AOII at U of Alabama on Probation for Hazing
 

The Associated Press reports that the Alpha Omicron Pi chapter at the U of Alabama has been put on probation for hazing. The probation reportedly will last for two years. It will NOT affect their participation in recruitment. No details of the exact nature of the probation or the activities that led to it are presented in the AP story, which is available on the web site of the Tuscaloosa paper

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com

The article is also available via a Google News search.

Sad news for 'Bama Greeks, and unusual, because sorority hazing incidents seem to be fairly rare

OK, I'll be the Devil's advocate...

Is anybody else REALLY curious to know what the hazing incidents were?

I'm definitely curious, but in all honesty, I don't think it is going to be anything big. NPC considers pretty much everything hazing :p

I'm not curious. Not all all. You couldn't pay me to know that horribly intriguing information ;)

I don't know exactly what it is, but I heard from a person in the administration that it's pretty bad. AOPis are keeping a tight lip about whatever happened. I'm sure we'll hear something in the near future, but I don't know if the truth will come out. If I hear of anything worth reporting, I'll be sure to let you all in on it. :p

Yes, but you generally don't get two-year probations for scavenger hunts.

My guess is that it was at least somewhat legitimate.

that's true s&s.

I do think it's weird that they are on probation but will still be able to participate in recruitment?

So they are on probation for 2 years... does that mean they are just being "watched" or investigated?

I know it doesn't mean they were suspended because then they would have had their recruitment participation taken away? :confused: I'm just confused!

T*P, I think it just means they're being watched carefully for the next few years. The UA newspaper is at www.cw.ua.edu, for what it's worth.

NPC rules dictate that punishments -- no matter whether they're for hazing, breaking drinking rules, recruitment infractions, or anything else -- cannot prohibit sororities from participating in rush or limit the amount of girls they can take. No matter what, if a sorority is active it is guaranteed the right to take quota and get to total.

Of course, the combination of (1) hazing allegations and (2) the fact that their probation may include limiting the number or types of social functions they have -- that alone will probably affect their rush.

s&s, thanks for the info! I am completely unaware of some of the NPC rules :)

For some reason the CW isn't reporting on this story. I have no idea why.

The CW doesn't go to print on Thursday. There'll be something on it in Friday's paper.

You're right, there is something in today's paper: http://www.cw.ua.edu
They usually print on Thursdays, but I guess the press schedule has been thrown off due to dead week/upcoming finals.
I just wonder what took so long to break this story, considering that the probation took place last month.
Whatever happened, I'm sure the AOPi's will stick together and remain a strong house. As an undergrad, I had some good friends who were AOPis.

Whoa! Some of the comments are harsh!

http://www.cw.ua.edu/vnews/display.v.../3fd01ada62c79 :eek:

No kidding! :eek: Put away the claws! :rolleyes:

Several thoughts:

(1) I disagree with the idea that whatever the AOIIs did must be awful, since they got 2 years of probation. Keep in mind that they will still be participating in recruitment & having social activities, so "2 year probation" sounds to me kind of like "slap on the wrist."

(2) My money is going towards the scenario where some wayward AOII did something of her own accord. Why else would AOII bring it to everyone else's attention? The sister may not have even realized what she was doing was considered hazing.

(3) Why is the statement "a traditionally white sorority" in this article?

Wow. I finally read all the comments.

I also wondered why the CW mentioned it was a "traditionally white sorority". To me, that has nothing to do with the rest of the content in the article... then again I don't know anything about that area and if that is how they refer to their GLOs.

True. I guess it's possible they (a) have a large contingent of traditionally NON-white GLOs on campus and (b) enough students not affiliated with GLOs so the distinction would be necessary.

Still, you'd think it'd read, "On a campus with 13 GLOs, AOII is one of 2 traditionally white sororities...." or "AOII is one of 20 traditionally white sororities on campus." There weren't any qualifiers, which is what makes it, well, bad journalism.

I think it's related to two things

(1) partially a regional thing

(2) partially the anti-Greek CW staff trying to highlight the issue of race in the Greek community (which of course should be addressed, but has, as far as I can tell, nothing to do with this particular issue).

If you read the comments below you'll see some of them asking the same question.

I have no problem with AOPi being termed "traditionally white" IF Kappa Alpha Psi had been termed "traditionally black". The distinction was obvious. I went to Bama and the CW is anti-Greek and loves to stir up racial issues.

I just wanted to say that I support my AOII sisters at Alpha Delta Chapter in coming forward with this event. I hope they can help to educate their chapter and the Greek Community there about hazing to prevent further incidents to occur.

I, too, think it took a lot for the AOII's to stand up and say "Hey, we did this, it was wrong, and we want to acknowledge and fix it." Kudos to them.

That is perhaps one of the worst-written college news stories I've ever read. My Journalism 201 (intro to Journalistic writing) Prof would have ripped it to shreds! And I thought our student newspaper had an anti-Greek stance...

I would like to look for the best in this situation, but IMO there was probably an ulterior motive for confessing. Fortunately sorority hazing is not a big problem at my campus, but for the one or two organizations that do, the ONLY reasons they would confess would be to avoid a harsher punishment. My guess is that in this case either

(1) they knew someone witnessed the hazing and figured they were going to get turned in anyway, so they hoped that by confessing before they could get turned in, the sentence would be lightened . . . or

(2) they knew that if they confessed to what had happened straight away, they would be spared a more in-depth investigation by either the school or their HQ, which would probably unearth more hazing.

I hope that neither of these is the case at Bama and that the AOPis truly did it because they felt it was the right thing to do. But I wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't the case. And Bama's reputation as a campus where sorority hazing is an issue doesn't help them much here either . . .

I could see a chapter confessing to something if it was an incident that was not condoned by the exec board or chapter that a few members took on and did completely on their own and then the chapter didn't know how to deal with those few members or the incident.

Dee

That's what I"m thinking actually happened.