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When Parallel Paths Cross: Competition and the Elimination of Sex Segregation in the Education Fraternities, 1969–1974

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Laurie Moses Hines
Laurie Moses Hines*
Affiliation:
Cultural Foundations of Education in the College and Graduate School of Education at Kent State University – Trumbull Campus
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Extract

In the late 1960s, the all-male Phi Delta Kappa and the parallel all-female organization, Pi Lambda Theta, faced local and national pressures to abandon their single-sex status and become coeducational. Demands for the sex integration of both fraternities from university students, from educational and women's associations, and from universities responding to governmental censures to eliminate sex discrimination forced Pi Lambda Theta (PLT) and Phi Delta Kappa (PDK) to examine the purpose and organization of single-sex associations in American professional and collegiate life. For Phi Delta Kappa and, in particular, Pi Lambda Theta, the advent of coeducational membership led to direct competition between the formerly cooperative men's and women's groups. Thus, the elimination of sex segregation in the education fraternities ended approximately fifty years of cooperation and an alliance that promoted the professional distinctions between all educators and those in the separate but parallel Phi Delta Kappa and Pi Lambda Theta.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , Summer 2003 , pp. 196 - 223
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 by the History of Education Society 

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References

1 Both Phi Delta Kappa and Pi Lambda Theta considered themselves honorary and professional organizations in education. Criterion for selection was initially based on grade point average, although throughout the history of both organizations, various criteria also existed for membership. At most universities where Phi Delta Kappa existed, so, too, did Pi Lambda Theta. Until the mid 1950s, both single-sex organizations cornered the university market for education honoraries, leaving the coeducational Kappa Delta Pi to organize on the less-prestigious normal colleges. This division of the higher education market was the means by which the single-sex organizations created class distinctions among educators; it also perpetuated the gender division within the education field, whereby male and female administrators and college professors had separate organizations. Laurie Moses Hines, “Creating Distinctions Among Educators: Separatism, Women's Professionalization, and the Competition for Educational Authority; A History of Pi Lambda Theta, 1910–1974,” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 2000), chapters 1 and 2. All Pi Lambda Theta materials are located at the Pi Lambda Theta International Offices, Bloomington, Indiana [hereafter referred to as PLT]. The records housed there include materials from defunct chapters who sent the entirety of their chapter's records to the PLT offices rather than submit them to their university archives. On Pi Lambda Theta's perception of its relationship to Phi Delta Theta see, “History of Pi Lambda Theta and Phi Delta Kappa,” (c. December 1973). This document was included as part of a packet of background material sent to Pi Lambda Theta chapters with a mail ballot regarding the admission of men into the association. See Mary Margaret Carney to Chapter Presidents, December 28, 1973, Folder “Ballots for Admitting Men to Membership, December 1973,” File “Board Meeting Minutes,” PLT.Google Scholar

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24 “Focus of the 1973 Biennial Council,” Pi Lambda Theta Newsletter 18 (Fall 1973): 16.Google Scholar

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29 Georgia Adams to Members of the Board of Directors, July 26, 1972 and Adams, Possible Situations Facing Pi Lambda Theta (confidential proposals), Meeting of the Board of Directors, August 11–15, 1972, PLT.Google Scholar

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35 Information Clearing House of the Ad Hoc Committee to Assure Women Their Right To Membership in Phi Delta Kappa (typescript, University of Michigan School of Education, n.d. [1972?]).Google Scholar

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38 Phi Delta Kappa's Biennial Council was held in October 1973, and Pi Lambda Theta mailed the ballots to chapters in December, with the tallying of ballots done on March 1, 1974.Google Scholar

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42 For an example of the emphasis on women, see the Winter 1973–74 and Spring 1974 (vol. 52) and the Spring 1975 (vol. 53) issues of Educational Horizons. Google Scholar

43 Directions, Future Meeting of the Board of Directors, August 1973; Meeting of the Board of Directors, April 7–10, 1972; and Memoradum, Jean M. Alberti to Maybelle C. Chong, July 10, 1972, amended to the agenda of the Meeting of the Board of Directors, August 1972, PLT; for an example of local chapter initiatives on women, see Delta (University of Pittsburgh) chapter, Pi Lambda Theta (classification number RG 55/16/8/5-B), Box 1, File folder 1, Hillman Library, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Google Scholar

44 On the chilly campus climate, see The Campus Climate Revisited: Chilly for Women Faculty, Administrators, and Graduate Students (Washington, D.C.: Project on the Status and Education of Women, Association of American Colleges, 1986); Bernice Sandler, Lisa A. Silverberg, and Roberta M. Hall, The Chilly Classroom Climate: A Guide to Improve the Education of Women (Washington, D.C.: National Association for Women in Education, 1996); and Memorandum, Marguerite Manning to Jean Alberti and Mary Margaret Carney, November 23, 1977, Alpha Epsilon (Teachers College, Columbia University) Chapter correspondence file, PLT.Google Scholar

45 This dual mandate embodied the tensions of the women's right movement: the liberal feminist aim of integration (Pi Lambda Theta's becoming coeducational) and the cultural feminist aim of consciousness raising and revaluing the dominant male culture.Google Scholar

46 Hines, Moses “Creating Distinctions Among Educators,“ chapters 1 and 2.Google Scholar

47 Sandler, Bernice “Equity for Women in Higher Education,“ Current Issues in Higher Education 27 (1972): 78–90.Google Scholar

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