<3 The U-StoreMore than a year after President Tilghman intimated the possibility of an full-on Greek ban, a few months after the residential and social life working group released their much-discussed report, and with the images of vigorous student/administration debate fresh in our collective memories, the U. has finally announced a policy change. It’s a two-pronged ban: freshman are forbidden from affiliating with Greek organizations, and members of the other three classes are forbidden from conducting rush for freshman. (Meanwhile, the university will continue to withhold official recognition of Greek organizations.) The ban goes into effect in fall 2012, so the upcoming school year will be business as usual. In a letter to returning students, Tilghman justified the decision as an attempt to recenter student life around the residential colleges, the Street, and the “shared experience of essentially all undergraduates living and dining on campus.”
Yet the most interesting ramification of this new policy — exactly how the administration plans to police something as wide-ranging and hazily defined as “rush” — remains to be seen. Later in the letter, Tilghman explained her intention to form a new committee this year, which will seek
to consult widely with interested students; to think carefully about precisely how the prohibition should be described and enforced, and about the penalties that would be imposed for infractions; and to bring forward its recommendations by early in the spring semester so they can be discussed by the broader University community prior to adoption.
The letter also manages to somewhat awkwardly shoehorn in details about an upcoming campus pub, which, although promising, is profoundly benign news, and probably the only one of the working group recommendations that could be deemed completely uncontroversial.
… so we’ll stick with the controversial stuff. To gauge the Greek response to this announcement, The Ink spoke to Jake Nebel ‘13, one of the students most deeply (and publicly) involved in the Greek conversation with the adnimistration. A member of the AEPi fraternity, Nebel spearheaded the Princeton Greek Council and drafted a pro-Greek petition that gathered over 700 signatures.
