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There is (or was) a supposed "underground LXA chapter" at
Anderson University, near Indianapolis (between Indy and
Muncie, Ball State).
AU is a small, conservative church-related school and officially
doesn't
allow fraternities. However they allow "service/social" orgs.
that for all practical purposes function as locals. Some have
been active 40 years or more.
Originally these groups had non-greek-letter names, like
Dativus, Eniteo, Agathos, etc. But in the early 80's they all
adopted greek-letter names as well (they still use both).
One of the older groups, called Sachem, supposedly linked
up with the LXA chapter at Ball State, and the BSU chapter
supposedly "recognized Sachem as an underground chapter"
For the past 2 decades they've been telling their rushees
that they are an "official" underground chapter of LXA.
I joined the faculty at AU in 1994, and became interested in
the group, seeing all the LXA letters on hats and jerseys.
Eventually I "infiltrated" the group and discovered they know
absolutely nothing about the "real" LXA....they couldn't
even tell me what "Per Crucem Crescens" or "Vir Quisque Vir"
meant....obviously the BSU chapter hadn't initiated them.
But they used the CoA anyway....just thought the design
was neat.
I contacted HQ and found out they had sent a "cease and
desist" letter to the group around 1990. It did no good, and
HQ never pressed it.
But the point is, if HQ doesn't "legally try" to stop these
groups, we could loose our copyright on the name, CoA,
etc. If an org or business owns a copyright and doesn't
"aggressively defend" it, the copyright can be legally lost.
I left AU in 2001, and at that time Sachem was no longer
recognized by the university....they violated too many rules.
But they continuted to operate, and like many unrecognized
groups, found that they liked it better without the "hassle"
of doing everything a recognized group has to do. Not
sure if they're still operating or not. They were bascially
the "football team fraternity", and since AU still has a
football team, they probably still have Sachem/"LXA" in
some form.
There are alot of advantages to being an unrecognized
group, from the perspective of a college student anyway.
No univ or national rules, no national dues, just do your
own thing. Of course the danger resides in the risk, but
that doesn't seem to deter them.
With the way some schools are trying to "stamp out" and/or
"tightly control" legitimate groups, it wouldn't surprise me
to see more of these unrecognized groups appear.
my 2 cc
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