Fraternity members indicted in student death
 

Here's an example of how members of a chapter can be held personably responsible...


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16191270/

Fraternity members indicted in student death

Hazing charges issued in last year’s alcohol-poisoning death of 18-year-old

AUSTIN, Texas - Three fraternity members were indicted Wednesday on hazing charges in the alcohol-related death last year of an 18-year-old pledge.
Phanta “Jack” Phoummarath, a freshman at University of Texas at Austin, was found dead at the Lambda Phi Epsilon house on Dec. 10, 2005.
His family alleges in a lawsuit against the fraternity that pledges were pressured to drink at the party and that someone wrote vulgar graffiti on Phoummarath’s body after he passed out.

Travis County’s chief medical examiner ruled that Phoummarath died of acute alcohol poisoning.

Fraternity president Benny Chan was indicted on seven counts of furnishing alcohol to a minor and 22 counts of hazing. Andrew Nguyen, the fraternity’s pledge captain, was indicted on seven counts of furnishing alcohol to a minor and 28 counts of hazing. And Camal Pulukuri was indicted on 14 counts of hazing.

The three men showed a “complete disregard for safety over a several-month period,” Travis County attorney David Escamilla said in Wednesday’s online edition of the Austin American-Statesman.

Attorneys for the three fraternity members could not immediately be reached for comment.

The university suspended Lambda Phi Epsilon’s status as a registered student organization until 2011 after a school investigation.

"IF" what is written is true, it is above and beyond the call for something like this happening and is really STUPID!:(

The first and only national Asian American interest fraternity. Member of NIC since 1989.
www.lambdaphiepsilon.com/

I had never heard of them before and I'm not familiar with NIC orgs.

Wonder where the advisors were....

Its true. Idiots.

Mac, I guess SAE can't team up w/ Lambda Phi Whatever for socials anymore.

the news reported that the rituals were confiscated and will be used as evidence

Were they even registered with the University?

AGDLynn, if you had not posted I would have gone on assuming this was just some underground local.

Texas has quite a few underground groups that are GLOs in lettered name only. Sucks when they get into trouble (which they do- frequently) because the media is going to treat the story as though they were a real fraternity.

http://www.ugalambdas.com/Images/Buffaloparty9.jpg

one of their chapters...looks like they frat hard.

wow... they should air the trial(s) on Court TV or something.

\

Ha, yea we are all extremely upset.

This story hit the media hard; several more news links on story:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...o/4401047.html


http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?se...ate&id=4848962


http://news8austin.com/content/top_s...sp?ArID=176454

http://www.statesman.com/news/conten...raternity.html

I didn't realize that locals were kicking around Austin. Are there a lot of them?

It's not a local.

As Elephant Walk just posted- this particular house was not a local just to confirm, but yes there are many underground and local houses here.

How many is difficult to say. For various reasons I have been keeping close watch on the real estate situation in West Campus lately and there are a lot of small homes owned by Greek Letter Organizations that I am not familiar with. And not all of them have letters advertised on the front door.

But whether these groups are chapters of national GLOs or not, the fact remains that they do not tend to be registered with the University. I know this because I have last semester's official Greek House map and IFC grade reports sitting on my desk right now.

For various and obvious reasons, there has been a rise in recent years of new GLOs which tend to cater to specific racial groups and have a national presence.

However, the newness of these groups and the approach they have taken with regards to operating in a semi-underground manner gives them something in common with local and underground GLOs- specifically that they do not have the history, alumni presence or formal responsibility to colleges and strong national offices that can set the proper tone for recruitment and risk management.

My research shows that this is where the real risk lies. Different chapters in different places have different boundaries as to what is acceptable or not acceptable, and we are never going to agree on that.

But it is my opinion that chapters without alumni presence and guidance (courtesy of advisors or having lots of legacies in the chapter) and that chapters who are not selective in their recruiting are the ones that have the most problems. And if you really think about it and drop the north/south and other prejudices- this makes perfect sense in ways that would take 20 pages to fully discuss and explain (though I can do it if anyone wants!)

To get back to my earlier comment, my frustration is that when these kinds of organizations have incidents- the media does not report that the chapters involved are underground, local, not registered with the University or are just a bunch of 10 random guys who decided to rent a house together and pick out 2 or 3 letters to name themselves.

All they see is Greek letters, and then a media story is born.

Just read the first 2 pages of this particular forum and consider each incident. Ask yourself if these stories would have made the news if the student(s) involved were not greek. Look at how many of the reported incidents happened away from the Greek house.

We of 100+ year history greek organizations who are formally registered with our colleges are being judged by isolated incidents that happen with students who have nothing in common with us other than they decided to call themselves something using greek letters.

That sucks.

But I could care less about what the general public thinks. What pisses me off is that so many of our own- even from within our own brotherhood at times- are so willing to pass judgement, on this forum at that, and not stop and think about what is really going on.

So are these organizations registered as student groups at all, or are they just not IFC/Panhel/Pan-Hel? Is there some kind of Multi-cultural Greek Council @UT? This is the route many campi are going. The cultural/ethnic fraternities becoming residential is a fairly new phenomenon at most schools. I think that they are still following more of Pan-Hel type route rather than IFC/Panhel one. I know when I was last in Austin(we had an affiliate there for 10 years) there were one or two honor/professional fraternities with houses, as well as two non-GLO groups (I know Tejas is still there). Of course it is only the last ten years or so that the University has had much of a relationship with the IFC.

Tejas House is still there I think- but they have never tried to associate themselves with Greek Life. I knew one of the guys from one of my classes and he told me that it was basically a house where friends of current residents were invited to move in as guys graduated. No ritual or pledge period to speak of. A nice historic house too.

Beta Kappa (business fraternity- co-ed) used to have the house next to ADPi, but that changed hands a couple of times and is currently in Acacia's hands. I am not aware of BK having a property at present.

As for your question about other councils, I just checked and at the bottom of the Greek Life page on the UT website there are other councils listed besides the IFC (national fraternities and the list I was looking at last night) and UPC (representing the 14 national NPC-affiliated sororities). They are as follows- with portions of their mission statements in quotes to indicate who they represent,

NPHC- fraternities and sororities

"The National Pan-Hellenic Council at The University of Texas at Austin is the governing body for the nine historically African American Greek organizations. Seven of these organizations are currently affiliated with Greek Life and Education."

TAPC- Texas Asian Pan-Hellenic Council

"The Texas Asian Pan-Hellenic Council is the governing body for three Asian-interest organizations at The University of Texas at Austin." [Note- later on in their mission statement, it is indicated these are all sororities.]

UGC- United Greek Council

"The United Greek Council was created by the predominantly Latino/a based fraternal organizations at The University of Texas at Austin in the spring 2000 semester."

I must confess I was not completely aware of the extent of this- so that is new information for me.

However, I also just now looked over the list of all registered Greek organizations for all of these councils plus affiliates without council representation- and I can see off the top of my head that there are 3 GLOs I am aware of that are not registered.

That includes the organization being discussed here. I checked the discipline records online as well to ensure they are not listed because they were kicked off when this incident was first reported, but there is no record of any such action.

So it would appear this GLO was never registered with the University in any capacity. And I would note as well that none of the councils I mentioned above cover Asian-American fraternities of which there are reputedly many (2 of which I know about.)

Thanks. I have a pretty good list of national fraternities. If you tell me the names of the ones not registered, I could tell you if they are on it.

whoever gave them up should be stripped of membership

I doubt they 'gave them up'. When they have what they think is evidence and the legal standing to seize it, 'giving it up' doesn't happen. They just take.

Makes me wonder if the ritual they use could possibly be used as evidence to support the violent hazing. I wouldn't know either way.

Either way, whether they are a registered Oganization or a psuedo group using Greek Letters, this throws a bad light on everyone no matter who it is.

People have blinders when it comes to Greeks. They have Greek Letters and screw up, than all Greeks must do the same no matter what.:(

Lambda Phi Epsilon = Theta Nu Xi?

Basically the same principle.

Actually no one has given much of any thought about the event around here until the indictment information was released.

I think the title of "number one party school" at UT created more backlash towards GLO's then this incident.

That is a fair point. I know for a fact the University administration is pretty upset at this dubious honor (and obviously they would be.)

The heavy crack-down in West Campus on any ordinance violations- even if not reported- earlier this year surely stemmed from that as well.

Yet another media-driven situation to inconvenience our lives.

Tallgreekalum- if you want names, let's take it to PM if we may. No big secrets or anything, but I figure if a GLO does not advertise itself and is leading a quiet existence, then it is not my place to broadcast it on the internet.

http://www.dailytexanonline.com/medi...exanonline.com

The article was published in September. I live in west campus - there are definitely still plenty of builds, bands, and black tarps.

"Michelle DeCrane, spokeswoman for the Austin Fire Department, said the new plan does not single out fraternities."
BULL!

i am typing with the widows keyboard so ignore any mistakes

i have attended two west campus neighborhood commitee meetings, which is composed of 95% business owners. nothing has been said on behalf of greeks. even when we try to bring up the subject they quickly change subect. hopefully with more greek involvement we can get more things repeled, such as the required permit for 49 people or more.

Its al bullshit.

So, that means bang the drum slowly?

They forget the amount of UT/Social Greek Money that comes into the school and businesses.

Now, if the rules are faily run for not only Greeks, but anyother social gatherings of a personel nature that would be fine.

There has to be some rules in place when some get out of hand, but with a little restraint, I am sure it can be worked out.

Now if I read right, West Campus is mostly Greeks, true?

West campus is where 98% of the Greek Houses are located, and is about 99% students, not all of whom are Greek, obviously, though a LOT of Greek students live in West Campus, in house or in apartments. Here's the greek house map:

http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/gle...LEhousemap.pdf

And the laws aren't exactly 'fair' and do have the obvious aim of affecting Greeks more then anyone else - I remember a story about a meeting that was held to inform fraternities of the new regulations and the whole registering 'gatherings' with 50+ people thing. One guy apparently asked if he needed to register weekly chapter dinners to which he was told that "obviously those sorts of things don't count." rediculous.

LPhiE isn't the only national Asian American Fraternity. They are one of two that is a part of the NIC, which reinforces them being National, but that's about it.

They have roughly 46 chapters across the country. At many schools, they are not recognized by the university which leads to real problems for organizations like mine that are recognized. (ie, they dirty rush and it hurts us bad b/c the university doesn't do anything)

LPhiE has had a bunch of deaths.

One kid died in a fight between two fraternities at SJSU in 2003.

Another died coming back from a fraternity event in a car crash.

Another was killed during a pledge event in 2005. He was trying to charter LPhiE at his university, but the death obviously ended hopes of the charter.

An active house was herassed by authority for over a year.... what do you expect for them to do in that predicament? If anything, you have to think about the people that gave themselves up, perhaps hoping for a less severe punishment.

From Dec 19th new story:
Dec. 19, 2006, 10:54PM
Charges don't keep frat from partying
Austin group's actions following Houston teen's drinking death surprise officials

By ROBERT CROWE
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4411723.html

And those of "us" who have only been around for decades at most face the same problems. New students judge us everyday on the misconceptions created by these older, more "historic," organizations. ONE isolated incident happened with an Asian GLO that shouldn't reflect anything or become a generalization for other organizations around the country.

Isolated incidents... This past year I've heard of everything from a new member falling off his balcony to a pledge being locked in a casket. These did not occur within Asian organizations, but rather those with 100+ years of history. You speak of this "we" and "you" division like my organization would be any different than your's in purpose. I keep wondering what older, more experienced organizations think about newer organizations because these type of divisional comments.

I'm proud to be in my organization (Yes, an Asian one). I without a doubt believe we have more in common than just 10 random guys "calling [ourselves] something using Greek letters." We serve our community, set up Philanthropy events, and furthermore, turn young men into leaders. There's nothing to talk down to about that. If not for this ONE incident, I'm sure all of the current Asian GLOs would have been in a council within the next few years. I'm sure that we'll be on one before our first decade on campus is over. In the meantime, all we've been doing was researching on the different councils to find which one will suit us best. Coming from a much smaller, and newer organization, the idea of being "recognized" is much different compared to that idea for century-old organizations.

(Sidenote: I have friends and acquaintances in all GLOs. The point I was trying to make is that ethnic groups aren't any different in tradition and culture, so much as to say I'm Vietnamese, he's African American, and she's White.)

Jon, I was referring to someone else's comment about an active being stripped of membership for ratting something out.

What does your comment imply?

Sorry, I may have mis-read or mis-understood your comment.

All my posting was about was a new update to others already in thread.

Oh that's cool =)

Jaynu,

There is a BIG difference between kids falling off balconies or dying of overdoses and the forced drinking to death in this case.

The former are unfortunate tragedies that derive from behavior that is common for many college students- Greek and non-Greek.

The incident in this thread was deliberate and incredibly stupid, and it is one of many over the years that has happened with an unregistered GLO at Texas. These problems are not the result of the organizations being of a particular race. They are problems of organizations that exist without proper structure or guidance.

That sure seems evident in their behavior. I can imagine a non-Greek student getting drunk and driving, or falling off a roof while intoxicated. Overdoses happen all the time.

How often does ANYONE force-feed someone booze until they die? It takes the pledge-active relationship of a GLO to make that possible, but it takes a pretty messed up group of people to actually do it. The continued parties after the incident (the article Jon posted which I read in Houston when it came out), certainly do not tell the tale of an organization that recruits men on solid principles.

Guidance and structure can be lacking in any chapter, but by their very nature unregistered GLOs are operating in a far less safe manner than any GLO which is responsible to a strong national office and a university.

I have no problem with new GLOs- why should I? The more of us there are serving an increasingly diverse student population, the better off the Greek community is as a whole.

But when organizations put out a public appearance of being Greek groups for university students (ie they have Greek letter names) but they do not even bother to associate themselves in name and responsibility the same as other GLOs, they are merely trying to rip off our prestige and then damage us all when something goes wrong.

NPHC organizations in many cities exist just fine outside the scope of university representation. They also have their own methods of recruiting and membership that set them apart. They are not trying to have the benefit of being associated with a college and at the same time avoid the responsibility of other student organizations.

And spare me the BS about representation on councils. Texas has a council for Asian-specific GLOs- but only sororities are members of that council.

If, as you imply, the failure of Asian male GLOs to be officially registered with the University or a council is racially motivated, how come the Asian GLO council (which is not specifically stated to be reserved only for sororities) does not have any of the many Asian male GLOs?

For that matter, considering how many different Texas councils there are for registered GLOs of a wide range of racial groups- how is it possible that you are being kept away from doing the same? Is there a conspiracy against Asian fraternity members?

The reason that and so many groups are underground is obvious by their behavior in this case- specifically what they did and then what they did after the fact.

The racial connection is purely coincidental. GLOs in this country have traditionally been home to white students- and with membership on a slight decline overall, there is little need for more predominantly white GLOs.

And so it is natural that growth in the number of GLO organizations will tend to be for groups that are conceived by and largely serve members of minority groups- who are also attending college in greater numbers.

So nice try, but this is not about race. This is about groups that lead a marginal existence, try to appear to be the same as us, and make us all suffer when they do something stupid that gets heavy publicity- which is far more often than it is for us.

Newspaper readers are discerning. Are you going to tell me they don't see the difference between a young man falling and dying while at home versus a pledge being force fed booze until he died?

Incidentally, not all the traditional long-lived GLOs are white. There are some NPHC organizations older than some of the larger traditionally white organizations.

Point being, "We" and "Us" was not the racially discriminatory type comment you would like to associate with my post.

Jaynu, the reasons LPhiE was not recognized at Texas is most likely because of their repeated violations of school policy. I know for a fact of LPhiE not being recognized at at least 15 university across the country, almost 33% of their chapters! That is insane. Moreover, LPhiE is a member of the NIC, and thus should have some sense of the responsibility involved when you are part of a National organization.

The bottom line is LPhiE Zeta Chapter dropped the ball big time. They continue to party after they KILLED someone. How is that responsible? Moreover, why isn't the National Office (or the front they say is their National Office) officially derecognizing them and declaring them no longer brothers?

LPhiE is a mess right now. 4 Deaths in 3 years is not good, especially when you only have 46-47 chapters.

Moreover, to back up EE-Bo, universities have created Multicultural Greek Councils and the like because they don't know what to do with Latino and Asian Greeks. To think that LPhiE was blacklisted when the TAPC was only made up of sororities is absurd.

Bottom line: LPhiE needs to get its act together quick. It faces ENORMOUS dues now do the the lawsuits and their attempt to try and get National Insurance (which last time I heard they don't have). Moreover, Greek Advisors are NOT stupid. They communicate between schools. I garauntee you every school with LPhiE is keeping a VERY careful eye on them.

EE-Bo, I'm not defending Lambda Phi Epsilon's act in anyway. What I am trying to say is that you're lumping in a wide range of organizations that are mostly (even YOUNGER than LPHIE), if not all, less than a decade old.

Incidents have happened with recognized organizations. If you're from the UT Austin, I'm sure you know of the guy buried alive in a casket (no need to list names).

Anyhow, it's a bit easy for you to attack the smaller organizations because we aren't recognized or 'organized with guidance.' I can assure you my organization is getting there as well as the other AGLOs on campus. The Texas Asian Pan-Hellenic Council was always designed for women as far as I understood, and close contacts with them tells me they'll be opening to Asian fraternities so I am doing my homework. My main point is incidents don't make you look bad only or the organizations that stand 100+ years strong; they affect other AGLOs also, ones that do plan to join councils in their near future.

How about the other councils? Believe me! We've looked into that also, but such councils do not serve a purpose to help us. For example, several councils would not allow its members to flyer in Jester and West Mall, one of the main ways we recruit our members. This policy would do a lot more well with established organizations that are already known through a much longer period of time. So yes, we have been looking... just for the right one that suits who we are as a newer organization. We've also looked into making our own council and have the other respectable AGLOs join (not racially bound, just because most likely, they're not in one yet either). We also participate with GLE on campus to learn about all of the issues such as hazing and risk-mgmt. so it's not like we're just random guys who wear Greek letters to bring the system's image down. Just want to make that clear.

As L.O.C.K. has stated, this chapter is STILL active with the national organization. I checked the website myself and there is no word of any action having been taken.

What I did not know, and thank you L.O.C.K. for providing this information, is that a third of LPE chapters are not recognized by their respective colleges and that there have been 3 deaths in two years- none of them appearing to be accidents from the news reports I read.

You are right that established GLOs do stupid things too, and get themselves in the paper and make us all look bad. I never denied that.

What I am saying is that it is my personal observation that underground GLOs tend to have a disproportionate number of very serious incidents for a variety of reasons. And I was upset that behavior of these underground groups brings disrepute on us all.

There are plenty of new GLOs out there which are a viable part of an ever-diversifying Greek Community that will strengthen our presence on campuses and ensure our survival.

But from the evidence shown here, LPE is not such an organization- and not just at Texas but on a national level as well.

To be fair, it appears the national leadership bears a lot of the blame. I am not prepared to condemn every chapter and undergraduate member over incidents at a few chapters- so please don't think I am disparaging the whole operation.

A national leadership that does not take action against chapters where hazing deaths occur and, if what L.O.C.K. suggested might be true is in fact the case, if national leadership has not been able to secure basic insurance- then all undergraduate chapters have the potential to get out of control, as Texas did, and then have individual members and their parents face huge financial responsibilities whenever anything goes wrong.

It is important to note that much of the continued news coverage of this story centers around the fact the chapter has continued to operate the same as before with no adult intervention. That is what makes this particular story all the more damaging when it comes to the image of the Greek community and our ability to recruit new members.

I do not think that there or were that many disparaging remarks against smaller GLOs.

The fact is some of the truely old line GLOs of the NIC have small chapter numbers. That then would be no point of discussion.

While I cannot say that all GLOs have had some form of R M problems, very many have in one form or another. What has also been stated by many, when a group using greek letters, anything that happens reflects on all greek orgaizations no matter what.

When one thinks about it, people only see greek letters when they see or read something in the news media.