[15453] in APO-L
Re: all-male chapters
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Grossi)
Mon Nov 11 12:21:35 1996
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 12:03:52 EST
Reply-To: John Grossi <jgrossi@MU.BBN.COM>
From: John Grossi <jgrossi@MU.BBN.COM>
To: Multiple recipients of list APO-L <APO-L@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU>
In-Reply-To: from "Derek J. Cashman" at Nov 11, 96 9:46 am
> That is not necessarily the case. The proposal would prohibit chapters
> from limiting their membership to males-only. As long as the chapter
I would beg to differ. It would call on a committee of the National Board
to enforce the policies as written. There is nothing in there that says
in regards to the all males. This would leave open to the interpretation
of those select people, APO's membership bylaws;
which state
"Membership shall be open to all students",
but further comments in the bylaws saying stuff to the effect of;
"Upon approval by the chapter",
then there's the membership policies phrase:
"Because all people have the potential to be of service, and to be leaders
and friends, active membership is open to all students and should represent
a cross section of the student body"
This to me is not just co-ed, it's black/white, it's also any type of
minority (including some the chapter turns down) you choose to hang on it.
but you continue on into the next sentence...
"Chapters have the right to determine there membership."
There are two very different threads running through our policies and bylaws.
open membership, and chapters selecting who they want.
This resolution (R-8, R-7 picks a different committee but it's not as
wide) leaves open to the discretion of the members of that committee
enforcement of those two threads, and they could choose to take a very
WIDE view of things with that resolution. Literally with the
resolution:
"The National Spirit and Standards Committee recommend to the 1998
National Convention the revocation of ANY chapter not in compliance
with the Fraternity's published membership policies. The National Spirit
and Standards Committee will disallow any unwritten agreement between
the Fraternity and ANY entity.
This committee could choose to recommend revokation of ANY charter whose
AAMD's they feel does not show a wide enough set of origins on names.
You don't have enough of minority A... see ya later...
It's written such that every bit of communication has to be in writting.
So taking the scenario:
Chapter A can't seem to recruit men.
They talk to there Rep, Chair, Region Director...
Everyone feels that a good effort has been made but no success.
But because chapter A did not get staff's opinion on paper... there still
up for revokation.
My problems with this resolution are the following:
It takes the enforcement of the membership policies out of the hands
of the Board of Directors. In violation of Section IV which directs
enforcement to be in accordance with Article III Section 5 of the
National Bylaws. (R-7 just deprives them of there voting rights at
Nationals...)
It's very vague allowing a large loophole in what's being enforced.
While my guess it's directed at the all-males, it can be directed at
nearly everyone of our chapters in some way.
It gets rid of the whole concept of honor among brothers by requiring
EVERYTHING to be in writing.
It brings into recruitment a quota system. It could theoretically at the
outer limits of enforcement force a chapter to not base it's pledge program
on the ideals of Alpha Phi Omega, but rather on what minority group the
person belongs to. Quantity versus Quality.
> remained open to admit women, they would not be in violation of the
> by-laws. For example, the chapters that are currently all-female, are not
> so by choice, just by the fact that they cannot recruit men. They would
> still welcome any male pledges or transfer brothers into their chapter, and
> thus are not in violation of the national by-laws. I don't see any
> difference between this and current all-male chapters if this proposal
> passes.
>
> The only problem I see is that it does create a small "loophole" in that
> the all-male chapters can merely claim that they have tried to open their
> membership to women, while no women were interested, they were forced to
> remain all-male. It's a loophole that may not last, but I just wanted to
> point this out...
So you don't want to allow for the possibility that they could try with good
faith to go co-ed and fail. Yet earlier you say it's okay for an all-female
group. Pretty unbrotherly in my opinion... two standards... one for men, and
another for women...
Maybe I'm being alarmist in the first chunk... but these are a possibility.
-John
