I think that almost everybody, particularly people who do not have generational wealth and the accompanying social capital, who goes through rush can attest to how the process is designed to break you down. After a grueling week of pretending to myself and the active members that I wanted to join a sorority, I ended up joining a sorority. Immediately upon joining, I found it hard to connect with the girls. Other things happened that made me feel out of place; I was repeatedly called the name of another girl of color in my pledge class by an exec member during initiation. A picture of me with no makeup enjoying my winter break was posted on the sorority Instagram but then deleted as incoming freshmen began to register for rush. However, I stayed with it believing that, somehow, some way, it would one day get better.

 

This summer, the sorority, in an act of performative anti-racism, created a diversity committee. Since its formation, I cannot point to a single accomplishment of the committee, even though I now watch from the sidelines. 

 

My crusade with trying to sanitize Greek life continued when I agreed to star, along with 5 others, in a 14 minute long video in which I talked about my experiences as a woman of color in a sorority. This too, was ultimately an act of performance meant to pacify the more open-minded white women of Greek life.

 

At the end of the summer, virtual rush began. A virtual rush also meant a virtual work week--the week leading up to rush wherein actives learned the ways of smalltalk, what topics to avoid, how to dress, etc. Virtual work week began with our recruitment chair screensharing a slideshow of the “top girls”--girls who would rank the highest during rush. Top girl status was based on a combination of the girl’s connections within the sorority, how nice their Instagram account was, their legacy status, and recommendation letters from sorority alumni. 

 

At the same time that we prioritized girls with connections and wealth who were invariably white, we had to listen to mandatory anti-racism training. Put on by girls in the sorority (and not a DEI professional), the presentation continued the trend of anti-racism as performance.While we learned about how to be inclusive and understanding, there were fines for missing a day of work week: $50 a day that you missed. 

 

We also learned the rating system. After a 3 minute Zoom breakout session with each girl we rushed, we were to make comments and give her a rating of 1 to 5. Any girl given a 1 was automatically dropped from the sorority’s rush list, and a 5 meant that you NEEDED to have that girl in sorority. The idea of giving complete strangers a number based on an incredibly short interaction seems laughable now, but during rush nobody questioned it. 

 

Once the semester started, the sorority planned several events downtown (during a pandemic), and after an incident in a GroupMe dedicated to polls showed me that over half of the sorority thought it was wrong to attack white supremacy and homophobia, I realized I simply could not belong. My former sorority, as I’m sure all sororities do, prides themselves on “supporting all opinions”. Their whiteness and commitment to civility obfuscates the fact that not all opinions are valid. 

 

I dropped in September because I simply could not struggle with the internal battle of wanting to shapeshift to fit a racist, classist, homophobic institution yet also be true to myself. It was naive of me to think that a diversity committee tasked with “reaching out to multicultural Greek organizations” and “hosting roundtables” would solve structural racism. None of us were qualified to actually do that work. It is crystal clear that Greek life organizations are agents of structural racism.

 

When we do harm, it is up to us to correct it. However, Greek life functions to do harm, to maintain racial and socioeconomic divisions, with no remedy. This fact certainly does not absolve its participants, whether active or inactive, of blame, but it does lead to an interesting question as one seeks to reconcile their past with Greek life. Can the harm that I individually caused by participating in this institution be quantified? Did I right all of my wrongs by dropping my sorority and supporting the complete and total abolition of Greek life? Or is there something more to it?