“So do sororities here have housing?”
“Actually, in the state of Illinois, housing 6 or more women in one unit is considered a brothel, so no we don’t do sorority housing here.”
If you’ve ever been on a college tour, this conversation may not be unfamiliar to you. I first heard about this ‘brothel law’ while at school in Boston. Allegedly, in the state of Massachusetts, the same rule applies.
Six or more women = a brothel.
I assumed it was something unique to Massachusetts. Being from Minnesota, I thought maybe it was some weird, historical, east coast thing. Then, while touring Loyola in Chicago with my siblings, I heard the tour guide explain this same law to a prospective student. That time, I felt weirdly uncomfortable about it. Just how many states have this law? I decided to check it out for myself, so I googled “brothel laws in US” when I got home. A bunch of pages came up basically citing that prostitution is illegal in U.S., with the exception of some counties in Nevada. Okay, not helpful. After a little more digging, I came across several articles, which state that these sorority anti-brothel laws are actually a myth. There is no law that prohibits 6 or more women from living together.
That should have made me feel better, right? Our country isn’t so horribly sexist that it assumes 6 or more guys living together is a great idea, but 6 or more girls living together is a recipe for illegal sex. Good for the American legal system.
But then why is a female tour guide, an employee of a university, telling 14-18 year old girls that this is why they can’t live in a sorority house? When did this pseudo-law become a part of the employee handbook?
In several other articles, I read this is not an uncommon thing to hear on a tour. I think the fact that there is no such law in place makes the rumor even more disturbing.
I googled sorority housing at other schools in Illinois, to see if maybe Loyola wasn’t the only one; maybe there is some discrepancy in Illinois laws that makes colleges scared of the state's reprimand if they allow sorority housing. After a single click of the search button, I found a link to Illinois Wesleyan University’s fraternity and sorority housing policies which shut down that theory immediately.
This article was originally going to address old, sexist laws that should be taken care of by our government. Instead, it became about old, sexist rumors that need to be taken care of by our universities, starting with the students.
