EXCLUSIVE: Women Urge Panhellenic Conference To Keep Men Out Of Sororities

The Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) sent letters to members of the National Panhellenic Conference’s (NPC) 26 sororities Wednesday urging them to tell NPC to keep sororities open only to women.

IWF’s “Tell National Panhellenic Conference And Sorority Leadership: Save Our Sisterhood” letter, first shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation, urges sorority members to sign on to the campaign to protect sororities from biological males amidst a push by the NPC to allow men to join historically women-only spaces. The campaign has already garnered 1,000 letters from sorority women across the country.

“Today’s sororities were founded in the late 1800s when women were not openly welcomed in college settings,” the letter reads. “Sadly, the very organization whose mission has been to support and empower women through single sex environments, has turned its back on women in the name of social convenience.”

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NPC in 2020 appointed several diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) consultants who pushed the sororities to begin allowing men who claim to be women into the organizations, IWF’s letter alleges. The DEI team intended to address “racism and racial injustice” and review policies that “significantly benefited white women and others with privilege,” according to their website.

A 2020 blog post by NPC titled “We Hear You And We Are Listening” also stated the organization intended to reconsider “norms and practices that create barriers facing potential members based on racial identity, ethnicity, LGBTQ identity, religious beliefs, ability and socioeconomic status, among others.”

Several chapters have since been forced to admit males.

“hy are these leaders not standing up for women? Why are our organizations, whose mission is to support our young women, surrendering to efforts to erase the very concept of women as a distinct biological category?” the letter asks. “We call on NPC and all NPC sororities to return to their stated missions of advocating for women and vigorously defending their right to provide a single-sex environment.”

“Sororities were created to give women a place on college campuses,” Hannah Holtmeier, a senior at the University of Nebraska Lincoln and Independent Women ambassador, told the DCNF. “By allowing men to invade sororities we are taking a step backwards and robbing women of all the opportunities that come from being a member. I’ve grown and learned so much from being in Kappa and it’s sad to think about young girls not getting the chance to experience Greek Life like I have.”

Holtmeier is also a plaintiff in Westenbroek v. Kappa Kappa Gamma, a lawsuit challenging a University of Wyoming sorority chapter for initiating a man who allegedly “upended the privacy and intimacy of the sorority home including by watching the women change, taking unwanted photographs, and asking invasive sexual questions.”

NPC sororities represent over 5 million women.

“NPC promises within their mission statement to preserve a women’s only sorority experience,” Jaylyn Westenbroek, an Independent Women ambassador and another plaintiff in Westenbroek v. Kappa Kappa Gamma, told the DCNF. “It’s time to hold them to their own values of what has been promised to every member. These women’s only spaces can only be preserved if NPC steps up to recognize real women.”

“It is our duty to hold NPC accountable for their actions,” Independent Women ambassador and lawsuit plaintiff Allie Coghan told the DCNF. “They have robbed us of the sisterhood we were promised when we joined. This is supposed to be something that ‘never happens’ and if it can happen in Wyoming, then it can happen anywhere. All 26 NPC sororities need to recognize what is happening and stand up for women. NPC needs to return to its original mission and support women before there is no Greek life left. After all NPC is nothing with out its members.”

NPC did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect that the letter is part of a national campaign and added data reflecting the amount of letters garnered since launch.

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