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History 1960 - 1980
Perhaps the most recognizable image of fraternity life in the 1960s comes from National Lampoon's Animal House, where the brothers of fictional frat Delta Tau Chi achieve the distinction of becoming the first Greeks to be placed on double secret probation for their extracurricular activities. Greek life during this time mirrored Animal House in some respects, but members of the Greek community and the campus community were also facing some very real and critical issues during this time period. Redefining the Greeks
While Greek organizations continued to be dominate players on campus until the mid 1960s, the strong social standing that Greeks enjoyed in the prior decades slowly began to wane during the years of student unrest in the late 60s and early 70s, forcing fraternities and sororities to redefine themselves and their place in the UC community. As students turned their attention toward political issues and began to question organized establishments, the Greek system, with its emphasis on social exclusivity and tendency toward structured, formal policies and procedures, became less appealing to them. From 1963 to 1973 fraternity affiliation dropped from 25% of the male population to only 9% and UC lost four fraternities. In the same time period, sorority pledges fell from 274 to 121 girls and Alpha Gamma Delta, which had been at UC since 1923, folded. The Office of Greek Affairs was organized in 1970, bringing together the Interfraternity Council, Panhellenic Council, Board of Fraternity Affairs (founded 1968), and Fraternity Purchasing Board (founded 1963) and removing fraternity control from the Dean of Men. The Greeks realized that they needed to cooperate and communicate as a united force to confront their issues. Beginning in the year 1974, the Greeks began to experience a sort of recovery, fostered by changes in the rush system, renewed priorities, and the realization that they could no longer afford to be so exclusive. Rush became more informal. Gone were the days of sorority teas, immaculate dress and closely guarded manners as sorority girls became more familiar with rushees and more accepting of differences. Both fraternities and sororities put more emphasis on community involvement, philanthropy, and social awareness and less on parties and appearance. While more chapters folded during the remainder of the 1970s, those that survived were stronger and had acquired the position and skills to adapt to the present environment. Racial Segregation Another issue that hurt the Greeks was their hesitancy to racially integrate their groups, a practice that brought them much criticism during the 1960s. By 1960 the only Greek organization to be integrated was the American Commons Club, which took their first black pledges in 1956. Not only were all other individual groups segregated along both racial and sometimes ethnic lines, the Greek system as a whole was also segregated; black fraternities did not have membership in the Interfraternity Council, and black sororities did not have membership in the Women's Panhellenic Council, nor did they have their own governing bodies to represent them. The groups did not share a common rush schedule and black organizations did not take part in Greek Week or other Greek-wide activities and functions. While these inequalities may have caused concern earlier, it was in the 1960s that people became more vocal about it, mainly the black fraternities, who began to urge for integration of individual groups and the whole Greek system. The reasons for segregation were largely based on attitude rather than policy. A 1967 study conducted by the News Record offers a revealing picture of fraternity and sorority attitudes toward integration of their organizations. While only two of the 14 groups responding to the survey stated that their national charters did have exclusionary clauses (one excluding black members, and one requiring members to be Jewish), both local chapters had received waivers from their national offices and were permitted to allow anyone for admission at their own discretion. Some chapters of the national groups at other colleges did have black members. Half of the groups responding said that a black rushee had a slim chance of actually becoming a member, due to personal objections within the organization and concern for their position in rush. One sorority was quoted as saying "the majority of our girls have had a very limited personal contact with Negroes and would probably not feel very comfortable with one in the chapter." Proponents of integration would say that this lack of contact demonstrated the very need for integration. Of the other half (seven groups) that said there was a better chance for black membership, three were primarily Jewish organizations and one was historically black. In January 1962, progress was made toward partial integration when the Interfraternity Council gave historically black fraternities Alpha Phi Alpha and Kappa Alpha Psi observer status, allowing them to attend meetings but not vote, representing a step toward to their goal of full membership. No historically African-American fraternity had ever been a member of the IFC before. It was not until 1967 that both became full members.
An occurrence on the national fraternity level in 1965 caused ripples in UC's Greek racial relations when the Stanford chapter of Sigma Chi had their charter suspended for one year, some said because the chapter admitted a black member. While the national office claimed that the suspension was due to the chapter's inattention to ritual and their negative attitude toward other groups on campus, rather than the black pledge, some UC students took the opportunity to protest on the door of UC's Sigma Chi house. Alpha Phi Alpha president Randall Maxey and member Charlie Carr organized the demonstration as a sympathy march to show support for the Stanford chapter rather than a protest against the fraternity. The Sigma Chis made a statement that any racial problem existing between UC fraternities needed to be handled by the Interfraternity Council. Following the incident, the brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha collectively composed a letter to the News Record editor. The letter claimed that current members of Alpha Phi Alpha had sought membership in other fraternities on campus, but were referred to Alpha Phi Alpha without consideration, a common practice that they saw as evidence of racial discrimination. The Interfraternity Council formed a Human Relations Committee in 1967 made up of at least one member from each fraternity to discuss and confront segregation and racial issues. Since Alpha Phi Alpha and Kappa Alpha Psi were now full members they had the opportunity to effect change through their votes and proposals to the Council. But the committee was gone by 1970, replaced by the Committee on Awareness, a combined Interfraternity-Panhellenic effort to confront wider issues within the Greek world on campus, including racial relations. (While all of this was going on in the fraternity world, UC's sororities were relatively silent on the issue of racial segregation within their organizations and the Panhellenic Council did not take steps to include the black sororities, nor is there evidence that black sororities petitioned for membership.) While the issue seemed to be without a solution during the 1960s, things did improve somewhat in the later 1970s as the fraternities and sororities redefined themselves and their attitudes. In 1975, the Black Greek Alliance, made up of six black Greek-letter organizations, three fraternities and three sororities, was established as a governing board for black fraternities and sororities. While there was still a high percentage of segregation within the individual groups, the Greek Alliance was involved with the Office of Greek Affairs, allowing them to unite with the rest of the Greek system. |
