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June 14, 2003
UCSC boots frat after pet-koi barbecue
DAN WHITE
Sentinel staff writer
SANTA CRUZ — UC Santa Cruz’s administration has banished the fraternity that drew outrage and national headlines when two members stole, killed and allegedly cooked a pet koi.
The decision announced Friday came just days after MTV wrapped up filming a "reality" TV show featuring Delta Omega Chi members at a rented Lake Avenue house.
While the 30-member frat likely will become famous in September when MTV airs the show, the organization is now kaput at UCSC.
The decision to sever university ties with the frat does not mean DOC is dead. However, members said the expulsion puts a damper on the organization’s ability to attract students on campus and organize "rush" functions.
Campus spokesman Jim Burns said UCSC will no longer allow the group to use meeting spaces, post fliers or pass out leaflets on campus. The decision, he said, is permanent.
Burns said privacy rules prevent him from disclosing why the fraternity as a whole is being punished instead of just the two students.
"It was our determination that members of the fraternity were involved in concert with one another," is all he would say.
"That’s all I can really tell you."
He said a campus judiciary board investigation is ongoing. "We’re certainly looking to see if others were involved."
The reaction is the latest fallout after DOC members Casey Loop and Matthew Cox, both seniors, admittedly filched the 2-foot, 20-pound fish, reported to be worth more than $800, on May 20.
The fish, by several accounts, was killed and cooked.
Known by the names Midas, Goldie and Big Red, the koi was a 1995 gift to the campus from UCSC professor David Swanger.
Loop and Cox, who reportedly used rakes to scoop the fish from the pond, face misdemeanor charges filed last week by the District Attorney’s Office, for grand theft and malicious mischief.
It was Loop, according to MTV and the UCSC administration, who convinced the network to come to Santa Cruz and film the frat in the first place.
Frat members and UCSC alumni reacted angrily to the news Friday.
"We plan to fight this," said DOC member Joe Sanchis. "We are meeting with our lawyers. We have every right to be on this campus." Without campus privileges, he said, "we’d become an underground renegade fraternity like in that movie, ‘P.C.U.’ ’’
He contradicted an administrative statement that the frat had accepted the sanction.
"I don’t know where that came from," Sanchis said. "There has been no decision by the fraternity to agree to that."
He called the decision "political. They are discriminating against us. (Killing the fish) was not an organizational event. It was not a pledge event. We do not condone cruelty to animals."
Daniel Goldstein, a 1994 UCSC graduate and DOC member, insisted the fraternity would "go on the way we’ve always done. ... People will see our Web site. They will see us on TV. They can get in touch with us."
But students hanging out near the Porter College koi pond said they fully support the administration’s decision.
"I eat fish, but I don’t eat people’s goldfish, and I don’t eat people’s dogs," said student Susan St. John, 19.
Michael Madolny, 21, said the entire organization deserved punishment for a cruel "publicity stunt. What they did to that fish was completely disrespectful."
Doug Zuidema, director of the Student Judicial Affairs Office, has said the administration has not made a decision about the two students, who face potential suspension or expulsion.
Attempts at damage control, such as the placement of a large orange koi that reportedly cost $650 into the Porter pond, hasn’t done much to counter that resentment on campus. At the pond, someone has posted a message saying, "Pets aint for eating, you (expletives). ... Hannibal Lecter should fry up some frat boy for dinner."
The fraternity, which only exists locally, has never had a permanent house in Santa Cruz. Instead, over the years, "actives" have gotten together to rent homes in the area.
While many students on campus say MTV should be held accountable for the animal cruelty, an MTV spokeswoman insisted the show had no plans to use the fish situation as part of its storyline, an MTV spokeswoman said last week.
UCSC had blocked MTV from filming frat activities on campus this year.
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