[LaneSig]

Originally Posted by KSigAdvisor

My main point, and again, none of you need to agree in order for KS to be on campus, is that despite all of this bickering and disagreement, which there will be more of in the future, when it comes to protecting our rights against universities, we should all be on the same team. That is why the leaders of every national fraternity support open expansion. If you disagree and think whoever gets to campus first wins, fine. But regardless, when you take the time to read the case law, constitution, Title 9, etc., you will realize that FGCU can't keep us off campus just because our peers (IFC and apparently their local advisors) don't want us here. Groups of people don't have to accept competition, but thankfully FGCU (government) still has to treat everyone equally.

And is response to your comment, Belle, that "we're not awesome" enough, thanks for that. (Where are you at attacking her Stu?) The IFC members go out of their way to make it hard on us. One person in a local chapter called our executive director and said he didn't see us on the website and that we were a joke, but he lied to our executive director about who he was (we found out later). Then the kid went around and told everyone we weren't even recognized by our own fraternity, which was patently false. I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong. We knew what we signed up for, and we embrace the challenge. Further, we do hang out with sorority members, but as for official functions, they have been told not to do events with us (possibly for insurance purposes). PHC even went so far as to instruct their members not to sign our petition because they'd get in trouble for signing it. So, Belle, don't assume anything. Our guys are top notch, despite the year and a half peer bashing they've received from the other groups.

It's sad that you guys would fight so hard to keep a bunch of 18 to 22 year olds from enjoying the same rights and benefits that you enjoyed while undergraduates. You don't have to accept us into IFC, but we want our equal rights from the school, plain and simple.

Originally Posted by KSigAdvisor

Let me take this opportunity to re-frame the argument, as you suggested, since we are so far off track.

Please stop saying "we didn't follow the rules." If FGCU and/or IFC has said "in order to operate on campus, you must first turn in your constitution, get a faculty advisor, submit your fiscal budget for the year, and sit through a seminar, then you will be recognized," that would be called implementing "rules." Had that happened, and we had said "no thanks, we don't have to follow those rules; those rules don't apply to us, etc." then at that point each of you would have good reason to question our motives. Those "rules" would be equally applied across the board to every student organization. We would have gladly followed those "rules" and once we are on campus, we will follow any such rules the school may require.

However, here is what really happened, and these are the facts. We asked to come onto campus in November of 2008 during a meeting with the office of student life. They said "no." They didn't lay out a bunch of easy guidelines and steps we had to follow, such as in my hypothetical above, they flat out said no.

Going home at that point is not called following the rules. Public universities don't have the right to allow some universities on campus and ban others. So as you can see, we didn't "break the rules" there were no rules to follow. Telling a group they can't come on campus means there are no rules to follow!! It means they can't come, that's it.

Now, FGCU is a public university funded by taxpayer monies, and the way we see it, they don't have the right to tell any student group they simply can't come onto campus.

And this is where all the 1st and 14th Amendment, Supreme Court rulings, and Title 9 arguments come into play. If you think a public university has the right to tell certain groups they can't come onto campus, despite all the clear case law that says they can't, then I guess that's your business, although it's a very difficult argument to support.

But what can't be debated is that the school gave us zero rules to follow, they simply said go home, you can't be here. That is a fact, plain and simple. So, many of you have over and over said "you should have followed the rules" which is extremely frustrating because, as hopefully you now understand, there were no "rules" to follow. We chose to fight for our civil liberties, and because of that, we're being attacked by many people. It's been an uphill battle, but we're still fighting. We simply won't stand for any governmental entity denying us equal protection of the law, and you shouldn't either.

These are the main parts that I am having trouble with your argument.

#1- We KNOW that NIC and our national offices support open expansion. We get that. But we support it when it is done the proper way.

Which leads to your 2nd argument, and quite frankly, I question why you didn't lead with my 2nd quoted section when you first came on here and began posting. If you thought that we had the facts wrong in the first place, why not lead with that and tell us the facts? As I tell my students: If you are trying to convince me of something, tell me the facts first. Don't lead with a whole bunch of gobbledy-gook (in this case all of this 1st, 2nd, 14th Amendment things- and yes, I know the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is not just a bunch of gobbledy-gook. Don't go there.) and simply tell us your story. But, you waited so long to get to the "facts" that it becomes suspicious, leading to my 2nd point.

#2- You are (now) telling us that you went to the administration/Greek Life Office and all they said was "No." They didn't explain their reasons, they didn't discuss anything. You asked, they simply said "No. Please leave our office without further delay or discusssion. We refuse to talk to you about any of our plans or reasons." Just, "No."

You didn't try to talk to them another time? Kappa Sigma didn't ask a national official to talk to them and find out the process or their plans? Again, I'm sorry, but that is poor planning on Kappa Sigma's part. I found the
FGCU IFC Constitution and Expansion Process on line in about 3 minutes.

As for my last post where I said you had to allow anyone who rushed to join your chapters, if you didn't realize that, it was obviously tongue-in-cheek. Sorry if you missed that.

Stufield- I want to publicly praise you in being able to separate all of the posters' criticisms of the process and actions of this one chapter and being able to see that none of us are attacking Kappa Sigma International Fraternity. You are a credit to your organization and Greek Life.

Sincerely and fraternally,
LaneSig