A Fork in the Road: Rooming Assignments within Fraternities (Series 3)

Series 3: Finding the Greener Grass  

Welcome to the final segment of my Three Part Series on Rooming Assignments within Fraternities. Thus far, I have introduced you to a very unique situation in which I was entrusted with the responsibility of assigning 21 of my closest friends to live in rooms of very different value, both monetary and material. With no way to differentiate ones “Rights” to a certain room, I found the process to be much more difficult than I had originally thought. After all, how was I supposed to grant one friend a significantly better room than the other without some form of merit to back my decision?

Floor Plan (First Floor) of our Senior Year House

Ultimately, the result of our decision to approach this situation in a “Democratic” matter left two of my friends in living arrangements that they were very unhappy with. As shown in the floor plan above, the rooms of our future house vary in size, and obviously in location.

My two friends, Sam and Paaras, whom we heard from in last weeks blog ended up being placed in Rooms 125 SF and 102 SF, respectively. Sam must be up very early on most mornings, either for his job as a Manager for the University of Michigan Football Team or as a Research Assistant for the University Hospital. Being bordered by both the main living area and the front door, Sam will easily have to endure the most noise out of anyone living in the house. Paaras, who had lived in a very small room this past year, will once again be living in one of the least coveted rooms in the house.

At the time, I knew that I would not be able to please everyone, but once 19 out of the 21 housemates had approved their assignment I began to feel better about our decision. Not until sitting down and talking with my two friends, did I realize that this was an issue rooted deeply within Democracy itself.

As noted last week, Sam and Paaras were both initiated a semester after the 19 other housemates that we will be living with next year. Over the past four years, the representation of such Winter Pledges within our own Chapter’s Executive Board, the main decision making body of the fraternity, has been significantly deflated compared to the recent increase in winter initiations. The number has grown from a pledge class of 4 in 2012-2013 to an average of 10 new winter members over the following three years. As shown in the table below, if and only if a winter member was elected as a member of the EC, it was limited to only Secretary, a relatively small-scale responsibility.

                  Number of “Winter” Representatives in Chapter Executive Committee

Year	President/VP	Marshall	Treasurer	Secretary
2015-2016	0	0	0	1
2014-2015	0	0	0	1
2013-2014	0	0	0	0
2012-2013	0	0	0	0

The obvious issue with this is that, as a Winter, not only are you subject to poor representation in our main decision making body, but the consequences of this misrepresentation have began to spill over into everyday life. In order to prevent such issues in the future, both Sam and Paaras believed that it would be best to increase their representation during original deliberation.


As a minority of Winter Pledges, Sam and Paaras felt as though they were far less influential than their Fall counterparts. Their proposed solution can be better explained when compared to the works of Christopher Karpowitz[1], which describe the consequence of inequalities during deliberation. An overwhelming majority of our housemates accepted my proposal, and since it will be implemented come this Fall, it is safe to say that our deliberation was operating under a “Majority Rule” decision as described by Karpowitz. If we compare the muffled political voice of my two friends to the gender inequalities faced by women during deliberation, we can begin to craft a solution that will not only increase the representation of Winter Members but also their participation in future deliberation. By simply adding one Winter Member to representative body, their interest group will feel more compelled to participate and voice their concerns before it is too late.

Another proposed solution, again stemming from the works of Karpowitz[2], would be to implement Enclave Deliberation in future scenarios similar to my topic of choice. By combining the members of a disempowered group, prior to deliberation, their needs and interests will be mapped out and clearly defined before any decisions have been made. In the case of rooming assignments, Sam and Paaras would have been able to express their concerns with much more influence than they had before.  

In terms of proposed solutions to a Democratic failure, I believe that these two examples work better in large-scale scenarios. Increased representation and participation of disempowered minorities would do wonders for large legislative bodies such as the United States Congress, yet in such a small-scale environment, I propose that my fraternity move back to our original merit based rewards system. If we examine the situation through John Rawls’ “Veil of Ignorance” it becomes clear that there really is no way to “properly” allocate these rooms, and that is why I believe this to be a prime example of a democratic failure. Returning to a merit based reward system provides incentive for chapter members to stay active, and is the only fair way to go about room assignments in the future.

As Chantal Mouffe loves to remind us, there is no unification without leaving some members out.

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[1] Christopher Karpowitz, “Gender Inequality in Deliberative Participation” Page 536

[2] Christopher Karpowitz, “Deliberative Democracy and Inequality: Two Cheers for Enclave Deliberation among the Disempowered” Page 577-579