[caption id="attachment_6002" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Portland State University"]
[/caption]GHN Editor - Portland State University has changed dramatically over the past 50 years, but the changes appear less in the expansion of the campus than the expansion of attitudes over the years and one of those changes has to do with the "Greeks."
In 1959 – 60, the only social protest taking place around the campus was one about the trees. This was the tip of the proverbial iceberg on the upcoming stance that Portland would take on the environCment. “Treehugger” may not have been coined in Portland, but 50 years ago Oregonians were beginning to talk about the value of trees and the environment. Some of that value was underlined with the protests that took place along the boulevards that wind through the upper part of the old campus.
It was that turn at the beginning of the 1960’s that put Portland in front in many ways. One of those came shortly after the tree protest, when sororities and fraternities on the campus took a major blow following revelations written in the Vanguard about the practices that discriminated against the inclusion of minorities.
A young journalist, attached to one of the more well-known sororities, took a young French Creole woman to “rush.” “Rush” is the ceremonial period when sororities and fraternities begin to make their choices about who to include and who not to include in their ranks.
At the major meeting, after the potential inductee had left the room, following an interview by the sorority sisters, the “blackball” took place. This is a different ceremony that allows members to make their declarations about who will or will not fit in the organization.
The French Creole woman, whose complexion pulled primarily from her African past, was one of those blackballed at the time. The operative word of blackballing uniquely described the events, as the statement was made that “we can’t have ‘them’ in our sorority.
“Why is that?” came the question from a journalist who had been proud to find an inductee with such good grades and wonderful personality, surely a source of inspiration for a sorority dangling too deeply on the grade point average scale and threatened with reprisal of new members didn’t have new grades to support that grade point average.
“Our charters don’t support that” was the answer. The charters, it was explained came from the South.
“We can’t go up against our national organization,” came another answer from the floor, but by then the message was made clear. Portland State University was suddenly exposed as not quite ready for the integration taking place across the land when it came to the Greek chorus that dominated the school.
A story outlined later in the Vanguard brought media attention in many Oregon places, and not long after the sororities and fraternities were put on notice that they would integrate their ranks or be closed down. The young journalist who wrote the story at the time was openly ridiculed by many of those “Greeks,” but many others felt that change should surely come.
50 years later while strolling through the Portland State University campus, these memories returned. A young couple standing in front of student housing told the story, “Sororities and fraternities don’t have much power at Portland State anymore. You hardly hear about them.” That difference that spoke of change that had become permanently underlined y by practice and by choice is another peg on the Oregon count in its progressive history, reflected in the protests that continue to be part of Portland life.
It was a long time since those protests about the trees and segregation too, but the history of the Portland State campus continues to reflect the earnest zeal of students and how they manifest in their ranks around the place how Portland continues to evolve as the nation’s vanguard of the best of change.
