The DePauw chapter of Delta Zeta received national media attention during the past few months when their national office restructured the chapter, resulting in 23 of the 35 women being asked to leave. Six of the remaining twelve left in protest. One of the evicted women, who spoke to The Rose Thorn on a condition of anonymity due to impending litigation, explained the events that transpired as follows:

Before classes started, a regional representative came to discuss the fact that the sorority had not been making quota for the past few years. “We were the smallest sorority with 42 women. Apparently that’s a problem,” she commented. The chapter voted to close and recolonize in two years. However, DePauw policy is that the university may be opened to new chapters if all current chapters make quota; all except Delta Zeta were routinely making it. “Well, nationals did not like that and so decided to overrule our vote to not go through recruitment,” said the former Delta Zeta member. “They told us that they would not be closing the house and that nationals would help in any way to keep the house open… They said that the university recommended the membership review, which they did. But nationals misunderstood what the university meant by a membership review.” In the past, membership reviews at DePauw involved members re-evaluating their commitment to the betterment of their organization. Instead, the national DZ chapter conducted interviews. “Interviews were different from woman to woman. Some women interviewed with all four interviewers at once, some only with one interviewer. Some women interviewed for an hour, some only 10 minutes. We were told that we would be interviewed by all four interviewers for an hour. As you can see, the interviews were widely varied and unfair.”

Another former Delta Zeta, Kate Holloway, stated in a recent editorial that the media claims about racism and women’s weight were untrue. “The truth is that the 23 chapter members whom Delta Zeta’s national leadership asked to leave the house in December simply did not fit an archetypical sorority persona.”

“The most important thing to us at Rose is the students,” said Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students Pete Gustafson. “To me, the most important thing is what’s best with our students,” stated Gustafson. “I don’t know who’s right, who’s wrong, I don’t think the students were treated properly.” Gustafson had only good things to say about Rose’s Greek system. “From the school’s perspective, if a fraternity or sorority does positive things and [is] not doing things that are negative or detrimental to the school, the school would not get involved.” When asked how the school would react if a national office came in to interact with a local chapter, Gustafson stated that “I can’t imagine Rose getting involved unless there were major laws or rules broken. … I can’t imagine anything like that happening here, but I suppose there is always a possibility.”

Carey Traeger-Huber, Advisor to Rose-Hulman’s Panhellenic, agreed. She emphasized that the students were treated unfairly, and that was the unfortunate part of it all. Despite whatever went on between DePauw and Delta Zeta, Traeger-Huber said that she didn’t think that the interests of students were represented.

Each of the women’s sorority on campus declined official comment, as such a comment would need to come from their national office. All members of the sororities on campus were also discouraged from commenting by their respective chapters and were unable to speak with The Rose Thorn.

Some members of DePauw’s Delta Zeta chapter have started a local sorority, Psi Lambda Psi. All of the former members are still close and meet regularly.

Lynn Jakubowski pledged Delta Zeta around 1982 at Robert Morris College in Pittsburgh. “I think the Greek system at Rose is very strong, the Greek women are very strong, and with a third organization coming out, it seems like a very positive atmosphere.”

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