Liberty, Equality . . .

Fraternities profess to build on the "noble and potent principle of brotherhood." The completed structure rears itself as neighbourliness. "Good fraternity chapters teach it by the example of men learning how to live with their fellows; and these chapters do not fail to capture the respect of the campus, the institution and the public." say the apologists for fraternities.

Yet fewer negroes than you can count on your two hands belong to fraternities affiliated to the National Interfraternity Conference. Since the turn of this century the constitutions of many fraternities have contained non-Aryan and religious exclusion clauses. Where these clauses do not appear on paper, an unwritten gentlemen's agreement prevails.

Here, Jewish students have been forced to form an organisation of their own. Any complaint about exclusion from their lips would seem like disloyalty, so they keep quiet. But not a single negro belongs, or has ever, to a fraternity an this campus. Guilty brothers cannot enjoy brotherhood. Guilty brothers cannot be invited into the best society.

We negro students, though a precedent has been set by negro fraternities at white universities elsewhere, look upon suggestions for the establishment of a negro fraternity here with uncompromising disfavour. Negro fraternities mean submission to discrimination and segregation. They represent the ultimate In refinement of social ostracism. Negro fraternities are an extension of the Ghetto pattern.

(These articles will be continued in the next issue of "Salient.")