Racist Leadership Leaves Sigma Kappa at 30% Disaffiliation Rate
Its no secret that racist events have been going on at American University in Washington, D.C. It all started when freshman boys started throwing bananas at women of color (WOC) on AU's campus.
AU students began spreading the message to the world that they stand in solidarity with their fellow classmates, students protested, and organizations stood up for what they believe in.
But one sorority on campus chose not to publish a statement. Saying "its a controversial and political subject" and "we cannot speak on the behalf of everyone in our chapter"- from a sister who choses to protect her identity.
Several sisters of Sigma Kappa contacted the executive board and PR chair begging to release a statement that we support their sisters. But the emails were ignored, deleted, and marked off as unimportant or dramatic by the Leadership Consultant. This is when sisters of sigma kappa began posting on Facebook that they are ashamed to be apart of such a sorority and that they will fight for justice.
To 'shut up the WOC' (for lack of better word) in SK when they first began posting on Facebook, the President contacted the Chapter and asked if it would be OK to post a statement on the official Sigma Kappa page. When the statement was posted, it was poorly written, a half-assed apology, and clear that the person who wrote it had no sympathy.
At a chapter meeting on Thursday, sisters were literally told that the some members of the e-board were unsure if they stood in solidarity or not. To break that down even further: some members of the executive board were unsure if any of the sisters were racist or not. What this also says is that the President of Sigma Kappa chose to protect the potential racist sisters instead of protecting the WOC within the sorority and on campus.
Now the sisters of the Lambda Eta chapter are speaking out. Several of them exposed the executive boards decisions of why they chose not to stand in solidarity with the sister of AU. The executive board fired back with statements of "its not a big deal", "we shouldn't concern ourselves with this", "we should not get involved", and "its just a Facebook post". When members of the executive board stated these comments with "we", about half the eboard stood up saying these are not conclusive statements of eboard and then about half of eboard chose to disaffiliate based on these actions.
As a result of most of the executive board's hate towards not only WOC on campus, but also their own members, 30% of this chapter has disaffiliated or gone inactive.
Today, they even had to call in nationals because the President and Leadership Consultant still refuse to listen to their members.
At this point, sisters of Sigma Kappa Lambda Eta would like to send their deepest apology to the WOC on AU's campus. They would like to expose that this entire event was not the chapter's decision and that it should be known that the President and Leadership Consultant are to blame. They chose not to listen to the sisters of SK and they chose to ignore this extremely important event on campus. Many sisters have disaffiliated, but several are still fighting for justice. They are standing up for the WOC and they are working on having the President impeached as a strategy to salvage this sorority.
"As a Sigma Kappa, I would like it to be known that this entire situation is much more than a Facebook post to many of us. I still wear my letters because I am fighting for change. I will not give up until this chapter and the leaders of it realize the hate that they have shown us. I respect my former sisters for disaffiliating because they are sending a message. Personally, I will be sending my message by fighting against the leaders of this organization, because I refused to be marked off as "racist" due to the carelessness of my President. I am deeply embarrassed and sorry for the actions my sisters chose to make. Let it be known that Sigma Kappa 100% Stands in Solidarity with our sisters of AU and that our President is the one who doesn't." -identity protected sister.
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