Laurin Compton and Lauren Cofield sue AKA Sorority, Inc., over human rights violations and admittance into the sorority stemming from alleged hazing.

It is unfortunate that fraternities and sororities are attracting more media attention for hazing incidents than their essential purpose… community service.

Howard University has the latest pledging “injustice” in the news with two women who desperately want to be members of the AKA sorority. Lauren Cofield and Laurin Compton said that their human rights were violated when they tried to pledge in 2010, so now, three years later, they are suing for admittance into the sorority.

Both ladies are legacies (their parents are also members of the sorority), so they were sure they would be shoe-ins with the sorority, but it appears nothing could be further from the truth. According to the Washington City Paper, the sorority’s explanation for not accepting the ladies into the sorority was a “sister cap” on pledges.

But, the ladies allege that since Lauren called her mother to complain about the mistreatment they were receiving, they were blacklisted:

“At one point, the pledges were told not to talk to non-sorority members at Howard, according to the suit.  “[Alpha Kappa Alpha members] on campus addressed the sweets by calling them weak ...,” Compton’s mother wrote in a complaint to the sorority.

After Cofield’s mother, also an Alpha Kappa Alpha sister, complained, the two pledges found themselves ostracized in the sorority for being “snitch-friendly” or “snitch-sympathists.”

According to the Huffington Post update on the story, the complaint filed at the end of February in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, “it includes not only the disappointed pledges, but also their mothers, as plaintiffs. The plaintiffs are asking the court either for money damages and for the sorority to be stopped from accepting new members, or for the sorority to be ordered to bring in Compton and Cofield as members.”

They also complained that the university failed to protect them and have entered the university into the lawsuit as a defendant.  The claim of human rights violations are tenuous, but the lawsuit obviously has merit.  What do you think?  Read more on the case here.

-J.C. Brooks