Responding to a request made by the presidents of the six sororities, the presidents of 23 of the 27 Greek organizations signed a pledge to improve the Greek system at a meeting of the Coed Fraternity and Sorority Council last night.
The pledge, which the sorority presidents wrote over the past several days, demands that the president of each Greek house submit an "action plan" identifying problem areas within the organization and solutions to those problems.
CFSC President Jim Freeman '97 said the four Greek presidents absent from last night's meeting will be asked to return the pledge "either signed or unsigned."
The presidents of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, Delta Sigma Theta sorority, Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity and Kappa Kappa Kappa fraternity were absent from the meeting, CFSC Secretary Henry Rosevear '98 said.
Freeman said the sorority presidents' pledge is designed to "root out" problems in the Greek system.
The pledge was the answer to demands for change in the Greek system, according to the presidents of the sororities: Cai Boldt '97 of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, Anne Jones '97 of Delta Delta Delta sorority, Emily Orzel '97 of Delta Gamma sorority, Kathryn Scharbach '97 of Epsilon Kappa Theta sorority, Emily Smith '97 of Sigma Delta sorority and Joanna Whitley '97 of Kappa Delta Epsilon sorority.
In an interview with The Dartmouth following the meeting last night, the six presidents, speaking as a unified group, said they created the pledge because "we felt we couldn't support a Greek system that had no direction or the wrong direction."
"We didn't feel like Greek organizations had common ground other than Greek letters," they added.
The sorority presidents began drafting the pledge following a meeting of 150 sorority members at Sigma Delt. The presidents called last week's meeting to discuss problems with the Greek system.
A BlitzMail message, which was circulated among sorority members last week, stated, "The sorority presidents are extremely fed up with the fact that we are defending a Greek system where certain parties are doing things we strongly object to. We feel it is time to use our power and find a way to force Greeks to ACT on this issue."
The sorority presidents said last night that the discovery of an allegedly racist and sexist script read at Alpha Chi Alpha fraternity was not the reason for their meeting. Rather, they said, the script "was the straw that broke the camel's back."
The sorority presidents said the pledge is designed to uncover, among other things, the attitudes that would make the script acceptable in an organization.
The statement of purpose that the 23 Greek presidents signed identifies three goals for the CFSC.
"Our purpose is ... to broaden the mind set of the Greek system from the basement to the greater community, ... to make Greek leaders and members accountable for their behavior, [and to] ... promote respect for all members of our Greek system and the Dartmouth community as a whole," the pledge states.
After the meeting last night, the sorority presidents said they based the pledge on the sentiments of members of their various houses.
"No matter how we individually feel, we can't do anything without the support of all of our members," they told The Dartmouth last week.
One reason for the pledge is to make the CFSC more accountable for the behavior of its member organizations, the sorority presidents said.
"The campus holds us accountable," they said. "This is us holding ourselves accountable."
The sorority presidents said they would like presidents of Greek organizations to describe house problems to an as-yet undetermined subcommittee of the CFSC. The subcommittee could help presidents decide how to address the problems.
