How You Speed Run Your Way to Social Irrelevance
Introducing DEI Into the US's oldest social network at the University of Wyoming
Predating the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, and TikTok, fraternities and sororities have long been the safe haven for individuals looking for a shared experience. Starting in the Antebellum South, many of these organizations are private, exclusive and social clubs for college students and alumni. Pay to play, paying for friends, an excuse to drink is some of the myriad ways I’ve heard these organizations described and I think they do a great disservice to the true nature of what they serve, The original social network. The purpose of this article is not to dispel that notion but to talk about how one particular sorority at the University of Wyoming has failed its membership.
Kappa Kappa Gamma (KKG), started at UW as a local sorority. Not unusual for the time and place and as the University of Wyoming has been and still is a small university by any measurable metric. Petitioning for national membership in 1926 and achieving that dream in 1927, Gamma Omicron was started at UW. For almost a century, this chapter has helped shape so many Wyoming women’s lives and lives beyond our squarish borders. Many have been big time contributors to the various UW foundations and initiatives, and some of them even have their names dedicated to parts or wholes of buildings on campus.
Picture taken at the front of 1604 Sorority Row, Pre-Covid.
Second only to the Tri-Delta sorority in terms of membership and house size, KKG was often recognized and rewarded for its academic excellence, its alumni support, and its on-campus participation at other clubs’ activities. During my time at my fraternity, they were also recognized for their leadership in Panhellenic, the leadership collective group for all sororities on campus.
While I was a student at UW for two years, I had firsthand experience at this house on campus. On student loans and living away from my family, I was introduced to KKG through the concept of hashing. Hashing at the KKG house was basically a work for food program. I would come in during lunch time and dinner times and I would help get things set up or taken down and on Monday night formal dinners, I would serve the meals to the women and house mother in a suit and tie. As a male, I was hardly ever treated subservient or as another class by the women at the house, but at the time we understood the necessary boundaries that had to be in place for our own respective safety.
In addition to food and dining preparation, I would help get materials from the other floors for the cook and the house maid. That would mean going to the floors that had women going about their daily routines. When I didn’t have an escort up to those floors, it was required that I had to yell “Man on floor” and wait for a response to affirm that someone did recognize this formal and necessary intrusion into their life.
Things were good, the women were served, and the hashers were fed.
After graduation, I took a position in my fraternity’s house corporation to help better ourselves and we often took our cues from KKG. A house corporation’s sole purpose is to upkeep and service/protect its members and to provide a house that has academic, living, and social purpose. Like KKG, our house corporation is a subset of the overall alumni base. We work with the University, our respective National Organizations, insurance companies and the alumni base to ensure that each individual can excel and has the tools on hand to be successful.
Covid-19 was very problematic for the sororities and fraternities on and off campus. With aging houses and structures, numerous new challenges came about in dealing with social distancing and social isolation. It was taxing across the board, and it hurt current and new memberships, relations with alumni, and fundraising and finances.
And here is where our story begins, now that the stage has been laid as best we can…
Cue forward to 2022 and most of the houses at UW were mostly back on track. Renewed interest in fraternities and sororities would bring increasing recruiting opportunities. KKG would find this opportunity with a student at UW, named Artemis Langford. Originally born a male, they would attend UW as an in-state student from Lander. Going through sorority rush, they would be accepted as a new member and would go through the various ceremonies and intimate moments all new member / pledge classes go through, and per housing requirements with the University, they like all new freshman members cannot live in the fraternity/sorority house.
New membership or pledging has been a great way to better understand individuals who would like to be a part of your organization. Typically a semester, with extremes lasting a year or more, its seen as a way to prove yourself and show the organization who you are as an individual. Then, knowing that the organization is only as good as its members are, the individual can proceed forward with full membership. They’ll have the voting privileges, the officer positions, and can bring new policy to help shape or mold the organization.
Artemis is one such member of the 2022 new member class. Polarizing from the get-go, their new membership caused a reflective sigh of apprehension across the levels of campus. How would they be received, how would other organizations accommodate them, would they be the ideal member for that organization?
I would do some investigating myself, asking our members at Homecoming about this new member and how was the community embracing this change. Unsurprisingly he told me that none of the houses wanted to do anything with KKG for the foreseeable future. They saw Artemis as a complicated factor to social functions and other inter fraternity/sorority activities. Talking to another alumnus about the situation, they had previously donated significant amounts to UW and to KKG and had basically written off KKG as an avenue to donate to.
From my perspective, with our house and its facilities, as a House Corporation, what how would we navigate this? We have a ladies’ bathroom and a gentleman’s bathroom, each serving their respective purposes for decades without problem or concern. A fraternity first, our house didn’t provide the grandest or largest facility for women to use the restroom. How would our men engage with the individual? As an organization centered around traditional norms and forms of masculinity, would there be social problems when interacting with this individual? Thankfully, we haven’t had to answer those questions, but at the same time, we have not been approached by the University on how best to deal with this situation.
That being said, here is what we do now about the individual and the problems that are said to have happened at 1604 Sorority Row.
Per New York Post:
The lawsuit also alleged that Langford behaved inappropriately around her sorority sisters on numerous occasions, including once when she “had an erection visible through his leggings,” the suit alleges.“One sorority member walked down the hall to take a shower, wearing only a towel. She felt an unsettling presence, turned, and saw Mr. Smith watching her silently,” the lawsuit alleges.
The plaintiffs allege the national Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, the sorority’s national council president, and the new member all pressured the local chapter to breach sorority rules.
The women said they felt “intimidated” to induct Langford into the house.
Per Daily Mail:
But one sorority sister told the National Review that Langford has not made 'any effort' to 'physically look like a girl', adding: 'He's just calling himself a girl. All you have to do is identify as a she/her.'The sorority is accused of improperly relying on a 2018 'Guide for Supporting Our LGBTQIA+ Members' that says Kappa Kappa Gamma is a 'single-gender' organization that admits both 'women' and 'individuals who identify as women' rather than official bylaws, according to the lawsuit.
Leadership reportedly told members that if they have any issues with Langford then they can 'drop out'.
One member even said that she was called a 'bigot and a transphobe' for not wanting to shower and sleep with Langford in the same area.
The told the National Review: 'It's an awful situation to be in. It's scary, not knowing if I'm going to transfer out of the school next semester.'
Before Langford was voted in, KKG sent out a Google document for members to vote on - which they were initially told would be anonymous.
However the online ballot asked members to identify themselves with their emails, which left the intimated women feeling more uncomfortable.
In the lawsuit, obtained by Cowboy StateDaily, that Langford would stare at the girls in a common-area for hours without talking.
Also Per Daily Mail:
However, the Executive Director of the sorority, Kari Kittrell Poole, told the Associated Press that the lawsuit 'contains numerous false allegations,' but the sorority couldn't comment in detail.
I thought as part of #MeToo, we were supposed to believe all women. That only goes so far I suppose.
There is validity to each of these issues and more. Not knowing too much about how they vote for new membership, rumor is that for every new member its anonymous, a way to keep private thoughts and causes of each individual. Except in the case of Artemis, it was said that they did away with the private voting and had a Google login form that would record individual’s information.
This is a tough situation that historically same-sex organizations now have to deal with, and KKG as a national organization needs to find its identity. This should have been an organization-wide vote to change policy to allow trans-identifying individuals to be members. Health organizations should not declare policy from the top down that will affect local chapters without recognizing local chapter votes to those policies.
From a House Corporation perspective, this individual should have had their membership revoked and should have been removed from the premises. It is the fiduciary duty of the House Corporation to ensure that members in house have a safe place to live and congregate. It is also the duty of the alumni to ensure that the members will find success in college and beyond, and to have to serve a lawsuit in order to do so has shown failures at all levels to make KKG the sorority to join.
University of Wyoming needs to help navigate these tough times and this isn’t something that will go away. Not only do we have traditional organizations facing new challenges, there are so many logistical issues that they have not even reached out to address.
Like any TikTok video, Fraternity and Sorority Life will be but a memory in someone’s database.
There's nothing "tough" about this. It's very simple.
That guy was not "originally born a male". He is still a male .
Not tough. Not nuanced. Not complicated.
When people stop giving in to nonsense lies, this will stop.