Zeta Tau Alpha

Going into this project, my initial idea was to examine diversity in Greek life over time beginning with the Zeta Tau Alpha event. My hypothesis was that I would find an increase in diversity over time branching from that first event. I had not been impressed with sororities I had seen through social media and their levels of diversity, so I was hoping to find that Albion was different. After finding out about the Zeta Tau Alpha event, I decided that would be a good point to jumpstart the project. During my research, however, I found that the 'inciting incident' of my research had more information than I was expecting and everything else I had in mind had much, much less. So I decided, with no expectations of what I would find, to focus all of my research on Zeta Tau Alpha.

My first observation was the type of articles that were written about the situation. They were mostly informational and about the support the Beta Tau chapter was receiving. The only sorority member who I found quotes from throughout the whole event, was the president Janice Ballenger. Cecilia herself was never quoted. I thought this was rather interesting, though there are many explanations for the lack of sister perspective. A) They may just not have wanted to speak to the paper. B) The Pleiad at this time was still primarily a weekly publication. When you are publishing stories weekly, time can become a constraint, and things like interviews can get dropped for an article to be finished in time.

The second thing I noticed was a strong sense of unity in this front across campus. Over the course of the Pleiad's reporting on Zeta Tau Alpha, from November 03, 1967 to April 09, 1968, The college, the Student Senate, the faculty, and the alumni board all came out in unanimous support for the sorority. With that level of support across many high organizations, paired with the tone of the Pleiad's reporting, it can be inferred that this unified support was corroborated within the general student body as well. This kind of event doesn't happen often. Comparing this situation to the attitudes toward racial events on campus in more recent history is stunning in the eyes of a researcher because of the sense of unity.

Lastly, I noticed the Pleiad opinion section at the time, specifically the letters from the editors. The handful of those pieces I found carried with them a lot of interesting information about the Pleiad staff at the time. The piece from the 11.17.67 edition, "Time Runs Out for Zetas", the staff says they are pleased with the reaction from campus and the moral support given to the Beta Tau sisters. They even call out the other Greek organizations to be more diverse in their pledging and commend the Beta Taus for their "moral courage" through "pledging a friend". I found this excerpt and others to be evidence for the level of strong, unanimous support that the chapter received on campus at the time

I found the gap in the timeline interesting. The charges were levied against the Beta Tau chapter in April of 1967 along with the official 'temporary suspension'. I could not find any articles about these charges at that time. In fact, the first chronological piece I could find about the situation in the Pleiad was the 11.03.67 edition. For reference, that is almost exactly 6 months after the initial charges. At first I was simply confused by this large gap in the Pleiad's reporting. I theorized all the different reasons that gap could exist. It racked my brain for a solid week or two before I came upon two very clear, very obvious solutions. A) The investigation into the Beta Tau chapter, as of May 1967, has been postponed until the fall when the permanent suspension {October 22, 1967} was placed, and the most obvious B) the summer break happened.

All images are in order by edition date and chronology.

In this edition, the Pleiad first covered the incident. In the article, it says that the Beta Tau chapter of Zeta Tau Alpha was put on probation for “irregularities” in the pledging of junior Cecilia Williams. Something I noticed while researching this was that this edition was the first time that the Pleiad actually reported on the situation, though they say in the article that the original charges were placed back in mid-April the year before. I wondered why only at the time of publication did the Pleiad write on this? My theory is that, since the article states the investigation was postponed until the fall, and the probation started after that postponement which garnered the attention of the campus. 

This is a letter to the editor from the same edition the Pleiad first reported on the Beta Tau probation. The chapter clarifies the charges brought against them and mentions that they were from two alumnae. That means there were people previously part of the student body who disapproved of the pledging. It was revealed in the article previous this that the two alumnae were in fact Zeta alums. The chapter also clarifies the terms of their probation and what it means for them in the near future and tell the readers that they will take action against the charges. This may have been in response to misinformation on campus in relation to the situation.

This edition is the first time the ultimatum is mentioned. President Norris told the Pleiad on November 7 that a letter had been sent to the national sorority informing them of the ultimatum, which was set to expire on November 17, giving them ten days to remove the Beta Tau chapter’s probation. In the letter, the president informed the national sorority that this probation was in violation of Albion College policy, specifically a policy issued in October of 1963 stating that organizations must have admission policies that align with the college, and that since the college does not discriminate in admission then organizations could not discriminate either. Seeing the college stand firm in its policies is indicative of the stance the college was taking and how strongly the college felt about the situation.

This is another editorial from within the Pleiad staff. It lightly summarizes the events of the situation so far and includes some interesting information specifically about the writer’s position. The writer makes an effort to include a section in this piece that is purely their own opinion. This section reads,

 “It is with pleasure that this writer applauds the action taken by the Student Affairs committee and President Louis W. Norris. Any national organization that would inject so much stress into campus life over alleged ‘irregularities’ in rushing someone who happens to be a N**** has no place on the Albion campus.”

I find this to be very out of place among the mostly factual content of the rest of the article, but nonetheless this interjection is a very useful insight to the opinions of students and the climate on campus. The writer is very clear in their opinion and is very much in support of the College’s actions. What I find especially interesting is the part about ‘injecting so much stress into campus life’. Analytically, that tells me that this situation was massive enough on campus to create a large amount of stress surrounding it. 

This edition of the Pleiad includes an article on the student senate and their support of the Beta Tau chapter. The student senate meeting comes two days before this edition was published, and two days before the ultimatum ran out. This is the first campus organization outside of the college itself to express support for Beta Tau noted in the paper, the first out of many. It is the beginning of what becomes widespread and unified support for the Beta Tau sisters.

This edition of the Pleiad details an ending in the Zeta Tau Alpha probation. The article headlines “Time Runs Out for Zetas” and talks about how the ultimatum given to the national sorority to end the Beta Tau chapter’s probation ran out. It says that the Pleiad supports the College’s ultimatum and commemorates the members of the chapter for their strength and courage. The Pleiad even calls out other Greek organizations for lacking the courage to pledge “friends regardless of creed and complexion”. This letter is depictive of the attitude of the Pleiad staff at the time, and even the attitude of the campus as the letter states “(…) the Pleiad is extremely pleased with the campus reaction to the Beta Taus’ predicament and the moral support they are receiving.”

This edition’s headline article details a faculty meeting in which the Albion faculty on record, voted with no dissent, as supporting the former Beta Tau members and the actions the college took in cutting ties with the national sorority. This is the second article I found with a larger campus organization vocalizing unanimous, unified support for the now former Beta Taus. It’s evident from these two articles that on campus there was unified support for the Beta Tau girls on campus with not just students, but faculty and the college itself. 

From the same edition as the one detailing the faculty support for the former Beta Taus is an article informing that these ‘Zetas’ have regrouped to form their own local sorority, Phi Alpha Epsilon. At the time the had no ‘pledges’ or ‘activities’, and their former lodge was still locked up, prompting them to attempt to find new housing. This article also contains out first noted response from the Zeta Tau Alpha national president, Mrs. Gustave B. Weck, to avoid in her words “further erroneous publicity and misinterpretation of the events.” She says that the probation of the Beta Tau chapter had nothing to do with race, but was rather action on violations that had occurred over a long period of time. The fact that this quote came what seems long after the initial probation and the ending of the ultimatum is telling to the level of care the national sorority took in handling the situation.

This edition presents the third large campus organization in unanimous support of the actions taken by the college during the ZTA controversy, the alumni board. At this time now the college and the former Beta Taus had the support of the student senate, the faculty, and the alumni, with all three organizations giving unanimous support. This is important as unified support like this is hard to come by for any sort of situation.

This article details the former Zetas, now Phi Alpha Epsilon, regaining their old lodge. It shows that this new local sorority is really getting into the swing of regular sorority activities, even electing new officers. A detail I found interesting was the fact that the lodge was initially owned by the national organization and was bought from them by the college, who is now leasing it to the Phi Eps. The article also says the new sorority had submitted its new constitution for consideration. The group is still strong even after losing their initial sorority designation.

This clipping is from an article on a faculty meeting where the faculty officially recognized Phi Alpha Epsilon, the local organization formed by the former Zeta Tau Alpha sisters, as an official campus organization. Phi Alpha Epsilon was first reported on back in December of 1967 and this official recognition comes more than four months later. I’d assume that the combination of winter break and a likely long, arduous process is responsible for the time gap. Despite that, it is still evident by this article that the former Zetas still have support on campus moderately long after the initial controversy. 

This is the pledge list from spring of 1967, and on this list under the Zeta’s new pledges is Cecelia Williams.