Daily ip Trojan
Volume LXXIII, Number 46
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California
Monday, April 24, 1978
Liberty, Equality... Row makes minorities conform
and Fraternity?
By Devra Lieb
It is Rush Week.
Monday night, after dinner, the fraternity's chapter is called to order. The members will vote on which rush applicants will be accepted.
Two men in the house have decided to vote against accepting any of the blacks, orientals, Iranians, Jeivs or chicanos who have applied for membership — two men in a house of 40 or 70 or 120.
But, the rules of the house are weighted in favor of the dissenters.
In many houses on the Row, only one negative vote denies membership to applicants.
*	★ *
ANN (A PSEUDONYM, as are all the single names in this article), a junior from Los Angeles, has been through rush twice. She is black. She says she had never experienced prejudice until she came to the university as a freshmen.
On the first day of, rush, she encountered one of the administrative coordinators of rush.
The woman was sitting behind a desk filling out forms as the rushees arrived. The woman had not looked up from her paper when Ann approached the desk. “I had very good recommendations,” Ann recalled. “She was looking at them and said to me, ‘Ann, you’re one of the girls I’ve been dying to meet.’
“But then she looked up at me and you could see her face just drop to the floor.”
Ann visited all the sororities during rush. She was dropped from many houses on the first day.
“I opened a lot of eyes. I tried to break the barrier,” she said. “But I think it’ll take at least 10 years for ’SC to wake up.”
Ultimately, Ann was dropped by all the sororities.
But she was not bitter. She
went through rush again as a sophomore. She was invited back to several houses but was dropped by all of them the last day.
Ann said she never considered joining one of the allblack sororities at the university. She had attended an integrated high school and she had never cut herself off from socializing with any group.
“Blacks are at the bottom of the totem pole here at ’SC,” Ann said. “I find it hard to believe that orientals, Jews and others experience discrimination because at least some of them are on the Row.”
About Row men and women, Ann said: “They’re living in a rose-colored world.” She added, though, she might rush again.
Jack, a sophomore from the San Fernando Valley, is Jewish. He came to the university and immediately pledged a large fraternity house. He said at the time he pledged, his fraternity brothers did not know he was Jewish.
Two months after pledging, he was put on probation. His fraternity brothers said he was rarely at the house because he had a busy schedule. They gave Jack one week to prove himself. Jack said during the days that followed, he missed classes to be more noticeable at the house.
During the probation period, Jack said a fraternity brother took him aside and explained many of the members of the house were anti-Semitic and had found out Jack was Jewish. The frater-
nity brother said Jack would have to be better than the other pledges because he was Jewish.
Jack’s efforts to become more visible failed. Shortly after his probation began he was asked to leave the
house.
But before he left, he confronted those he had been told were anti-Semitic. Jack said that one of these men told him, “You Jews are too god-damned aggresn’T and I just don’t want yoi. in the house — you’ll take over.”
Jack said of his experience, “In a large house, a small group can really run it
—	a power source — a clique of members and alumni."
Jack said a major problem on the Row is a lack of awareness that religious discrimination even exists. “You know, I bet there are still people in that house who think I was dinged (dropped from membership) because I was too busy,” he said.
Jack believes he was dropped because the house already had a Jew. He said the house has “one of everything so that they can maintain the token.”
Jack has since joined another fraternity at the university.
He said of his first time rushing, “I was bitter because I thought anti-Semitism was out and there were times I wanted to retaliate physically but I
didn’t.”
Other examples of
racial, religious, ethnic and cultural prejudice exist on the Row. Many of the students who have gone through rush and had both positive and negative experiences offered their opinions on the problem.
Hal. a junior from the San Fernando Valley, is a
member of a large fraternity. He said the prejudices that exist on the Row grow out of the stereotypes students have when they came to the university. He said many of his fraternity brothers believe Jewish people have big noses, drive fancy cars, live in Marina del Rey or the San
Fernando Valley, and wear too much jewelry.
He believes that in order to survive socially on the Row, a student must conform to a particular way of life.
“You’ve got to change to make it here,” Hal said. “This school is controlled by the parents of the kids on the Row — everyone knows it.” Several students interviewed also expressed shock and distaste for certain practices employed by some sororities and fraternities to find out more about an applicant’s background.
Sue, a sophomore from the San Fernando Valley, said a top sorority called friends of her family to ask about her father’s income.
Jane, a senior from Orange County, said one house called family friends and asked what holiday Jane’s family celebrates in December in an attempt to find out if she was Jewish.
Many women have complained of being questioned about the ethnic origins of their last names. One woman related the story of a Jewish friend who went through rush wearing a large cross on a chain around her neck to improve her chances of being bid by a top house.
Mary Ann Hodges, a junior from Tustin and president of PanheUemc, the coordinating body that oversees sorority activities, sees a changing of attitudes in the Row’s future.
Hodges said she thought there is prejudice on the Row but it grows out of fear of someone different.
She said she was unaware of the reports of questioning
women about their last names and similar practices and said Panhellenic encourages women to be themselves during rush.
At her installation as president of Panhellenic in February, Hodges delivered a speech that said in part: "In reflection, the most prominent objective that is brought to mind is the steps that have been taken to include sororities of all races in not only rush but in the planning and execution of various activities. Hopefully this will continue as it can only strengthen our system and help to relieve it of petty prejudices.”
Hodges believes a major step in breaking down old racial barriers on the Row came during rush last fall. The university’s two black sororities, Alpha Kappa Alpha and Delta Sigma Theta, conducted their rush in conjunction with the other sorority houses, which are located on 28th Street.
Karen brooks, past
president of Alpha Kappa Alpha, a black sorority, said the black participation in last fall’s rush was a first.
Brooks added the purpose was more to inform the white women what the black sororities were all about rather than an effort to rush them.
She said she foresees more black acceptance on the Row in the future but feels pressure from house alumnae stops the attempts now.
“I can’t see a large group of b\ack women flourishing on the Row,” she said. “It will probably be more like a large house accepting one or other houses following suit as the fashionable thing to do. There’s nothing there to attract a large group of black, women.”
(continued on page 2)