Fraternities
In the ’50s and early ’60s, ninety percent of
the student body belonged to twelve fraternities on campus. One important
social breakthrough came about when the question arose of Jewish and black
students joining fraternities. There were comparatively few Jewish or black
students at Wesleyan, and some of the fraternities were prevented from
pledging them because of the terms of their national charters or because
of a mandatory declaration of Christian faith.
Edgar Beckham ’58 arrived at Wesleyan for the
first time in the fall of 1951 (service in the U.S. Army interrupted his
studies from 1954 to ’57). He remembers that there were two other black
freshmen when he came, and one sophomore. The brothers at Delta Upsilon
asked him to pledge. The national fraternity did not have a rule against
African-American members, but one vote against a pledge could black-ball
him. “We knew that an alumnus was going to black-ball
me,” Beckham recalled. “When the fraternity asked me to become a pledge,
they gave me a choice. They said: ‘You can become a member of the eating
club and we will continue to fight to change that rule, but you won’t be
a member of the pledge class scheduled for initiation. Or you can become
a member of the pledge class. If you are black-balled, we will leave the
national fraternity.’
“There I sat. Years later, someone from the Argus
asked me, ‘What were you thinking at that moment?’ And I said I wished
I could get on the telephone and talk to my mother. But I made my decision
on the spot, and that was to become a member of the pledge class. Sure
enough, when we were all dressed up in our tuxedos ready for the initiation
ceremony, the black ball arrived. The brotherhood met immediately and decided
to drop out of the national and to reconstitute themselves as Omega Phi
[the name of the alumni chapter]. They did that on the spot, and we went
ahead with the initiation.” A year earlier, when Terry Hatter ’54 had been
asked to join Eclectic, his undergraduate sponsors had been notified by
an alumni group that if Hatter were initiated, they would withdraw all
financial support from the fraternity. Edwin D. Etherington ’48, later
president of Wesleyan but at that time a student at Yale Law School, countered
with a challenge: For every person who refused to support Eclectic if Hatter
were initiated, he vowed to find ten people who would deny support if he
were rejected. Hatter was initiated.
This piecemeal integration of the fraternities
moved forward with increasing momentum through the ’50s. The late William Kerr, who was affiliated with
Wesleyan as teacher and administrator from 1959 until his death this year,
observed that President Butterfield’s reaction was interesting. “While
Mr. Butterfield made it clear that he opposed these barriers, he thought
each fraternity should be allowed to work out the issue through internal
debate. He was criticized quite harshly in Argus editorials and elsewhere,
accused of being too passive and too libertarian in this matter. Many students
argued that the University should take a stand and impose a requirement
that the fraternities drop these sanctions or lose their status.
“And this Mr. Butterfield steadfastly refused
to do. He said that would rob the student members of the fraternities of
what was an opportunity as well as an obligation, and that was to work
their way out of their dilemmas internally.”
In 1958, the local chapter of the former
Alpha Chi Rho fraternity was admonished by the national organization for
admitting African Americans and Jews. The fraternity, whose officers included
Doug Bennet ’59, withdrew in 1958 and re-established itself with a new
name: Esse Quam Videre—“to be that which you seem.” |
