Student Council passed a resolution Tuesday addressing the self-governance of sorority women, urging national sorority organizations to respect University principles of student self-governance as well as University-approved sorority safety plans.
The resolution follows a letter from the National Panhellenic Conference on behalf of 16 national and international sorority presidents requesting University chapters not participate in organized Boys’ Bid Night activities. Several sorority chapters have subsequently confirmed their national chapters are requiring individual sorority members to not participate in Bid Night activities, with several mandating participation in alternative chapter events that evening.
Engineering Rep. Danielle Ager, a fourth year and co-sponsor of the resolution, said it was important to protect student self governance and encourage collaboration between national sorority organizations and University chapters.
“What [is] really an issue is there’s no respect given with how we operate at U.Va. with student self-governance,” she said. “[The mandate] just appeared one day and everyone was expected to comply. The issue is not that we can’t go out on Boys’ Bid Night but what precedent this is setting for the future.”
Third-year Commerce student Faith Lyons, Council director of University relations, said while it is possible a collaborative solution to sorority safety concerns may have still included a decision to not participate in Boys’ Bid Night, the University community should have been part of the decision-making process.
“Student self-governance is part of everything we do on Grounds,” she said. “Last semester students were a part of the conversation and part of creating the solution.”
Safety and Wellness Chair Rachel Murphy, a third-year College student, said the NPC mandate actually reduces the overall safety of students and brings into question female agency at the University.
“Sorority women are being used as a pawn for fraternity men to get their act together,” she said. “You miss out on all these women who are trained to be active bystanders.”
Murphy also said in prohibiting sorority participation in Boys’ Bid Night, fraternities lose the opportunity to show the University their improved safety standards.
Ager said the mandate would overshadow the recently adopted University-approved safety measures.
“There was a safety plan made at the end of last semester that all the fraternities and sororities signed at the beginning of this semester,” she said. “This gets in the way of chapters trying to implement that.”
Inter-Sorority Council President Allison Palacios, a third-year College student, said national organizations are implementing the mandate in an effort to promote safety among their members.
“From my conversation with leaders of the organization this past weekend, they are keeping in mind women’s leadership,” she said. “At the same time they are trying to act in the way they know best at this point.”
Palacios said there are also other important safety considerations — like binge drinking and physical injuries — which have fallen out of the conversation.
“I think that national organizations have been naïve to not address this situation in the past,” she said. “I understand that there should’ve been a conversation, but at the same time we had a conversation that upon entering a sorority you’re always wearing your letters and are held up to a certain standard. Additionally, I’d like to point out that this mandate is not supposed to be new. ... Women are not supposed to be involved in men’s recruitment.”
Fourth-year College student Olivia Bona took issue with the apparent unwillingness of national organizations to consider the complexities and conflicting sides of the issue, such as an individual’s ability to act on their own behalf and not as a member of a sorority.
“Yes, I chose to agree to be in a sorority,” she said. “However, as an individual I should be able to do whatsoever I choose.”
Ager said it is important to stress the importance of collaboration between national organizations and students.
“The main thing Student Council is asking for is for the national organizations to engage with their members,” she said.
Council invited the president of each National Sorority Organization to Charlottesville for further discussion the issue Friday.
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