More hazing at AKA

[hoosier]

AKA hazing results in year probation


By Tony Kluemper
News Editor
ATLANTA
October 4, 2002


Recently, the GA Tech Dean of Students' office released the final sanctions for violations by the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority that occurred over the course of last year. The sanctions were not only ordered by Tech officials, but also from leaders at the national headquarters at AKA.

According to the sanctions, the charges took place during the fall 2001 and spring 2002 semesters and were related to numerous issues from hazing to the breaking of national policies. Associate Dean of Students Karen Boyd described the allegations that were brought against AKA last spring.

"AKA was accused of doing a few things. The first was violating their own national sorority rules," said Boyd. "Black Greeks have a different set of rules about how they do an intake process than other social Greeks. Their intake process requires them to be given permission to even start talking to people about joining."

Almost immediately after the sorority members have been given permission to begin talking to prospective members, members of nationals and the alumni become involved. Boyd explained why this step was part of the policy. "It [the process] is very structured in that there are a lot of people from nationals and the alumni involved with the process," said Boyd. "This is so that there's no opportunity for any potentially liable-oriented behavior, in other words no significant hazing can occur during that time."

The problems started when members of AKA choose not to follow these policies by talking to the prospective members before they were given permission to, thus, according to Boyd, opening themselves up to a greater likelihood of hazing activities to occur.

All members of the National Pan-Hellenic Council, which governs African-American Greek organizations, have similar policies in order to insulate themselves from lawsuits. Nationally, AKA has recently felt the sting of hazing lawsuits after the deaths of two prospective members in a local chapter at California State University late last month.

According to accusations, the two women drowned after being forced to enter the rip tide conditions of the ocean while they were blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs. Although the Tech incident did not involve such serious events, nationals and Tech both realized that sanctions had to be placed on the organization nonetheless.

In fact, the most serious hazing-related accusation against Tech's AKA chapter involved a much less drastic blindfolding ritual. "The incident which I think was the most problematic occurred when members would tell their prospective members to meet in parking lots around campus," said Boyd. The women would then be blindfolded, put in the back of a car and taken to a random wooded location next to a local apartment complex.

"The members then did some of the caddy talk about how they [prospective members] were not good enough to be an AKA. It was a little bit of emotional hazing," said Boyd.

The allegations were brought to the attention of the Dean's office last spring and an investigation began to look into exactly what had transpired. The administration used a technique they have used in many similar cases over the past few years.

"We met with the folks [AKA] and we had enough to know in general what we were probably dealing with and we said 'tell us the truth, tell us everything,'" said Boyd. "If after we verified it they had told us everything we would take this less severely than if they had tried to keep us from getting the truth."

AKA went along with the plan and, according to Boyd, told the Dean's office everything-even more than they had known beforehand. However, Tech officials and local AKA leaders had to meet with nationals in order to come up with a viable solution for everyone.

The national office of AKA also began its own "fact finding" investigation. Nationals automatically placed the chapter on inactive status while the investigation took place and in May, the fact finding team sent its sanctions to Tech officials. It recommended that certain members of Tech's chapter of AKA be placed on a one-year suspension for breaking AKA's national anti-hazing policy.

Although nationals found these women guilty of breaking these policies, this does not mean that the suspended members were committing hazing acts. "They didn't find them guilty of hazing but guilty of violating the policy that made it less likely people would haze," said Boyd.

Tech officials then took the sanctions from nationals and combined them with on-campus sanctions for the sorority. In order to determine what type of punishments should be used, the Dean's office looked at previous cases where similar levels of violations had taken place. They also took into effect that the members of AKA had been very straightforward with information.

"Basically what we're saying is that any other violation is going to result in them being suspended from campus," said Boyd.

Although the sorority could appeal the Tech sanctions in front of the National Pan-Hellenic Council judicial board, a statement from Valerie Standifer, the current president of AKA, shows that the organization is taking the sanctions seriously.

"Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. does not condone nor support hazing in any form or fashion. The Nu Beta Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha has been nothing but a positive influence on the campus of Georgia Tech and will continue to be for many years to come," said Standifer in an statement to the Technique. AKA declined to comment any further.