Contact and Silence Policies

UPC has strict policies against contacting and being contacted by women currently in sororities at UT Austin. The following rules apply to anyone interested in joining a Panhellenic sorority.

• Potential new members (PNMs) may not attend any organized sorority function outside of formal recruitment events.

• No oral or written invitations can be made to a potential new member by a sorority member or representative (alumna or other) to attend any activity or social function.

• PNMs may not be contacted in any way by active or alumnae members. This includes texts, calls, letters, social media messages, or gifts of any sort.

• PNMs are strongly discouraged from attending any fraternity activities.

• Attendance at fraternity parties is not allowed during recruitment in August.

Strict silence is enforced between the time of the last preference event until the end of Bid Day. Any contact made between a sorority member (alumna or active) is strictly forbidden and will lead to dismissal from the recruitment process. This includes alumnae relatives.

By exhibiting prior favor to PNMs known from high school or social media, chapters not only give false hope to women but also decrease the amount of diversity that could be in chapters. Recruiting women, commonly from the same areas as existing members, makes our chapters filled with new members of similar socioeconomic, racial and ethnic backgrounds as classes before. This is automatically counterintuitive to our mission of increasing diversity, making our community inclusive, and providing equal opportunity for all women going through recruitment. If you have any DEI-specific questions, email Sunny Wang, our VP Diversity and Inclusion at texaspanhellenic.diversity@gmail.com.

We encourage everyone to please report any recruitment rule violations and other concerns to the University Panhellenic Council Recruitment Violation Form. If you have questions, email txupcstandards@gmail.com. The identity of those who report incidents are always kept anonymous and never shared with chapter leadership.