December 2017

Armind Chahal:
The Greek Life Diversity Issue

If you’ve ever walked through campus during the first few weeks of the semester, you’re bound to see a group of girls wearing the same blue or white tank tops with their perfectly straightened hair walking together. Chances are, these girls are headed to a rush event hoping to be selected to become a sister in one of the sororities on campus. Although their matching outfits make them relatively indistinguishable from one another, there is another feature that stands out about them: they’re probably all white.
When I first came to Michigan last year, I didn’t know much about the culture of the university other than the fact that, despite what the campus recruiters went around telling potential students, it is not very diverse. This is especially true for Greek Life where the student makeup is extremely white. In addition to that, Greek Life tends to attract students from wealthy backgrounds. Being South Asian, it’s easy to see why I didn’t hesitate in ruling out Greek Life before I even stepped foot on campus my freshman year.
There are, however, a number of Greek organizations on the MGC (Multicultural Greek Council) that are meant to attract students from different racial backgrounds such as, Sigma Sigma Rho (South Asian), Kappa Phi Lambda (Pan-Asian), Lambda Theta Alpha (Latina). Although these sororities exist, I have always felt that the more prominent, white sororities on campus have overpowered them. This is mostly because I didn’t even know that these sororities existed until I looked up the MGC. It also should be noted that all but one of the organizations of the MGC do not have recognized housing facilities. It is clear that through the formation of these chapters and the council itself, progress towards a more diverse Greek Life has been made. However, until the more known Greek organizations on campus begin to make more of an effort to recruit students of different racial backgrounds the Greek community will remain racially uniform.
I think that this also should serve as a wakeup call for the University of Michigan as a whole. If the university makes more of a conscious effort to create a more racially and socioeconomically diverse student body, then it would be easier for student organizations to follow suit. If we want Greek Life to become more diverse, we should start by first diversifying the student population.