Cal Poly Sorority Recruitment Raises Diversity Concerns Among Students

June 12, 2024

Formal recruitment for sororities at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo raises diversity concerns for students wanting to join Greek Life. 

Recruitment, also known as Rush Week, at Cal Poly is a mutual selection process where potential new members pair with different sorority organizations on campus. At the end of the week, girls are supposed to get offers, also known as bids, to the sororities that they most fit with. 

The process is based on similar values and beliefs, but this has raised eyebrows of some students that has gone through rush.  

Some students believe that they didn’t get bids, because of their background and what they look like rather than values. 

One freshman at Cal Poly, Iksha Hakoo, went through the process of rush and felt out of place throughout formal recruitment. 

“I had so much fun getting to know all the girls that I talked to, but the conversations I had throughout the process didn’t match up to the result I expected to get,” she says. 

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo remains the most predominately white state university in California and with 20% of students being involved in Greek Life, Greek Life leans predominantly white as well. 

“I couldn’t help but notice that most of the girls that got into the sororities I wanted, kind of all looked the same to me,” Hakoo explains. “Like they’re all blonde and white and thin, all something I’m definitely not, you know. After I realized that, I dropped the process the same exact day ” 

Some students of color didn’t even think about rushing in the first place because of their concerns. 

First Year, Casey Muñoz, talked about how she didn’t feel like rushing at all because of what she’s heard from her upperclassmen friends at Cal Poly. 

“I just feel like I would feel really out of place,” she expressed. “It’s just not my thing, and I don’t want to force myself to do anything I don’t want to do.” 

Even some students of color that got into sororities felt the discomfort throughout the process. 

Another student that went through the rush process, Brooklyn Kame, talked about her experience during formal recruitment. 

“I love my sorority and I love the girls I made friends with, but the rush process is definitely something I never want to go through it ever again,” says Kame. “I feel like if it weren’t the certain girls I talked to throughout the process, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get the sorority I really wanted.” 

“It also could’ve been my hair too,” she adds. Kame, a Japanese and Chinese student, has blonde hair and has been dying it since high school. “Maybe it made me seem more relatable?”

Remarks like these get around and tend to scare off other students of color that want to join Greek Life, but are scared to be discriminated against. 

First year, Emma Solis, is nervous to rush next quarter because of what she’s heard from her friends that have gone through the process already. 

“All of my friends, who are also POC by the way, dropped the process because they felt like they were being led on throughout the process,” Solis says. “Like no way, they’re racist up front to you, but I can see how you could feel discriminated against from what my friends have told me.” 

Not only are there diversity concerns outside the sororities, but there are concerns within the sororities as well. 

Mia Tate, a first year in the sorority, Alpha Chi Omega, talked about the problems that her sorority is facing with their executive board. 

“There’s a lot of talk right now within our sorority about representation and who they post on Instagram,” Tate explains. 

Every Greek Life organization has an Instagram page to update their followers on their events that they host and the philanthropies they’re raising money for. 

“Everyone’s complaining that the person that is in charge of social media is only posting this one group of blonde girls and our sorority is mostly brunette, so it doesn’t give a clear idea of what are sorority really is,” Tate says. “Like I have no idea why they’re doing that.”

Along with diversity concerns throughout the formal recruitment process, the Cal Poly Fraternity and Sorority Life, also known as FSL, is no stranger to controversy. FSL has raised concerns in the past due to lack of inclusion. 

Most recently, the most controversial being an incident having to do with a fraternity, Lambda Chi Omega, in 2019. One member of the fraternity being photographed with blackface at one of their parties. 

Cal Poly is working within the FSL community as well as the campus in general to promote diversity and inclusion, to make students of students more welcome in all organizations at the school.