Coming out of the Shadows
All three envisioned a fraternity in which a man could be judged as an individual; where race, color or religious creed were not a factor in determining self worth. There were others who harbored similar feelings, who were willing to form a new fraternal organization based on these principles. By the end of March, the three had multiplied to seven and then to fifteen.
Having established a successful core group, the organization was asked to affiliate itself with a national fraternity, Phi Lambda Phi. It claimed to be a non-sectarian, inter racial, and inter-religious organization. A constitution was written and presented to Pi Lambda Phi for approval. On May 113, 1946, the group officially petitioned the national organization to become a pledge chapter.
In the meantime, the group held several organizational meetings and, in a procedural fashion not unlike that of the original Phi Lambda Theta, presented a petition to the inter-fraternity Council at Bucknell for membership in the campus family of fraternities. The house joined the Bucknell IFC on June 12, 1946, and officially became known as the Omega Theta Chapter.
Representatives of Omega Theta, in September of 1946, attended a National Convention and observed that Pi Lambda Phi failed to live up to its infer racial and non sectarian ideals. An additional cause of disputes was the national organization's insistence that certain key concepts be eliminated from Omega Theta's Constitution. Not only was the local chapter's "percentage clause" requiring representation of all religious groups deemed not acceptable, but the national organization also demanded that the group's written raison d'être -- "no discrimination on account of race or color" -- should have the word "color" stricken from it. It was apparent the Pi Lambda Phi did not espouse the principles demanded by the group.