University of Virginia Library

Dormitory Visits Tonight-Will
Women Have Company?

By Robin Lind
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

And tonight members from the
University's 33 fraternities will visit
the dormitories distributing
invitations to a rather randomly
selected, select group of first-year
men. This year there is a notable
difference however, in that there
are women in the first year class for
the first time; (as if we didn't know
already.)

This has to make a great impact
on the fraternity system And yet
there has been little or no serious
thought as to the admission of
women into the system. And I am
not here advocating the creation of
a sorority system.

It has occurred to me, however,
that fraternities cannot long survive
if they refuse to admit women on
an equal basis with men. The
women who fought to be admitted
to the University on an equal basis
are not going to be content to be
treated as unequals once they have
been admitted.

The fraternities may have once
had an important role to play in the
social life of an all-male institution
located in a rather sleepy rural
town but that role has changed now
as certainly as has the setting And
the institution. Fraternities now
serve their chief function as a
convenient place to eat with
congenial people: in a town whose
eating facilities have always been
notably strained.

In this light the admission of
women sounds the death knell for
fraternities who would wish to
maintain themselves as private
dining facilities for men only. How
many first year men are willing to
dine solely among men when they
could be dining with women of
similar interests And pursuits?
Indeed how many students are
going to be willing to dine only
with members of their own sex,
maintaining the rigid barriers that
heretofore had existed solely
because of circumstance? And let
me ask this of those who state that
women will always be welcome:
does any fraternity really believe it
can financially afford to accept any
student as permanent guest using its
facilities?

Charlottesville offers a very
mean selection of coteries And the
first-year students without the
benefit of easy transportation are at
a decided disadvantage. Even the
University's facilities are obviously
inadequate.

Tonight fraternities have the
opportunity to effect a great
change for the benefit of the
system. Tonight invitations to visit
fraternities could be given to
women as well as to men.

I am not advocating some sort
of libertine sexcapade carried out in
the guise of a liberated fraternity
system. What I am interested in is
an atmosphere of free intellectual
exchange. Have women nothing to
offer or are they so strange that
they cannot be treated as equals?

Perhaps it is going too far at this
point to advocate women being
admitted on a completely equal
basis with men with all that implies
with regard to living
accommodations, but that will surely
come. It is essential though, that
women be admitted to fraternities
on some basis if the system is not
to decline.

Fraternities have a great
opportunity open to them tonight
And it is my hope that the women
will not be bypassed. This is an
institution of learning And here
perhaps is a chance to engage in a
leaning experience that everyone of
us can benefit from.