USC (SC) Lambda Chi Alpha HQ Ousts Most of Chapter Members

[exlurker]

Lambda Chi Alpha HQ has removed most of the members of its U of South Carolina chapter. Please see the student paper's fairly long artilce at

http://www.dailygamecock.com/news/it...ut-usc-chapter


Excerpts from ^^:

“Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity's national headquarters removed 54 members from its USC chapter Sunday morning, evicting 22 of them from their Greek Village house with less than six hours of notice, according to several members of the chapter. The verdicts gutted the chapter, removed all of the officers and left only five initiated members and 15 associate members who had not yet been initiated due to last week's suspension on allegations of hazing.
The fraternity's national headquarters sent representatives to the chapter, who, along with the chapter's alumni corporation, performed a membership review in which they evaluated each member based on the results of a full-chapter drug test, university judicial records, grades, due payments and one-on-one interviews.

The officials brought five police officers with them to the fraternity's house for an 11 a.m. meeting in which the results of the review were distributed. There, members were notified by individually addressed letters of their consequential status — active, censured, suspended or expelled — and given instructions on how to appeal their verdicts if they wished. Some police officers remained afterward, fraternity members said, presumably to ensure that no damage came to the house when members heard the news.”

“ . . . the investigation is still ongoing. The Daily Gamecock has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the University of South Carolina to discern just what misdeeds the chapter committed; the university had not provided a written reply at press time.”

[Senusret I]

These stories make me sad.

[Psi U MC Vito]

Actually I'm kind of glad when I hear stories like these. think it shows that the inter/national office cares when they are willing to do something like this then just yank the charter.

[Senusret I]

I think membership reviews are far more damaging.

[Gusteau]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

I think membership reviews are far more damaging.

I agree. Oftentimes membership reviews cut numbers enough to cripple a chapter beyond recovery. Metrics aside, the fraternity can only expel them from membership, not the university, and those jilted members become a cancer to the group as it tries to rebuild.

[BadCat25]

Here is a question for you guys. Why do you do it? Why is hazing so important to you that you will risk being kicked out and your chapter destroyed rather than not haze? You see stories like this over and over again and I still can't figure this out.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by BadCat25

Here is a question for you guys. Why do you do it? Why is hazing so important to you that you will risk being kicked out and your chapter destroyed rather than not haze? You see stories like this over and over again and I still can't figure this out.

Are these hypotheticals?

[MSKKG]

Did y'all read the comments? Tom Earp (of GC fame?) was the author of the last one.

[Psi U MC Vito]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

I think membership reviews are far more damaging.

Originally Posted by Gusteau

I agree. Oftentimes membership reviews cut numbers enough to cripple a chapter beyond recovery. Metrics aside, the fraternity can only expel them from membership, not the university, and those jilted members become a cancer to the group as it tries to rebuild.

Interesting. I never looked at it that way. That is a very fair point.

Originally Posted by BadCat25

Here is a question for you guys. Why do you do it? Why is hazing so important to you that you will risk being kicked out and your chapter destroyed rather than not haze? You see stories like this over and over again and I still can't figure this out.

Tradition. Also a bit of "We had to do it, so so do they."

ETA: I do not see anything that appears Earpish in this thread.

[Senusret I]

Earp commented on the article itself.

[HONKY660]

Last year our IHQ had a membership review for our SMU chapter removing half of their membership. From what I have been told they have rebounded pretty well. Just like South Carolina, SMU had just built a multi-million dollar house, so maybe that played into membership review versus closure.

[tootiepie2]

The exact same thing happened at LSU this week. Unfortunetly I am not very computer savvy and do not know how to link articles (sorry) but the article was in yesterdays Baton Rouge Advocate if anyone cares to look. The article says that nationals came and did a membership review and recommened about 60 members for expolsion. There is also another website called tigerdroppings which is a LSU sports chat room. They also have a forum called OT lounge, there is a thread about it there. Of course I can't vouch for the truth of everything in that thread, but there are some very interesting comments.

[Senusret I]

http://theadvocate.com/news/1394102-...-might-be.html

Close to 60 members of the LSU Lambda Chi Alpha chapter are accused of drug abuse or other violations of fraternity rules after the national organization conducted a “membership review” of the chapter through Sunday.

[tootiepie2]

Thanks.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by Gusteau

I agree. Oftentimes membership reviews cut numbers enough to cripple a chapter beyond recovery. Metrics aside, the fraternity can only expel them from membership, not the university, and those jilted members become a cancer to the group as it tries to rebuild.

Exactly. And if they expel the more popular members - which quite often is the case - those guys often become a de facto underground fraternity (i.e. "the real XYZ") that overshadows the actual chapter.

I think that GLOs do this so they can keep their noses clean with the uninvolved (but still donating) alumni/ae. "We didn't close the chapter. WE TRIED. We kept the best people around and just got rid of the troublemakers!" When a lot of times...they damn well know the end result will be the same. It really depends how large the school is. A membership review at anything smaller than a state flagship is, IMO, pretty pointless.