Club members said their purpose was to do public service anonymously, but the anger and protest from the Georgetown student body forced the members to dissolve the club.

"People took it the wrong way," says former member Christopher A. Donesa, who resigned as editor of the campus daily The Hoya following the controversy. "They thought we were meeting in closed rooms deciding the student body's fates."

Donesa says that many of the members took a more critical attitude towards the organization after it was made public.

"After it all came out, we had an opportunity to hear the other side of things," Donesa says. "What we decided was that the secret society was wrong."

Mixing Mixers

In the past, fraternities and sororities have been accused of underrepresenting minority groups on campus. But many students and administrators disagree with these traditional views, saying that the selective clubs have not been discriminatory, and have, in fact, succeeded well in integrating diverse ethnic groups.

At UPenn, "the fraternities are generally diverse," says Fleischer. "Unfortunately, they have a reputation for attracting only certain groups of people. Our house, for instance, has a reputation for being really Jewish, but it's really diverse."

Stereotyping the various fraternities and sororities oversimplifies the system, says Julie A. Benton, president of UPenn's Panhellenic Council, which oversees campus sororities.

"People who are trying to make it easier for themselves to understand the Greek community tend to group stereotypes together," Benton says. "How to make freshman aware of that is the big question at hand. It's going to entail more publicity during first semester, before rush, about how diverse each of the sororities really are and how we really don't fit into those kinds of categories."

At Tufts, minority groups are well represented in the Greek community, according to Reitman.

"The frats are pretty good about being open to minorities," Reitman. "We realize that the fraternities and sororities do discriminate on the basis of sex, but that is expected because of their nature. Other than that, they're expected to subscribe totally to the university's standards for fairness."

Though most of the clubs at Princeton are non-selective and consequently non-discriminatory, the age-old tradition of the eating clubs has tended to discourage minorities from joining.

"I wish minorities were better represented in the club community. I think traditionally minorities have felt less welcome at the clubs. Much of that feeling is based on traditional views," Cochrane says.

Still, "Some of [the clubs] have an incredible diversity of people and values represented," Cochrane says.

It's Not Just A Party...