Diversity and Inclusion in Sororities at GW: How far we’ve come and how far we have left to go

Read Time:15 Minute, 1 Second

By Parisa Akbarpour

*Thoughts shared are representative of each individuals’ personal opinions, and not that of the sorority they may belong to. The sororities that individuals belong to will not be shared.

*Parisa Akbarpour is currently a member of a Panhellenic sorority at GW.

Registration for formal recruitment in the spring has opened for GW students seeking membership in a Panhellenic sorority. On August 29th, the Panhellenic Association announced via Instagram that Formal Recruitment 2021 would take place virtually, and the university later announced that the spring semester would also take place online.

This change is one of many that sororities on campus are adapting to, as well as issues of diversity and inclusion which were increasingly exposed as social issues accelerated over the summer, in the wake of protests against police brutality and COVID-19. Students and members of sororities alike have been demanding that all chapters be held accountable for their oppressive, ignorant past and make active efforts to combat it.

In July, a social media movement began with the goal of abolishing predominantly white fraternities and sororities. The movement (@abolish_greeklife) has gained momentum since it’s emergence with chapters popping up at universities across the country, listing nine main reasons it’s calling for the abolition of Greek Life: racism, classism, sexual assault, transphobia, homophobia, alcoholism, student safety, sexism, and abelism.

I spoke to several women across all pledge classes, grades, and backgrounds to gather their perspectives on the current state of diversity and inclusion (sometimes referred to as D&I) within sororities and possible avenues for reform.

It’s important to note that every sorority has a different history and relationship with D&I. Some have had the position for longer than others and because of this, the structure and commitment levels may vary for each chapter.

After Claudia Prandoni, now a senior, joined her sorority in the spring of 2018, the chapter announced the formation of a diversity and inclusion chair and committee. Prandoni earned a position in the committee before school paused for the summer, but she said that upon returning to school in the fall, “nothing happened. We had maybe one or two meetings but we didn’t make a plan or do much of anything, and that was disappointing.”

According to Prandoni, the D&I chair was asked to step down later in the semester, after it was revealed that they liked an inappropriate post on Twitter, and the team sort of disappeared until after spring recruitment in 2019. Once a new pledge class had been initiated and new positions were chosen, the diversity and inclusion committee became a lot more active. The position was also integrated into the sorority’s organizational structure and therefore legitimized.

“I definitely saw a lot more concrete goals and ambitions,” Prandoni said. “Like something actually tangible rather than just saying ‘we want to be better’.”

Today, the position of D&I chair is one of the positions on Prandoni’s chapter’s executive board. Her chapter is the first to make this change.

Sydney Teabout became the first D&I chair for her chapter in the fall of 2019, however because the position didn’t exist before on a chapter or national level, she said: “There wasn’t really much support in that sense. In a structural way it was frustrating because I didn’t have anyone telling me the proper channels to use to organize events.”

The structural and organizational challenges facing diversity and inclusion efforts was the most prominent obstacle facing all of the women I spoke with. They all expressed difficulty when it came to participation and interest, getting approval from advisors and their National organizations, as well as the disorganization of the Panhellenic Association.

When Teabout entered the position, though, she explained that it had been created after several racist controversies forced the university to place a social probation on all sororities, rather than as a genuine effort to address issues that are already present and obviously so that scandals keep occurring.

“It was a bit of a rushed job. After everything that happened, it was less about learning and taking time to make thoughtful and meaningful change within our chapters, and all about getting off of probation. That kind of rhetoric is so counterproductive to the process because you’re making people learn about diversity and inclusion so that they can go out and party,” Teabout said.

Since then, Teabout’s chapter has made D&I an official committee with access to all the same channels as other committees such as community service or sisterhood, has been assigned an advisor, and specific position expectations that are covered in committee outlines.

“I think it’s more important because it begins from a professional perspective. We’re in a unique position because we have an advisor who works in the field of diversity and inclusion professionally,” said Emilie Joe Brandt, the Director of Programming for her chapter which oversees the D&I committee. The incorporation of D&I into the official structure of the chapter came after Brandt spoke with the former programming director, as well as Teabout.

Teabout echoed Brandt’s emphasis on the importance of the professional development of diversity and inclusion committees.

“At the end of the day, we’re all college-aged students; none of us are professionals. All I could bring to D&I was being a black woman and apparently that was enough. I’m not qualified. All I can do is speak on my experiences and plan events and try my hardest to get people involved and active,” Teabout said.

“When I would go to [the Panhellenic Association’s] D&I events, nobody knew what they were doing. And at the end of the day we shouldn’t be expected to. D&I is not like [community service or sisterhood or career development], because it’s much more pressing. So we really needed a lot more professional support.”

Chloe Levine recently disaffiliated from her chapter due to her disagreements with its handling of diversity and inclusion efforts.

“The D&I position and policy doesn’t reflect any indication that [sororities] want to be diverse and inclusive,” Levine said. “It seems like tokenization and just something to show for. How can I be taking these moments of self reflection, and trying to implement ideals of equity in my life, and partake in a system that I don’t feel is following up on the things they say they’re gonna do related to that.”

Summer Kaltner, the current D&I chair for her sorority, shared similar concerns.

“There’s been no internal systemic change. We’ve all had moments of personal reflection, but I can’t be sure that every other sister has had that same reflection. I’ve put so much of my time, effort and money into this organization and to see a worldwide moment of change and not have our organization step up is upsetting,” she said.

The women in these chapters that spoke with me also expressed that many of the institutional issues of diversity and inclusion are hyper-present in the recruitment process. Though each woman had different and specific experiences within recruitment, they all reflect greater issues of ignorance and the lack of commitment to D&I.

Roslyn Davis went into her freshman year at GW “swearing off Greek Life as a predominately white institution.” Her sophomore year, though, she said she decided to go through formal recruitment in the spring of 2020 as she found herself struggling academically, socially, and mentally.

“It was a very overwhelming process, not because I felt like I couldn’t communicate well, but because there was just so much congeniality,” Davis said. “I told myself from the start I was not going to alter myself.”

She then recalled a feeling of uneasiness while going through formal recruitment:

“When I was getting called back, every single chapter would pair me with their one of three members of color all across the board… That felt really disingenuous. Especially in the chapters where I knew people, where they would purposely pair me with women of color instead of just letting me talk to the people I knew… It’d be one thing if I was talking to members of color who would be able to offer me some perspective on what their experiences were like. But I was talking to members of color who, two months into the next semester, are dropping out of chapters because they’re talking about how racist [their chapters] are and how uncomfortable they feel, but they weren’t saying those things to me.” Davis said.

The first time Teabout went through recruitment as a sister, she noticed a similar trend that Davis did, but experienced it from the other side. She said on one day of recruitment, she was placed in a rotation group entirely made up of women of color.

“It was definitely awkward for us because we immediately noticed it, and awkward for the women of color [we all spoke to] because that’s not something you miss,” Teabout said.

There’s also the issue of legacy policies which give preference to Potential New Members (PNMs) who have a family member with membership to a sorority that you are rushing. This practice has been criticized heavily by those both inside and outside of sororities because it’s a form of privilege that is generally held by mostly white, educated, wealthy people.

“We’ve discussed removing our policy on legacies, which I think if that happens it’ll be a really big step not just for our sorority but for other sororities at GW because legacies are just a really harmful way to keep privileged white people in sororities,” said Claudia Prandoni.

Because all of these issues are specific to recruitment, there has been heavy conversation about how to prevent them in the process.

“I‘m hoping we can reframe what we think of recruitmentment to be by just showing honestly who we are as an organization, including the parts that are uglier or more embarrassing or need improvement, because hopefully that’ll attract women who are passionate about change like we are,” said Emilie Joe Brandt.

Many members I spoke to said they want to have honest conversations about the problems of D&I in Greek Life during recruitment in order to assure that those who join their organizations also view diversity and inclusion as a priority.

“I would be more drawn to someone who’s pushed away from a sorority because they thought it was classist or an exclusionary thing,” said Summer Kaltner.

This push for honesty and transparency in formal recruitment is not new, though. Sydney Teabout made an effort to include a conversation about diversity and inclusion on one night of recruitment, but was struck down by those above her.

“During recruitment we wanted to talk about all the racist things that were happening because we felt it’d be a really cool way to be transparent, and it’s a part of our sisterhood: if one person gets hurt we all get hurt. And that was my point, and unfortunately they didn’t want it or didn’t like it, mostly because it didn’t fall in the confines of what sisterhood or recruitment should be,” she said. “Instead we ‘compromised’ by putting pictures of sisters without makeup on, and I thought that was the most ridiculous thing. I was so fed up at that point because us taking pictures together with facemasks doesn’t compare to the conversation about race and the history of Greek Life and how we want to fix that. Having those conversations from the get-go is the only way that you’re gonna get people who actually care.”

Teabout added: “We need to stop having so much shame about talking about controversies.”

I talked to multiple freshman women considering formal recruitment in the spring but still hold some reservations. Their concerns were almost exclusively regarding diversity and inclusion.

“I feel like it… has to be said that within conversations of sisterhood and values – diversity and inclusion should be automatic,” said Sara Ross. “Rather than them doing things based on wanting to look like they are diverse, I want them to actually be it without having to try. It is important to ask questions regarding who is in the chapter but also what beliefs are within the chapter and how they respond to differing opinions or backgrounds.”

“I think it would definitely have a positive impact on my perception of a sorority [if they talked about diversity and inclusion during recruitment]. I would definitely go back if they showed a commitment or if they had presentations, especially if it outlined how they plan on actually accomplishing goals of diversity and inclusion,” said Olivia Ferguson.

Freshmen like Ross and Ferguson are going into recruitment without any perception of what a chapter is like. Brina Cartagenova mentioned that she feels many of the chapters on campus are “very hard to tell apart”. For many of these women, the only image they have of a certain sorority may come from the chapter’s social media accounts.

In recent months, sororities at GW have been using their Instagram platforms to raise awareness for social issues and share useful information for understanding, respecting, and being an ally to these causes.

“I definitely think the informational posts about how to be actively anti-racist, what actions to take, and uplifting BIPOC voices… should be normalized, along with regular posts about the sorority, because I think that shows more commitment and not just that they are making one post and then forgetting about it,” said Ferguson. “I think it can also help to make sure that other members and followers of the accounts are staying accountable and still thinking about social justice in daily lives.”

Cartagenova similarly said: “If it’s part of their values and it’s part of what they stand for as a chapter then they should definitely express that on their social media. But if they’re just doing that to appeal to people then I can’t applaud that.”

The question surrounding this issue is how to fix these problems. One of the biggest challenges with this is participation. All current and former D&I team members I spoke to said that no matter how hard they tried, they didn’t feel the members in their chapter were taking diversity and inclusion seriously.

“People of color who spend their time and energy trying to actively educate non-people of color about diversity is [something] so personal… and when there’s no turnout or participation, it’s like this is my life. I’m literally educating you on what it feels like to be black not only in this chapter but in this world and there’s such low interest – but the interest is there when it’s on Instagram or to show up to a protest to take a picture. The interest is there when all the eyes of the world are on you, but when there’s literally someone you know personally talking to you about the things they’re experiencing and you’re doing nothing, that’s the clearest form of performative activism,” said Roslyn Davis, who is currently serving as the D&I chair for her chapter.

In Sydney Teabout’s experience early in the emergence of D&I, she noticed when it comes to “[s]omething that’s new, it’s hard to get people interested, especially if it doesn’t fit into whatever scope of being in a sorority is. Diversity and inclusion isn’t really a part of your sorority or Greek Life experience, you don’t sign up for that and you don’t expect that, so that’s kind of why I don’t think people view it as a priority.”

“I don’t think people sign up to better themselves or learn about this stuff, it’s just not a part of the idealized experience of Greek Life,” she added.

For now, though, the women in sororities at GW who are passionate about bettering diversity and inclusion will keep pushing. Chapters will continue to work internally through their own policies and adapt to the pressure we are seeing put on the institution that is Greek Life. The hope of these women is that change can first occur within individual chapters, then into the Panhellenic Association, and eventually on a national level.

“I think so much of it is because we don’t have as much power as we’d like. There’s so many things we can’t do because of things like a vote or approval from nationals,” said Claudia Prandoni. “I think from what we can do we’re starting to do a lot to make the atmosphere feel more accepting but at the same time, is that as much as we can do?”

It’s because of the work and attitudes of each and every woman I talked to, and those like them, that we’ve seen any change happen and it will be because of them that we’ll see change in the future. It’s still important to note that there are many other issues surrounding the lack of awareness for the underprivileged within sororities, such as cost and gender identity, and these women know that. As more transparency is accepted and honest conversations are being held, especially in the context of recruitment, it’s these women’s hope that it will encourage other women with like minds for progressivism to not only join and hold positions within chapters, but provide these chapters with the ability to reform themselves.

Teabout puts it simply: “If our priority is to change Greek Life for the better, then we actually have to do the things that need to be done in order for that to happen.”