Diversity & Inclusion in Greek Life
By: Mia Kacha, Ava Greto, Lexi de la Sierra, Jill Fitzgerald, and Bridget Sullivan
College gives students the opportunity to break away from their hometowns and discover themselves by exploring their interests, building their skills, and making new, life-long friends. Joining sports, clubs, and other organizations like fraternities and sororities is a great way to meet new people. These organizations should always be a welcoming place where students of any background, religion, sexuality, ethnicity or race can thrive and feel accepted. Today, a recurring problem with Greek Life at U.S. college campuses is the lack of diversity and inclusion. Lawrence Ross, author of “Blackballed: The Black and White Politics of Race on America’s Campuses”, gives a possible reason as to why this is so. According to Ross, “Greek organizations resisted class and race diversity. Frats were a way for white upper-class men to separate themselves from an increasingly diverse student population.”
As much as being involved in Greek life on campus can truly enhance a student’s Elon experience socially, it is important to value and celebrate diverse backgrounds, experiences, cultures, and experiences of all those who are a part of your chapter. Diversity is so important in Greek life and aids in our communities’ growth and understanding of one another. Many chapters even have a DEI Board which is a group of members who describe policies and programs to their entire organization, promoting participation and representation of all groups of people. Having a passion for diversity, equity, and inclusion in greek organizations means taking the steps to becoming a more welcoming and inclusive community for all present members and future members who wish to join. As sorority members, we must take these steps from words to actions within the community of Elon’s Greek organizations.
Grant Sikes (she/her) is currently a freshman at Alabama University. She entered the school year thrilled to join a sorority and quickly became known on social media due to her identity as a nonbinary who is rushing. Sororities have been promoted worldwide as women’s organizations for decades. Currently, Greek Life is divided by gender where sororities are for women and fraternities are for men. As people begin to realize there are not only two genders, organizations and communities should be making movements to make all identities visible and feel included.
Grant was dropped from all of Alabama’s sororities on the first day except for two, so she decided to speak up and express her true feelings about Greek Life. As sororities are promoted to be a community of people with similar values, this was not the case when Grant rushed. She felt discriminated against, as sororities have a long history of exclusivity.
There needs to be a change in the Greek Life system to help everyone feel empowered, involved, and welcomed. Grant is one of many people who has felt discriminated against due to Greek Life. She decided to speak up by talking about her experience on TikTok, which has brought awareness to the inequality in Greek Life communities.
Change at Elon
Many organizations have a DEI board made up of a few members in their chapter. A great way to take action is to join the DEI committee, whether you are affiliated or unaffiliated with a Greek Organization. These members are responsible for helping bring about the ethical and cultural changes necessary for their organization. The DEI board in certain chapters does an amazing job of setting goals for their organization and making sure to have discussions within their chapter to identify problem areas, while also providing their sorority sisters with beneficial information through infographics, presentations, and workshops they can attend to better educate themselves. As important as it is for Greek organizations to have DEI Boards, it is up to the chapter as a whole to take action based on all the resources they are given. Successful organizations understand that the spirit of DEI doesn’t live with the DEI committee. The committee ultimately serves to help all stakeholders become true DEI champions,” according to Christopher Johnson (nlctb.org).
Talk about it with your chapter
- Define what diversity and inclusion means to you.
- Do your bylaws use inclusive language? Does it have a DEI statement?
- In which areas do you do well?
- In which areas do you need to improve?
Inclusivity training
- Division of Inclusive excellence at Elon values and celebrates the diverse backgrounds, cultures, experiences and perspectives of our community members. They embrace diversity in its broadest sense, including, but not limited to diversity of age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, nationality, race, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic standing, and intellectual viewpoint.
- Some of their featured resources they offer include Diversity dashboard which highlights data related to race, ethnicity and sex in Elon’s student, faculty and staff populations. They offer Definitions which is an overview of key DEI- related terms to help broaden understanding of inclusive excellence work. They also offer a Request for Services which is a form for requesting consulting, facilitating, training and other services that support your inclusive excellence efforts.
Change the ‘dress code’
- During recruitment, each day there is a specific dress code in order to look uniform, examples include, only pink nails, blue jeans on day one, white jeans day two, hair in pony tail, etc, but that might not be comfortable for all members of your chapter. We can still look uniform without being carbon copies of each other. Allowing members to wear their hair in whatever way allows them to express themselves. Allow members to paint their nails what ever color best suites their skin tone. Allow members to wear any white or blue bottoms that are most comfortable for them. Most importantly, allow members to showcase their individuality.
Show diversity on name tags
- Organizations create fancy name tags for recruitment events that say everyone’s name and sometimes the year they joined or their position in the sorority. We should promote diversity by including the member’s hometown on the name tag and each member’s preferred pronouns. This shows the potential new members that our organization has members from all different backgrounds and that we are an inclusive organization
Committee/exec
- Join the DEI Board and educate others
- For our chapter specifically,
- Rush in January — encourage inclusivity
