[Kevin]

As far as I know, you're correct. SAE doesn't have any pledging process. These guys are full members within a very short period of time after signing their bid cards. Expecting that you can weed out all of the bad apples prior to that point is not realistic, and as those within this lane know well, expelling initiated members is no simple task (at least in my fraternity, I'm assuming SAE also probably has a fairly extensive, undergrad driven process for expulsion of members).

As long as we have kids coming from non-diverse backgrounds and we are given little to no opportunity to weeding them out, we're going to have kids which say and do stupid things. It's how our chapters respond which makes all of the difference. In Wisconsin's case, from this side of the story (I guarantee you there's at least one other side to this thing, probably several sides) that the member exhausted internal remedies and felt he needed to go to the school for help. That he didn't know of or choose to utilize internal SAE options going above the chapter level (e.g., going to nationals or alumni advisers [or that he did that and got no help] would be additionally troubling.