With women rapidly achieving parity at Dartmouth, it seems unfair to have five working sororities versus 15 fraternities. Last week, the Panhellenic council decided to give Kappa Delta Epsilon, the sixth sorority, its full backing, in its drive to be competitive.
That Xi Kappa Chi sorority failed and was replaced by KDE, it seems to me, was more a product of bad luck than anything else. After all, the other houses are ready to burst, and a bunch of women signed on to KDE, apparently pretty eager to make a go of it.
But still, the six-to-15 problem remains. To have only six sororities limits the kind of environment a woman can expect to be exposed to, as a house, inevitably, tends to homogenize itself, to a certain extent. If we have six houses, roughly six scenes develop. But if we have 15 sororities, that's 15 scenes for the same number of women.
So why not have nine more sororities? Over the next few years, if KDE works out okay, more houses would easily be able to absorb the overflow of women who want to join sororities. Because a large number of women want to join sororities, and probably more would rush if there were more choices.
But the administration doesn't want that. It's objective is to hold the line, so far as the Greeks are concerned, and eventually "encourage" houses to either go co-ed or simply shut down. (The administration doesn't seem to realize that, if more people wanted co-ed houses, more people would be clamoring for them. Or perhaps they do realize this.)
Now, I have a suggestion that might appear to be crazy and difficult: a group of unaffiliated women get together, with Panhellenic council backing and guidance, call themselves the seventh house, say Alpha Beta Gamma. The women of ABG would be recognized by the other houses as a legitimate sorority, even if the administration doesn't and they have as yet no house.
Eventually, if the women and the council stuck with ABG long enough, and didn't blink when the administration grew impatient and decided to play hardball, ABG could become the seventh sorority. An eighth wouldn't be hard after that.
This plan has two requirements: the iron determination of a group of women to form a house of their own, and enough solidarity within the Panhellenic council to stand up to the administration. Because only a fool would not recognize that Pelton is going to pull everything he has in his bag of tricks to shut down ABG and cow the Panhellenic. If you don't think so, just ask AD.
As Rachel Perri '94 correctly noted, it is the administration's unwillingness to allow another house that creates this perception that sororities are "exclusive," and thus the justification for shutting down all sororities, eventually. If ABG is formed, the administration would have to go after it no matter what, as it would disprove their argument and make them look stupid. Things could turn ugly quick.
The administration does not fool around; they are extremely serious about getting rid of the entire Greek system, which is, after all, the only social outlet at Dartmouth. It should be in all of our interests to see to it the success of a seventh sorority, even if it means taking a lot of heat.
