Chi Omega and Discrimination during the 1950s

Date
March 28, 1988

According to Jane Myer Sellers (Class of 1955), there were no women of color and only one or two men of color at Dickinson during the 1950s. She reports that there were "a few Asian girls" who were considered to be minority students. The only sorority that accepted minority students, says Sellers, was Pi Phi. Sellers, a member of Chi Omega, admits that she was ashamed of these discriminatory membership policies: "We were not supposed to have black people or yellow people or red people--just pure white." Although Sellers explains that her generation was aware of these problems, she also adds that they never protested these practices, saying that "nothing was done about it until a decade later, when, in the 60s, we realized we were being inhumane..."

Location of Document in Archives
World War II Oral History, Sellers, Jane M.