Submission: Greek community must work together to combat negative perceptions

Greek Community:

The recent Daily Bruin article, “Records reveal Pi Kappa Phi members made racists statements in 2013,” suggests that racists and misogynistic comments are commonplace within the Greek community.

While the university needs time to gather all the facts and review these serious and disturbing allegations, I also feel the need to provide this response. It paints a picture of an insulated community where fraternity brothers foster, reinforce and accept derogatory, racist and sexist attitudes.

If UCLA’s Greek community is truly better than this – and I know we are – then we must work harder to demonstrate it.

With our chosen Greek identity, we have the opportunity to determine for ourselves how our community will be represented and perceived. If we want people to understand that our community is better than any one incident, we need to address some serious questions: What impact do we want to have on the broader community? What are we, as individuals or Greek institutions, doing or failing to do, that would allow negative perceptions to exist? What steps are we willing to take that guarantee our Greek community will be known for embodying our True Bruin Values?

The Greek community is known for many qualities: sisterhood, brotherhood, leadership, service to communities, excellence in scholarship and philanthropic efforts. Specifically, our Bruin Greek community is the home of legendary figures on our campus, including Tom Bradley, John Wooden and Arthur Ashe. The rich history of our fraternity and sorority community goes further back with Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. – a historically Black Greek letter organization – being the first Greek organization at UCLA. This history will always remain a part of our community. This history and the character of our members is what we should be known for. That is what we should commit ourselves to.

The historical events that have impacted our communities force us to ask who we are and who we want to be as a UCLA Greek community. We all choose to partake in the UCLA community, to understand each other in thoughtful, caring and open-minded ways. Despite the perception that the Greek community is insulated, we have been working hard to be anything but, and we have recognized the need to be in dialogue and learn from others in the community.

Within the past year, the Greek community has acknowledged that changing a culture that has been perceived as unwelcoming takes more than a handful of people or a few programs, and that it can’t be done overnight. The Office of Fraternity and Sorority Relations is actively attempting to engage the community in these difficult questions. In the fall quarter, the Greek community sought outside professionals and brought in the Anti-Defamation League to meet with chapter and council presidents to provide a workshop regarding language, anti-bias and cultural sensitivity.

During the winter quarter, members of the Greek community heard from Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Jerry Kang, who facilitated a presentation that focused on the notions of cultural appropriation, sensitivity and how organizations can be more mindful in their interactions with their members and the structuring of their events. In addition, the Alliance through Intergroup Dialogue, a peer-to-peer group here at UCLA, facilitated a program regarding identity, race, gender and sexual orientation for our chapter and council presidents and with multiple Greek organizations to equip students, through active participation, with knowledge and skills in helping create and contribute to a diverse society.

Building on these efforts, the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Relations created a new initiative called B.R.I.D.G.E. (Building Respectable Inclusive Diverse Greeks Equitably) to help members within Greek life engage the Greek and UCLA community on matters of historical inequality inside and outside of UCLA, educate and provide resources for the Greek community with regards to matters of equity, diversity and inclusion, and ultimately, with the assistance of campus partners, help engender a Greek community committed to justice and equality.

These intentional and strategic efforts are just the beginnings of the work we will continue to do to improve UCLA’s Greek culture. We must – and we will – do more to forge a Greek community we can all be proud of, a Greek community that welcomes and respects all, a Greek community that is worthy of the best of our tradition and the best of the True Bruin Values. This work will not be quick and it may not be easy. It will require the determination and goodwill of those within the Asian Greek Council, Interfraternity Council, Latino Greek Council, Multi-Interest Greek Council, National Pan-Hellenic Council, Panhellenic Council, the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Relations, the administration and the larger student body.

We may be Greeks, but we are Bruins first. Let’s keep working together.

Dougherty is the director of UCLA Fraternity and Sorority Relations.