Emotions run high during sorority rush, but as a recent newsletter showed, not all of the sentiment is positive.

A Panhellenic-sponsored group’s e-mail newsletter sent out to all sorority members in late November asked women to give their views on the upcoming rush process.

The published and recirculated responses by anonymous sorority members were sometimes less than upbeat:

“I really hate freshmen. They’re fucking morons,” read one.

“The freshmen girls this year are much skankier than last year’s freshmen,” said another.

The caustic comments surprised some sorority members, said Nancy Steinmetz, an Alpha Chi Omega representative to emPOWER, the group that sent out the newsletter.

“A lot of girls didn’t agree with some of the things that were said in the newsletter and didn’t think it was a good representation of the Greek system,” said Steinmetz, a Weinberg sophomore.

Other comments included,

“Rush sucks.”

“Freshman girls are the most obnoxious creatures on earth, if we didn’t need them for self-propagation, I’d say screw this whole rush thing [sic].”

emPOWER Director Rebecca Stamey-White stressed that many of the other quotes in the November newsletter were positive.

“I just think it’s important to know that only two or three quotes out of 25 were negative,” said the Weinberg senior. “The newsletter was overwhelmingly positive about rush in general.”

The other sorority members in the newsletter praise rush as a rare opportunity to “meet such a diverse and interesting group of women” and as a time when the Greek community promotes “its ideals of Greek tradition, sisterhood and spirit.”

Panhel President Francesca Rodriguez said the negative comments are a natural reaction to the difficult rush process.

“Recruitment is just a very time-consuming thing for all of us,” said Rodriguez, a Communication senior. “At NU, anything that takes up a lot of time is going to get a bad rap.”

Rodriguez said Panhel officers discussed the newsletter at a fall meeting in the context of ways to keep up good attitudes during recruitment. The newsletter is run independently of Panhel.

“This was more of a reminder that we need to keep up the positive things,” Rodriguez said. “We didn’t look on it as a problem.”

emPOWER officials said they had no plans to change the newsletter’s format and plan to take on other controversial issues such as whether fraternities are treated more leniently than sororities.

Stamey-White said the newsletter is meant as a private and anonymous forum for the sorority system.

“It was a way for us to reflect on our own community and realize that there are diverse views, just as there is diversity among the individuals in the community,” Stamey-White said.

But emPOWER Assistant Director Lyde Esposito, a Weinberg senior, said subsequent emPOWER newsletters will include responses from more sororities to make sure future e-mails are more representative. In the controversial rush e-mail, the majority of quotes came from three or four houses.

“We knew rush was a significant part of sorority life, so we knew we’d get a lot of responses to the topic,” she said.

Good or bad, the newsletter did not make an impact everywhere.

Pi Beta Phi rush chairwoman Julie Lissner said she had not heard of the e-mail, but said sorority rush usually is seen as a positive event.

“It’s a time where a sorority really comes together and works for a single thing,” said Lissner, a Medill junior.