Who knows how these things get started? More than one reader asked if it was really true that sorority houses are not allowed in New Orleans, and maybe all of Louisiana, because of a law that prohibits brothels.
The thinking goes something like this: The supposed brothel law prohibited several women from sharing a house. Ipso facto, sorority sisters could not legally share a house either.
The “brothel law” sounds like a possible remnant of the past. New Orleans has a long history of houses of ill repute after all, including a two-decade period of legal prostitution in the legendary Storyville district from 1897 to 1917. Maybe the supposed brothel law had something to do with the closing down of Storyville more than a century ago and was an effort to prevent brothels from springing up elsewhere. Or something like that?
But a 2022 Reddit post on a page devoted to Tulane University implies that belief in the brothel law persists to the present day: “I know there's some sort of brothel law that prevents girls from living in the sorority houses at Tulane. But my friend at LSU says girls live in her sorority house. I thought it was a Louisiana law so why is one school doing it but the other isn't?”
Heaven knows we are not claiming that this social media exchange is factual, just that it indicates the legend of the brothel law is alive and well.
We asked our social media followers if they’d heard of the supposed sorority house/brothel conflation. Sure enough, several commenters had.
As a Twitter follower named documenTARYy now recalled: I “heard this on a campus tour at Tulane back in 2011 and routinely throughout my college experience. I was in a sorority whose house had 10 girls living in it, so obviously this wasn't an actual prohibitive thing.”
Heard this on a campus tour at Tulane back in 2011 and routinely throughout my college experience. I was in a sorority whose house had ~10 girls living in it, so obviously this wasn't an actual prohibitive thing.
— documenTÁRy now (@m_dufont) June 7, 2023
Tulane’s PR department lent credence to that tweet, stating that, indeed, “some Tulane sororities do have houses,” and that “there are no city codes prohibiting sorority members from living in chapter houses.”
Anita B. Curran, of the New Orleans City Council research office concurred, writing: “I am not aware of any such laws in the City Code, Charter, or CZO (comprehensive zoning ordinance).”
A photograph of the courtyard at 417 Royal Street first published May 25, 1919. The spot was apparently reputed to be a house of ill-repute.
So, we’re convinced the brothel/sorority thing is an urban myth. And a widely held one. It’s apparently popped up on campuses in other parts of the country, where it’s probably no truer than here.
A 2011 story on the Mental Floss website explains the spread of the brothel law legend like so: “Inevitably, some roommate/lab partner/friend/professor/tour guide/lacrosse team mascot is going to tell one of those (college) kids about how, according to ‘an old law still on the books,’ any house with more than a certain number of female residents constitutes a brothel … (but) I have some news for you: the brothel law thing is bunk.”
The story goes on to say that this urban legend has been bouncing around since the 1960s.
From a New Orleans perspective, the most interesting detail in the Mental Floss story is this tidbit: “In 1998, a group of eight Tulane University students searched through municipal and state law books going as far back as the 1800s and came up empty.”
We tried, via social media and Tulane University, to get a line on these eight student sleuths, but — like them — we came up empty.
Like most urban myths, the brothel law may seem to make sense at first blush, but doesn’t really hold water. In the course of reporting this story, someone asked, what about convents and homes for unwed mothers and that sort of thing? Were they banned too?
With the exception of Tulane, any worries about the legality of sorority houses in New Orleans is mostly a moot point anyway. A Loyola University representative says the school has no affiliated sorority houses. Likewise, Dillard, UNO and SUNO. Xavier University didn’t immediately reply to our admittedly last-minute request for comment.
Curious Louisiana is a community-driven reporting project that connects readers to our newsrooms' resources to dig, research and find answers about the Pelican State. Bottom line: If you've got a question about something Louisiana-centric, ask us at curiouslouisiana@theadvocate.com.
