declarations: “Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.”