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University Daily Kansan Thursday, March 29, 1962
The Campus Politicians
Campus politics have degenerated considerably in the last few days. After opening the spring election campaigns by issuing platforms and statements of purpose, the three campus political organizations have forsaken constructive action and are now engaging in a game of charges and counter-charges.
Criticism and discussion of opposing parties is normal and expected. However, this should be secondary to the constructive proposals and discussion of issues by the candidates and party leaders.
The fountainhead of all this negative activity was the organization of Action and the subsequent opposition of Vox and UP to it. Action adopted a platform which included several controversial points, including reaffiliation with the National Student Association, withdrawal of university recognition from any living group still having a discriminatory clause by Sept. 1, 1965 and a concern with and involvement in national issues by the All Student Council. In many ways, the Action platform expressed a different philosophy of student government and its legitimate concerns than is held by Vox and UP.
THESE DIFFERENT concepts of what student government should be concerned with is undoubtedly the key factor. Action has advocated a far wider and more active concern with both campus and national affairs than the other two political organizations advocate. The statements of Vox and UP indicate that they feel student government cannot legitimately concern itself with some of the issues Action discusses in its platform.
This question of what the legitimate concerns of student government are is obviously one of the reasons Action was formed. It disagrees with the more limited concept advocated by Vox and UP and wants an increased role for the ASC. The speeches and debates in the coming campaigns this April should prove useful in helping to define what the legitimate role of the ASC is.
But this factor must not be allowed to reduce the campaigns to mutual vindictiveness. Both in trying to define what the legitimate concern of student government is and in supporting their platforms, the candidates can best serve their causes by placing the greatest emphasis on the positive elements of their proposals.
—William H. Mullins
How They Handled Discrimination At Amherst
Editor:
In your March 20th issue, you carried a letter from Bill Gissendanner concerning the Greek restrictive clauses. In that letter, reference was made to the fraternity systems of Amherst and Williams. I took my undergraduate work at Amherst and was a member of a fraternity there. The social customs of that school (I cannot speak with any authority for Williams) are, perhaps, unique, and may be of some interest to your readers. If I understand Mr. Gissendanner's reference, he is either poorly informed or has grossly misinterpreted the situation.
During World War II, all fraternities were taken over by the college for use as dormitories. In 1945, the faculty wished to discontinue the fraternity system on the grounds that it fostered ant-intellectualism and that its discriminatory clauses ran counter to the aims and principles of the college.
IN 1954, PIII Delta Theta, Mr. Gissdanner's fraternity, suspended its local chapter for pledging "socially undesirable elements" (a Jewish boy). In 1957, this particular socially undesirable had become president of the house and the local chapter was dropped from the national. That same year, another house disaffiliated with its national because of a dispute involving rushing policy. In 1958, PhiGamma Delta pledged a Negro and was suspended by its national. Contrary to local Fiji opinion, the boy in question was not forced on the house, but was obtained only after long wooing in competition with two other houses.
An undergraduate body largely composed of returning veterans readily embraced the faculty's policies. The house to which it subsequently pledged was informed by its national organization not to open in this unfavorable atmosphere. The house opened as a local. About a year later, another house broke with its national over the pledging of a Negro. This occasioned headlines throughout the country.
ALUMNI FEELING against such action was strong enough to induce the administration to allow the thirteen fraternities (then all nationals) to reopen, but under permanent probation. The college reserved the right to terminate its recognition of any chapter which condoned anti-intellectual practices or maintained discriminatory clauses, either written or understood.
So much for history. What of the present situation? Both Amherst and Williams enjoy 100 per cent rushing. That is, all freshmen wishing to join a fraternity do. At the beginning of rush, all freshmen are escorted through smokers at each of the thirteen fraternities and the
... Letters
Lord Jeffrey Amberst Club, the latter being a social dorm for independents, with all the advantages of fraternity life plus lower dues. The freshman then declares for rush or decides to remain independent. In my class, 100 per cent of the freshmen chose and pledged fraternities. Each house is then assigned one-thirteenth of those declaring for rush as its quota, with any "left over" numbers being assigned according to a rotating schedule. The quota is not one which the house must fill, but one that it may not exceed.
RUSH, WHEN I graduated, comprised the first four days of spring vacation. During the last twenty-four hours of rush, the rush chairmen of all the houses are in continuous contact, making sure that all candidates are met and bid. If it becomes clear that some boys are not being approached, either because they are not well known or because one or more houses have decided to close short of quotas, then extended quotas are granted to those houses desiring them. At the end of rush, all participating freshmen have joined fraternities or LJAC, albeit some may not find themselves in the house of their first choice.
Because of the quota, the problem of fitting the freshman to a house which he wishes to join has at times been critical. Generally, one goes with his friends, and houses tend to drop groups, some of the members of which may not be well known to the brothers. This practice is reinforced by the short rush period and by school rules and a freshman schedule which effectively isolates the freshmen from the members of the three upper classes. Last year, one house decided to eliminate all selection by declaring that it would pledge whoever asked to join after a given hour on the last day of rush. It continued to pledge all comers in this manner until the quota was filled.
ASIDE FROM its liberal approach, several other salient social factors have emerged from this system. First, after the initial faculty ruling, all of the major changes in rushing procedure, including the decision to go to 100 per cent rush, have been initiated
The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.—Rene Descartes
Impossible is a word only to be found in the dictionary of fools.— Napoleon
Short Ones
--by the fraternities, sometimes under pressure from a small but vocal group of independents, but more often spontaneously. The nationals have had far less trouble from the administration than from their own undergraduate members.
THIS PRESENTATION represents only the crudest of sketches of a highly complex and integrated social system. It is a system which may well be incompatible with a school such as KU. The differences between the Amherst-Williams type of institution (please! we are not Ivy League) and a large, midwestern public university are legion and so vast as to be appreciated only by those who have enjoyed the opportunity to spend considerable time at both. However, I feel strongly that any school whose undergraduate body sincerely desires to do so can develop a fraternity system (the peculiar psychology of the female of the species suggests caution in holding similar notions concerning sororities) without the inanity of the discrimination clause.
Third, the fraternity system is a social organization which tends to unite rather than segment the student body. The pledge finds that in joining a house his approach to the college in toto is broadened. Rather than restricting himself to a small, exclusive portion of the student body, he is introduced to the college at large via his house. To the pledge, the usage of the word "fraternity" moves away from that of the Greeks and approaches that intended by the French.
Second, once started, the liberalization of fraternity policies has run a spiral course. Today, most of KU's Greeks would probably consider the majority of fraternities at Amherst to be social dorms with initiation rituals. This is but weak criticism to those who are more interested in the social aspects of fraternity life than in the exclusiveness of having endured a particular form of mystic rites.
History is little else than a picture of human crimes and misfortunes.—Voltaire
* *
The burden of development lies on the student body. The administration at Amherst has never forced a house to fill to quota, much less pledge an unwanted member. I doubt that the student body at KU can achieve comparable results as long as it feels that action is dependent upon a dictum from Strong.
Finally, let me urge interested persons to take Mr. Gissendanner's advice to write to Amherst and/or Williams. These are dynamic little schools, and I imagine things have changed considerably since last I was there. I am sure that letters addressed to Peter Schragg at the Amherst Publicity Bureau, to the chairman of the House Management Committee, to the presidents of Kappa Theta or Phi Alpha Psi or to persons in similar positions at Williams would be welcomed.
Abbot S. Gaunt
Amherst '58
Lawrence graduate student
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
"I JUST BOOSED THEIR MORALE...I TOLD THEM SOMEONE IS GOING TO PAGE."
Warner Defends Letter Editor.
Although my term as president of Wesley Foundation has now expired, I am compelled to answer some questions which have arisen following the letter which three other members of the executive council at Wesley and I sent to Chancellor Wesoee a month ago regarding discriminatory practices in fraternities and sororities and in women's dormitories. An excerpt from this letter which was printed in the Kansan two weeks ago expressed to the chancellor our belief that pressure should be exerted on certain fraternities to get them to remove clauses of racial discrimination from their national constitutions. It also stated that the discriminatory practice of placing Negro girls together in women's dorms (unless a white girl explicitly requests a Negro roommate) should cease.
After the Kansan article, a couple of persons expressed their belief that the church has no right to "middle" in such affairs. Some have pointed out that three members of the executive council, including myself, are active on the Civil Rights Council—as if something were "fishy" about this. (Only one was a member of the CRC when we began our correspondence with the chancellor last November.) Some have asked if Wesley might not be a "front" for the CRC.
THERE IS NO reason why those of us in the foundation who are concerned about this issue should stay away from the Civil Rights Council. There are areas where the church simply cannot work as effectively outside the political structure of our society as from within. The church is not called to "keep her nose clean" by avoiding the realm of politics. Dr. Peter L. Berger, a sociologist, blasts those who would contend otherwise in his recent work, "The
Noise of Solemn Assemblies."
This book, which deals with the establishment and mission of the church in the United States today, has been adopted by the National Student Christian Federation as this year's basic study guide. Dr. Berger writes, "Christian action may be defined as any attempt not only to deal with individuals but also to modify the social structure itself. Another way of putting this is to say that such action will try to induce social change in some direction thought desirable from the viewpoint of Christian ethics...that is, the mobilization of Christians as groups or individuals within the political processes of democracy. The typical course of events here will consist of the formation of committees that will seek to organize political propaganda and will put pressure on governmental agencies to pass a certain bill, or to revoke a certain practice, or to infiltrate or terminate a certain program. What is done here from a Christian motivation will not be different politically from similar actions carried on by groups without this motivation."
NOW, CHANCELLOR Wescoe and the administration have not been mistaken for "governmental agencies," but the political hierarchy of authority within the university clearly differs from the structure of government without; and no one should protest to our working within the university structure. The letter we sent to the chancellor did not differ politically from action which has been taken by the CRC although the CRC and our exec council were motivated by different forces. With this point clarified, it does not seem reasonable that we should refuse to support the Civil Rights Council.
Don Warner Topeka junior
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