Barbara Brown, 16, has been a pretty big wheel at Alabama's Shades Valley High Schoolhonor student, homecoming queen, vice president of the student body and member of a sorority. A senior this year, Barbara came to the conclusion that sororities and fraternities were doing Shades Valley no good. Most of her schoolmates live in the well-to-do suburbs of Birmingham, but nonetheless the student body seemed split by snobbery. Barbara and some of her friends complained to Principal Frank A. Peake.
With the principal's blessing, Barbara launched an earnest campaign through high-income Shades Valley. In the parent-teacher associations of four elementary schools, she...