Brown and White Vol. 130 no. 10

              The Brown and White Vol. 130 No. 10
Tuesday, March 8, 2016 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
Brothel law myth debunked
Campus group promotes Planned Parenthood services
Kaitlyn McCollian, Tanner Buss, Margaret Burnett, Elissa Miolene/B&W Staff
TOP ROW: (from left to right) Kappa Delta, Zeta Tau Alpha and Kappa Alpha Theta. BOTTOM ROW: (from left to right) Pi Beta Phi, Alpha Phi
and Alpha Gamma Delta. The six pictured sororities are the chapters that pay for laundry services through Lehigh.
Misconceptions surround law about women living together
By FANNY CHEN
Assistant News Editor
Debate about whether the gov-ernment
should defund Planned
Parenthood has been at the fore-front
of this year’s 2016 presiden-tial
race. Planned Parenthood,
which provides health services,
has received negative criticism
for performing abortions. Lehigh’s
Planned Parenthood Generation
Action club works to emphasize the
importance of women’s reproduc-tive
rights and stress the impor-tance
of the organization, which
utilizes federal funding to operate.
In the fall of 2015, Samantha
Randall, ’18, founded the Planned
Parenthood Generation Action
Club after attending a National
Youth Conference in Harrisburg.
Realizing there was no affiliat-
By EMILY WARD
Associate Sports Editor
A myth has been circulating
around Lehigh’s campus for years.
This myth’s origin is unknown, and
it suggests that any facility housing
more than six women is considered
a brothel in the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania.
It has also been said that the only
way sorority houses — which are
often home to more than 40 women
at a time — skirt this law is by
paying for laundry in their Greek
houses.
In a Panhellenic Council meet-ing
on Thursday, more than half
of the Panhel representatives who
live in Greek houses where they
have to pay for laundry said they
had believed in this law. Six of the
nine sororities on campus pay for
laundry. Gamma Phi Beta, Alpha
Omicron Pi and Alpha Chi Omega
do not pay for laundry in their hous-es.
Jim Schantz, a legislative assis-tant
to Pennsylvania Senator Lisa
Boscola, debunked the myth.
“We have found no such law in the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,”
Schantz said. “I even checked with
the city’s zoning office, and a soror-ity
is a permitted use in the insti-tutional
zone within the city of
Bethlehem.”
So if this law doesn’t exist, why
do most sororities have to pay for
laundry in their houses?
Each house on the Hill decides if
the members will pay for laundry See SORORITIES Page 3
See PLANNED Page 2
or not, according to Katy Kresge,
an associate director of Residential
Services.
Each house on the Hill decides if
they will use Lehigh’s machines or
purchase their own.
“It’s decided by the Greek chap-ters
whether or not they want to
take part in Lehigh’s laundry ser-vice
or if they want to purchase their
own machines,” Kresge said.
If houses want to purchase their
ed Planned Parenthood club on
Lehigh’s campus, Randall asked
officials if they could assist in her
in installing the club on campus.
“One of my main goals is politi-cal
involvement, and trying to get
our campus more involved because
we’re very much politically apa-thetic,”
said Randall, the presi-dent
of the Planned Parenthood
Generation Action club. “I want
everyone to know how important
reproductive rights are, no matter
your gender, age or if you’re actual-ly
planning to have children or not.”
The club hosted a Make and Take
event on Friday to inform students
about safe sex and the services pro-vided
by Planned Parenthood.
At the Make and Take event,
students were given pouches they Kendal Jacobus/B&W Staff
Planned Parenthood held a safe sex Make and Take event in
Lamberton Hall on Friday. Students were offered free condoms and
materials to make safe sex satchels.