Greek members allowed to encourage sophomore rush

Many members of the audience — which totaled upward of 50 students — seemed surprised at the revelation, which was not explicitly outlined in the written policy announced last week.

Committee members said that while this type of encouragement will be allowed during casual conversation, students will not be permitted to formally encourage a freshman to rush during their sophomore year on behalf of their fraternity or sorority.

“Official events ought not occur, and students acting on behalf of their organization in that capacity ought not engage in any type of solicitation,” Dean of Undergraduate Students and Committee Chair Kathleen Deignan said.

Former Kappa Alpha Theta president Kara Dreher ’12 said many students may not have been expecting to hear that casual encouragement of freshmen to rush their sophomore year was permitted because it was not clearly explained in the committee’s report.

“I don’t think it was clearly enumerated. I had gathered that from prior discussions and from my sense that there’s no way to make that action prohibited, but I don’t think that specific tenet of the policy — or not-policy — was enumerated well,” Dreher said.

Many of the questions and comments posed to the committee at this open forum, at the USG meeting on Sunday night and at the Council of the Princeton University Community meeting last Monday have asked about hypothetical situations and pointed out potential loopholes in the policy.

In response, Deignan has noted that she hopes students will adhere not only to the “letter” of the policy, but also to its spirit. Committee members reiterated throughout the event that the policy was created with the University’s disapproval of Greek life as a given.

Committee member Arda Boyzigit ’12 — who is not a member of a Greek organization — said that encouraging freshmen to join Greek organizations in their sophomore year does not necessarily violate the spirit of the policy.

“What’s key is that it’s not about this year. You don’t want to tell a freshman to join something that they can be suspended for,” Boyzigit said. “You can say that ‘It would be great to have you with me next year.’”

During the open forum, which had many tense as well as comical moments, the committee repeatedly sought to assuage the fears of students concerned about the potential for discrimination against affiliated students and overreach into students’ personal lives.

Some students noted that they have little reason to trust the University to enforce this policy fairly, noting that it would be very difficult for Public Safety or a University official to determine whether a dorm party attended by both freshmen and fraternity or sorority members was “sponsored” by a Greek organization.

Committee members noted that like other suspected violations of University policies, students accused of violating this policy would go through the judicial process, in which clear and persuasive evidence would be necessary to convict the student.

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While many questions from the audience expressed concern about the potential for abuse due to a perceived “gray area” in what could be considered clear and persuasive, Deignan challenged the idea that the University would exploit this ambiguity to bring cases against Greek students.

“The last thing I want to do is sit in the committee and adjudicate violations,” Deignan said.

One student who said he was affiliated with a fraternity noted that the punishment of suspension combined with the lack of explicit clarity in the policy would make him unwilling to talk to freshmen next year.

“Then you’re being paranoid,” committee member Jake Nebel ’13 said in response, noting that as a fraternity member, he was also disappointed about not being able to rush freshmen next year but that the student need not be concerned about casual interactions.

One student mentioned that fraternities and sororities could undermine the enforceability of the policy by creating “white noise” and repeatedly calling Public Safety with false tips reporting Greek organizations holding parties for freshmen.

Dreher followed up by explaining that suggestions like those only contribute to the University’s disapproval of Greek life and called for both sides to display further respect.

“There are definitely loopholes, there are ways that smaller organizations — I don’t think sororities — could drop their national letters, become a fake a cappella group or try to create the so-called ‘white noise,’ ” said Dreher, who later clarified that she does not think fraternities will violate the ban either. “Floating those kinds of absurd suggestions that we might do something so outrageous just so that they can’t catch us is precisely why they think we’re going to try to break the policy. And then they want the repercussions to be suspension so that we don’t try that, or there’s this kind of veiled threat that the next step is a full ban,” she explained.

While Dreher later said in an email that suggesting hypotheticals that “subvert the language of the policy” can persuade the committee to clarify the language, she noted that the administration might not interpret these suggestions in this way, calling them “counterproductive.”