WCP - Howard University seniors and sorority hopefuls Laurin Compton and Lauren Cofield find themselves in a plot with elements of a teen novel: arguments about who can wear pink, accusations of snitching, a cabal of girls called “the Sweets.” But instead of devising an elaborate way to get back at the in-crowd, Gossip Girl-style, they’re suing the sorority and the university to become sisters—and alleging that their human rights have been violated.
The lawsuit accuses Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority of violating the students’ human rights. According to the lawsuit, Compton and Cofield’s trouble began when they were invited to “Ivy Day,” a ceremony for outgoing and prospective AKA members in the second semester of 2010. The two then-freshmen were expecting to find sisterhood, but what they allegedly found instead was hazing! Some of the “hazing” rules sound innocuous, if extensive, like being forbidden from wearing the sorority colors of pink and green or any colors that could be blended into pink and green. In one humorous moment, the lawsuit notes that the pledges, who were called the “sweets,” couldn’t even wear white pearls.
Other hazing allegations are more serious. At one point, the pledges were told not to talk to non-sorority members at Howard, according to the suit. “[Alpha Kappa Alpha members] on campus addressed the sweets by calling them weak bitches,” Compton’s mother wrote in a complaint to the sorority. After Cofield’s mother, also an Alpha Kappa Alpha sister, complained, the two pledges found themselves ostracized in the sorority for being “snitch-friendly” or “snitch-sympathists.”
When 2013 rolled around, Cofield and Compton still hadn’t been inducted into the sorority. When they applied again, they say they were told that they couldn’t be accepted because of a cap on new sisters. Much of the lawsuit hinges on this, but the gist is that Cofield and Compton say that, as legacies, they should be among the first to be inducted, and the sorority says there’s nothing they can do to get around the cap.
How is any of this a violation of human rights law? The aspiring sisters say they’re being discriminated against because, as legacies, their mothers were also in the sorority. In other words, they’re being treated differently because of their “familial status”—a protected class under the D.C. Human Rights Act. In addition to monetary damages, the would-be Alpha Kappa Alphas want the court to grant an injunction putting the pledging process on hold.
I have a question for Laurin and Lauren. What happens when you win this and they let you in the sorority? How happy are you going to be then when everyone there fucking despises you? I mean this is what I never get with stories like that. People who sue frats or sororities and cause a big stink because they want to get in. Could it be more clear that you’re not wanted there? That they’re willing to fight you in court at the risk of a lawsuit rather than let you be friends with them? You really want to fight to get your bid to a place like that? Take a hint girls. They don’t like you. At all. Can you just pick a different sorority or maybe just not join one instead of being such a tremendous cunt about it?
I love how they’re trying to get the entire pledging process cancelled now too as their payback. Because of the violent hazing going on such as not being allowed to wear white pearls and being forced to wear pink and green t-shirts. Oh and getting called weak bitches on campus. Hazing like that just cannot be tolerated under any circumstances, I agree.
Just a classic tale of modern day college life or just life in general. Don’t get your way? People are mean to you? Sue. Stomp your feet and call the newspapers. Get a lawyer to fight for the violation of your human rights because you weren’t allowed to pay to make new friends and wear Greek letters on your chest.
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