A few Delta Iota Chi members at a recent fundraiser.
The Delta Iota Chi fraternity at UNT is raising some eyebrows on campus this week after announcing plans to slowly reinstate racial segregation into the organization’s bylaws, which would effectively bar black people from joining.
“We took a good look at our history and realized that there hasn’t been a single black member of this fraternity since the segregation rule was removed in 1979,” said Francis Parker, President of the North Texas chapter of Delta Iota Chi. “If we don’t change the rules back now so black people actually can’t apply, people will think something else was keeping them from joining for all these years. We certainly don’t want people to think we’re racist.”
Parker, who was born and raised in White Settlement, Texas, and has literally never shaken hands with a black man, says he’s friends with “all kinds of people.”
“The fine gentlemen in this fraternity, who I am blessed by the grace of God to call my brothers, embrace diversity as much as tradition,” said the president of a fraternity that has been repeatedly disciplined for wearing blackface at “ghetto” themed parties and waving a Confederate flag at the black fraternity across the street.
Despite the rule change, Parker says he and his fraternity don’t consider themselves racist. “I don’t see color, really,” he said, completely failing to note that the only place he wasn’t seeing color was the inside of his fraternity’s house. “This order of gentlemen is based on a bond of brotherhood, not race.”
The Electric Eagle 