To the Editor:
I would like to address one aspect of Katie Greenwood's editorial in The Dartmouth, "System Failure," from Jan. 30, 2002. She describes the door-decorating women's response as cowardly and apparently shirking personal responsibility, but the truth is that the sorority rush system is complicated and the sororities do not have complete control over the outcome. The process is based on the idea of "mutual selection" and to that end, there are opportunities for the houses and the rushees to choose each other. Each sorority can only invite a certain percentage of women back for the next round; each woman who rushes can only return to a certain number of houses, even if she's received invitations from all of them. After preference night, the rushee fills out her preference card and the houses compile lists. Then the house advisors -- not the undergraduate members of the sorority -- sit down and try to match them as equitably as possible. But once again, each sorority is limited through membership limits imposed by the college as to how many women can receive bids. Sometimes things don't match up as perfectly as everybody would like, but for the most part the system is as fair and inclusive as possible.
