Published online May 11, 2016
For four years, members of my class of 700 were free to select whom we would room with each year. The first two, we all ate together in Commons, the last two in our 17 eating clubs. We were all white. (The late Joe Moss, the only black student, was a graduate of Princeton High School and lived at home. The late Dave Chang’s father had been the Republic of China’s ambassador to the United States.)
With the advent of dorms with dining halls, freedom of roommate choice continued until African Americans dared to exercise their right to flock predominantly into one residential college. Random assignment of roommates ensued. If compatible, all was fine. If not, as one mother told me, sorority membership for her daughter “was lifesaving.”
Banned in its infancy in 1854, Greek life flourished underground for most of that century. Reintroduced in 1982, under two presidents, Sigma Chi Bill Bowen *57 and Zeta Beta Tau Harold Shapiro *64, it fulfilled the dream of Woodrow Wilson 1879, a Phi Kappa Psi, that freshman and sophomores interact with juniors and seniors. That is, until their successor, Shirley Tilghman, noticed that Greeks in bicker eating clubs ranged from 53 percent in Ivy to 37 percent in Tower. Already alarmed that year after year 75 percent of sophomores elect first to bicker, frosh by fiat are presently deprived of freedom of choice to join a chapter.
The unintended consequences? Faculty and staff who are lifetime members of these racially, socially, religiously, and LGBT-inclusive national and international brotherhoods and sisterhoods have told me they are uncomfortable. Worse yet, while speaking of the University’s “commitment to diversity and inclusivity,” the Report of the Trustee Committee on Woodrow Wilson’s Legacy at Princeton fails to even mention the vital role that Greek life is playing. Embraced by 15 percent of the undergraduates, its more intimate chapters become more vital than ever as class size expands.