Iron Arrow Honor Society
University of Miami honor society
The Iron Arrow Honor Society is an honor society at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida for students, faculty, staff, and alumni. It is the highest honor that the university can bestow upon someone.
Founded at the University of Miami in 1926, the society admits about thirty members annually, including undergraduate, School of Law and Miller School of Medicine students, alumni, and University of Miami faculty, staff, and administrators. Membership requires unanimous votes of the membership. Criteria include scholarship, leadership, character, humility, and love of alma mater.
History
20th century
In 1926, the Iron Arrow Honor Society was founded at the University of Miami as the "highest honor attained by men." Later that year, the Iron Arrow Honor Society was influential in proposing that a lake at the center of the University of Miami campus be named Lake Osceloa in recognition of Osceola, a legendary 19th century Seminole tribal leader and warrior.
In 1937, Nu Kappa Tau, a separate sister organization at the university, was founded as "The Highest Honor Attained by Women." In 1966, Nu Kappa Tau became affiliated with Mortar Board, a national honor society, "leaving Iron Arrow to carry the tradition alone," Miami Magazine reported in 2000.
In 1976, the U.S. federal government notified the University of Miami that it was providing significant assistance to Iron Arrow in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The university then required that Iron Arrow move its tapping ceremony off campus, and it began urging the organization to begin accepting women members.
Later that year, in October 1976, Iron Arrow responded by filing a lawsuit against the federal government.
The public source identifies “Iron Arrow Honor Society” as university of Miami honor society. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Iron, Arrow and Honor.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6072314. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1926, 1937, 1966 and 2000.
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This entry incorporates text from “Iron Arrow Honor Society” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.