[17955] in APO-L
Open Membership (Kinda Long) CONVENTION EDUCATION AND HISTORY
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (J. Busby)
Sat Dec 13 13:56:54 1997
Date: Sat, 13 Dec 1997 12:54:33 -0600
Reply-To: "J. Busby" <jcb2181@TEXASONLINE.NET>
From: "J. Busby" <jcb2181@TEXASONLINE.NET>
To: Multiple recipients of list APO-L <APO-L@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU>
I find it kind of funny that I only post on APO-L in very rare occassions,
but after reading some of the discussions going on about the membership
policy... I think it is time for some APO convention education.
I am uniquely qualified to speak on this topic because I was on the Chapter
Operations Committee in Boston '92 that hammered out the current wording of
the open membership policy. (BTW, I voted for it)
First off let me discuss "all students."
In '92 we were faced with 3~4 amendments that were written like laundry
lists of situations. They read like and ad for fair housing or a government
job. The proposals said things like, "APO will not discriminate based on
race, gender, creed, national origin, sexual orientation, university
classification....", ad naseum. Well, in the interest of brevity (and
common sense) the committee voted to send wording to the convention floor
that stated "all students".
Now, what does "all students" mean and how does it apply to the chapters.
All students means any matriculating student at an instutiton that sponsors
a charter/petitioning group/interest group for an Alpha Phi Omega chapter.
This allows for graduate students to be members and ALLOWS chapters to
reflect the make up of the matriculating student population at the charter
instution.
So how does open membership apply to the chapters.
First, everyone should understand one concept VERY CLEARLY before they go
treading into the membership arena. That concept is that Alpha Phi Omega
charters, and therefore Chapters/PG's/IG's, are governed by TWO bodies. The
National Convention of Alpha Phi Omega and the Administration of the Hosting
University.
Keeping that in mind, the rationale for writing the open memberhsip policy
in it's current form was for EXTENSION. Let me repeat that, the open
membership policy was written for the purpose of EXTENSION, not accross the
borad, blind applicaiton to our existing chapters. It was reported to the
committee, by the membership and extension committee and the National
President that Alpha Phi Omega had reached a point where extension efforts
were in jeopardy at several target universities and colleges. An informal
poll of the university administrations balking at APO extension efforts
revealed that they either a) did not allow greek letter organizations (read
fraternities / soroties) or b) did not allow student organizations with
membership requirements that would restrict students from seeking
membership. The convention can't do a whole lot about condition (a), but we
could do something about condition (b). One of the specific examples was
that I think the old wording of membership policy did not include "sexual
orientation" and a university official interpred that to say that
APO -=could=- descriminate against homosexuals and disallowed the extension
effort.
Now, that brings us to the "gentelmans agreement". Basically, this boils
down to the fact that the APO national convention has decided not to enforce
the open membership clause on certain chapters which have been
"grandfathered" to remain all-male. Grandfathering is not without legal
precedent...it happens all the time. One specific case of "grandfathering"
deals with property, where say a parcel was out of the city limits and
therefore the owner could leagally stable horses. Well some years later say
the city expands to include the parcel and the city has a code that forbids
stabling horses in the city limits. In most cases the current land owner is
not held to that code as long as the property stays in the land owner's
family. Now that doesn't mean the City couldn't unilaterially vote to
recend the "grandfather" clause.. and it also means the landowner couldn't
sue to keep the agreement. I have seen the issue come out of courts both
ways, sometimes the city code stands and sometimes the rights of the
landownwer prevail.
Having said that, any one of our all male chapters could be held to the open
membership policy TODAY if one of two things happened. One, the National
Convention of Alpha Phi Omega passed a resolution enforcing the open
membership policy on all existing and future chapters. Two, the
administration of an instution could call up the National Office of APO and
say..."we are going to terminate the university sponsorship of chatper "X",
because it is all male and that is against the philosophy of this instution.
Change it now or APO is no longer welcome on this campus."
So, to say that APO is the only one not enforcing the open membership policy
on the all male chapters is FALSE. The host instutions are also not
enforcing the open membership policy on the all male chapters.
One last thing.... someone in this discussion created the circular argument
that membership is open, but chapters determine their own membership. This
argument is not circular. The ability to become or remain a member is open,
but each chapter has their own ability to develop standards of admission /
remaining active that are fair and do not discriminate. This allows
chapters to set things like service hours required to be a member, service
hours required to remain a member, GPA required to be a member, # of
meetings you have to attend to be a member, etc... Also, the "chapters
determine there own membership" clause has absolutely nothing to do with the
all male issue, nor does it allow for any contridiction to the open
membership policy.
Sorry to be so long winded on this issue, but education on this issue is
sorely needed.
-James Busby
Alumnus, Xi Delta Chapter
Texas A&M University
'92 & '94 APO Convention Voting Delegate
Member of '92 Chapter Operations Committee
jcb2181@texasonline.net
