The sight of colorful fraternity rush shirts may be more rare this fall following an incident last week when two fraternities urged members to stop wearing their shirts after EmPower and Women’s Coalition called the shirts an expression of sexual harassment.
Chi Psi and Phi Delta Theta fraternities sold and distributed hundreds of T-shirts bearing suggestive logos and pitch lines in the past month both to fraternity members and Northwestern students.
The Lodge’s T-shirt was a parody of Coppertone’s logo, featuring a child with a dog pulling at her underwear accompanied by the slogan, “Bottoms up, panties down.”
Phi Delt printed two shirts, one referring to the fraternity house’s “the hole” nickname that said “put it in the hole.” A matching T-shirt, designed for women to wear, depicted a woman on all fours with the phrase, “Just waiting for a Delt.”
“(The Lodge) hit the triple crown of date rape, pedophilia and alcoholism — all in one shirt,” said Vickie Cook, president of EmPower, a feminist organization comprising sorority members.
Cook, a Weinberg senior, added, “A lot of people were really offended about the shirts,” because the images and phrases struck them as degrading and sexually offensive.
When members of Women’s Co and EmPower began to question the taste and humor of the T-shirts’ emblems and messages, they contacted Kyle Pendleton, NU’s associate director of fraternity and sorority life.
EmPower, Pendleton and IFC President Jeremy Esposito met to discuss whether the shirts were in line with the values of the fraternities that they represented, Pendleton said. They decided to write to each fraternity’s president to let them decide how to handle the problem.
Both fraternities have since forbidden their members to wear the shirts under threat of consequences from the internal judicial board. Nonfraternity members caught wearing the shirts also will be sanctioned by the university, Interfraternity Council officials said.
“Both of the presidents have been really receptive in working on this matter,” said Esposito, a Medill senior. “They have been really understanding that if these T-shirts offend anyone in our community, they want to make amends.”
Both presidents decided to ask members not to wear the shirts on campus.
“We did not want to offend people and we misjudged the offensiveness of the shirts,” said Samuel Adams, president of the Lodge. The Lodge is hoping to print new rush shirts, possibly with financial aid from IFC, said Adams, a Weinberg junior.
But some fraternity members said the suggestive shirts merely were harmless and funny.
“The message on our T-shirt was meant as tongue-in-cheek and was taken too seriously by too many people,” said Eric Greenberg, a Weinberg sophomore and member of Phi Delt.
All parties involved said they hope that the incident will forge a closer working relationship between campus women’s groups and Greek organizations. Cook said she believes this incident could serve as a springboard for EmPower to educate and work with fraternities in the future.
IFC also is considering modifying their constitution to clarify the definition of sexual harassment. With clearer guidelines, Esposito said, they may be able to better address such a situation in the future.
“We handled the situation extremely well,” Esposito said. “Something went wrong and we handled it extremely quickly and in the best possible way for the groups involved.”
