RE: this issue, I have some amount of experience with it.
Here is a situation that happened on my campus while I was in college (at a fraternity I frequently hung out at before this whole drama made me realize they were sort of lame):
ABC's charter was revoked for risk management issues over the summer. However, the charges were viewed by many as bogus.
The ABCs did not want to lie down and lose their status as a fraternity. They decided to pursue affiliation with another NIC organization. To clarify, when their charter was revoked, they remained members of ABC - alumni members.
They pursued affiliation with XYZ. In order to become members of XYZ and follow NIC policy, they all resigned their membership with ABC. However, ABC refused to release them as members. It seemed (at the time) that you could somehow RESIGN your membership but not be RELEASED from obligation to ABC (legally). At least that was ABC's argument.
The former members of ABC initiated into XYZ and were chartered as a chapter of XYZ without getting an official release from ABC. Their argument was that ABC's stance that resignation vs. release from obligations would not stand up in court. There was speculation on campus that ABC would sue XYZ, but in fact that never happened. I don't know if was because they didn't have a case, or if it just wasn't worth it to them.
XYZ ultimately failed as an organization on campus when IFC and Student Life both refused to recognize them.
Many of the members of ABC/XYZ joined another fraternity on campus that had previously been quite strong but had suddenly encountered trouble and was in need of members. We'll call this MNO. Supposedly, the ABC/XYZ members were "social members" of MNO only - they lived in the house and paid social fees for parties and food, but were not initiated members of MNO (this was a somewhat common practice at my university). However, I heard rumors that some ABC/XYZ members were ALSO initiated into MNO. Certainly many of them attended some national MNO events sponsored by the fraternity headquarters - and I have pictures to prove it. I have no idea if they pursued a release from XYZ as well, if they were indeed initiated.
So it does happen. And this has happened at other campuses too, with XYZ being the incoming organization, I might add. Of course it's not common, because most NIC orgs, unlike XYZ, have too much self-respect to attempt to pull off something lame like this.
The part that surprises me about the whole thing still is that MNO got dragged into it - but I guess they figured better take the ABC/XYZs than die. Although I don't think MNO will ever be the fraternity it once was, because the ABC/XYZs took over their rush.
