It’s one thing to ban a campus group from pestering people in residence.
After all, it’s against university policy to knock on people’s doors to sell things, whether they’re “salesmen, political organizations, [or] the Greek community,” said Carleton’s director of student affairs Ryan Flannagan.
To not allow these types of organizations to enter residence and disturb students by knocking on their doors during the day is a fair limitation on rush week.
However, it’s another matter to ban members of Greek organizations from wearing their fraternity and sorority shirts in “large numbers” on residence.
How many people constitute a large group — three, four, five? And if a person belongs to a certain club, would he or she not congregate with others belonging to the same club? Should we determine the magic number in which fraternity and sorority members are allowed to congregate?
Banning a group on campus from wearing their organization’s clothing is an unfair limit on their freedom of association.
Students belonging to Greek organizations at Carleton should be allowed to wear their letters on campus, regardless of where they are and with as many friends as they want.
Limits on social freedoms are acceptable when these freedoms bring harm to society.
But this is not the case with limiting fraternities and sororities from association, who are, in this case, being unfairly treated like gangs.