AKA hazers sued by injured pledge

[hoosier]

Ex-SLU student sues sorority over initiation
BY ELIZABETHE HOLLAND
Of the Post-Dispatch
08/18/2005

A former St. Louis University student has sued one of the nation's oldest and most prestigious African-American sororities, claiming a hazing ritual prompted a car accident that resulted in permanent injuries to her.

The woman, Courtney Easter, filed the suit Wednesday in St. Louis Circuit Court. Easter is claiming that the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, its top officers and several of its members had roles in a car accident on Oct. 31, 2003, in which she was severely injured.

Easter was being initiated into the sorority along with several other area college students. She was a passenger in a car driven by fellow initiate and SLU student Tracey Randall, the suit says. James A. Fox, Easter's attorney, said the two were among a group of women being hazed by sorority members.

That hazing, according to Fox, included sleep deprivation. Sorority members made the initiates stay in the same apartment and then repeatedly called their cell phones over five consecutive nights, forcing them to stay awake.

"They hadn't slept in days," Fox said.

When four of the women, all SLU students, got into a car to go to classes early that Halloween, each fell asleep - including Randall, the driver, Fox said. The car crashed into a traffic control box at or near Grand Avenue and Delmar Boulevard, he said.
Easter, a senior at the time, nearly died, Fox said. She suffered head and chest injuries, including brain damage, he said. She now lives with her parents in the Chicago area and is enrolled in a community college, Fox said.

In addition to those believed to be directly involved in the accident and what led up to it, Easter is suing the Chicago-based sorority, the sorority's executive director, Betty N. James, and other officials.

The sorority's national officers "haven't chosen to accept responsibility," Fox said. "They just said our investigation showed . . . that there was no improper behavior.

The suit also names the sorority's St. Louis-based Beta Delta chapter, some of its officials and several members, including Randall.

A call to James in the sorority's Chicago office was not returned Thursday.

Randall returned a phone call but said she could not comment on the case.

A SLU spokesman said the sorority is not considered a SLU organization, nor is it associated with the university. A Washington University spokeswoman said the university does recognize the sorority, along with three other citywide, historically black sororities and five such fraternities.

Alpha Kappa Alpha, which claims Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and Jada Pinkett Smith among its alumnae, was the subject of a hazing-related lawsuit settled in November.

The sorority was sued after the deaths Sept. 9, 2002, of two Cal State-Los Angeles students who drowned in what their families claimed was a hazing ritual at a beach. Kristin High and Kenitha Saafir drowned during what police detectives and coroner's deputies concluded was a group exercise involving sorority members, according to the Los Angeles Times. High's mother believed that sorority members led her daughter and the other victim into dangerous waters tied and blindfolded.

Angela Reddock, the attorney who represented High's family, said the sorority had agreed to settle with the families for a confidential sum of money and with the understanding that it would make anti-hazing and initiation-related reforms.

The sorority's Web site details an "anti-hazing policy," which says anyone who violates the policy risks suspension or permanent expulsion from the organization. The Web site also lists suspended chapters; Beta Delta chapter is not among them.