The new millennium hasn't been kind to Lambda Phi Epsilon

hoosier · #1 09-06-2005, 09:04 PM

September 6, 2005
Asian Frat in Spotlight After Death
* Police are investigating whether a pledge's death after a football game in Irvine was due to hazing -- Lambda Phi Epsilon's latest brush with the law.
By Roy Rivenburg, Times Staff Writer
The new millennium hasn't been kind to the brothers of Lambda Phi Epsilon.
In recent years, the nationwide Asian fraternity has been linked to a fatal stabbing in San Jose, a drug raid in Riverside and gunplay in Texas.

With the death Aug. 30 of a 19-year-old pledge after a football game in Irvine — a rough, no-pads, no helmets tackle contest for pledges — the fraternity again finds itself in an unflattering spotlight.
The latest incident, which is being investigated by Irvine police as a possible hazing case, could also damage the reputation of other Asian fraternities, said Walter M. Kimbrough, a college president who has written about ethnic fraternities.
Media coverage of the San Jose and Irvine fatalities has provided the public's first real exposure to Asian Greek organizations, Kimbrough said, and this could pose a public relations nightmare that could stall or sink the burgeoning movement.
Indeed, following the death of 19-year-old Kenny Luong of Rosemead in the football game, fellow pledges, some from Cal Poly Pomona who were rushing the UCI fraternity, swore off Greek life. They decided to launch a university community service club in their friend's name instead.
Members of Lambda Phi Epsilon acknowledge that Luong's death will make it tougher to recruit members this fall. But they insist it's too soon to write off their group or other Asian fraternities.
"It's going to affect all of us across the nation," said Matt Sun, president of Lambda's UC Santa Barbara chapter. "But we've been in this situation before [after the San Jose killing]. We've just gotta prove to people that our organization represents so much more than what happened…. It's always the bad news that gets media attention, but we do countless service projects to help the university and community."
None of this was envisioned by the students who founded Lambda Phi Epsilon in 1981 at UCLA.
"We were just a bunch of guys starting another fraternity," said Neil Miyazaki, one of the original 19 members. "It wasn't even expected to grow."
The concept wasn't original. Asian fraternities date back to 1916, said Kimbrough. But none caught on.
In another era, Lambda Phi Epsilon might have remained similarly obscure. But in the 1980s, with Asian enrollment climbing at California colleges — and fraternities enjoying a renaissance inspired in part by the 1978 movie "Animal House" — Lambda Phi Epsilon tapped into something larger.
Following the rise of black fraternities in the early 1900s, and Latino groups in the mid-1970s, Lambda Phi Epsilon helped inaugurate "a third wave of multicultural fraternities and sororities," Kimbrough said.
By 1990, spinoff chapters were operating at six California universities and one in Texas. From there, the movement exploded. Today, the fraternity has 44 chapters across the U.S. and Canada, according to its website.
But that rapid growth set the stage for trouble.
Unlike older fraternities, Lambda Phi Epsilon chapters don't answer to a centralized national office.
"It's more like a federation of local fraternities," said Sally Peterson, dean of students at UCI. When a traditional frat gets out of line, "we call the national office and they come in and really clean house," she said.
Older fraternities, worried about possible lawsuits, have full-time staffs and impose strict policies to keep a lid on the potentially volatile Greek mixture of booze, youth and machismo.
Independent frats such as Lambda Phi Epsilon, which also doesn't belong to UCI's fraternity council, are typically harder to discipline, Peterson said.
That doesn't mean they're rowdy, however. UCI's Lambda chapter, formed in 1989, had a clean slate before the fatal football game, she said: "That's why this was such a shock to us."
Lambda Phi Epsilon's track record at other campuses is mixed.
In 2003, San Jose State University Lambdas were involved in a midnight melee that left one member fatally stabbed in the heart and several others hospitalized. Police said about 60 frat brothers faced off against rivals from Pi Alpha Phi, another Asian fraternity.

Part of the dispute revolved around which group was the first Asian fraternity to spread nationally.
Both frats, which had also clashed at UC Davis, were suspended by San Jose State. A warrant has been issued for a man who has never been caught, according to the San Jose Mercury News. Police said a "code of silence" among witnesses had made it tough to crack the case.
In 2002, police in Austin, Texas, arrested a Lambda member after he allegedly fired six shots at the frat house during a fight, according to the campus newspaper.
And Riverside police seized LSD, ecstasy and other drugs during a 2001 raid on Lambda's house at UC Riverside, according to news reports. The chapter president, who police said sold drugs to an undercover cop, later pleaded guilty to possession of ecstasy.
Lambda members say such episodes are rare in the group's 24-year history.
Indeed, on some campuses, the fraternity strives to defy stereotypical Greek life. "No one's permitted to drink, no one's permitted to smoke. We don't believe in that at all," a former Lambda officer told the Boston Globe in 2000, describing the group's alcohol-free pledge process at Boston University.
Likewise, at Northwestern University outside Chicago, a Lambda chapter president told the campus paper that his group catered to Asians who "grow up with Christian ideals that don't necessarily go with the image of drunken frats."
He said the group's No. 1 purpose was academics: "We don't throw a lot of parties."
UC Santa Barbara's Sun said every chapter of the fraternity stressed charity work and community service.
But such efforts could be overshadowed by the publicity surrounding the San Jose stabbing, in which some experts compared the fraternity to a street gang, and the Irvine football death, said Kimbrough, president of Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark.
"The average person knows zero about Asian groups," he said. "I do presentations where I show photos of Asian fraternities, and people are completely shocked that they exist."
Even social scientists haven't really studied the phenomenon, he said.
"There has been no major introduction of Asian Greek life across the country," Kimbrough said. So if the public's initial impression is formed by stories of mayhem, "it could stall the movement," Kimbrough predicted.
And because Lambda Phi Epsilon has no national office, "they don't have anyone to put a media spin on such events," he said.
Sun sounded a more optimistic note. He said people would eventually see past the negative incidents, which he called aberrations, and discover the fraternity's many positive attributes.
But for now, the Irvine death is apparently hard to ignore. When asked if the news was affecting the Santa Barbara chapter's plans for fall rush to recruit members, Sun declined to comment.

hoosier · #2 09-23-2005, 09:24 PM

UCI Hazing Death Suspends Frat Group

By Wendy Leung, Sep 23, 2005

As students at the University of California, Irvine campus reconvene for the start of the 2005 school year, they have one less student group on campus.

Lambda Phi Epsilon, a national Asian fraternity, was placed on emergency suspension by the school and the fraternity’s national president after a Cal Poly Pomona student died in a football game that is suspected as a hazing incident.

Kenny Luong, 19, died after suffering traumatic brain injury from a hard tackle. The Rosemead resident and his classmates were hoping to start a Lambda chapter at Cal Poly. The football game was the last part of the pledging process.

Lt. Jeff Love said Irvine police were “relying on witnesses’ statements,” and had not yet decided “whether or not it was hazing.”

The UC Irvine team reportedly had more players than the Cal Poly team and none wore any protective gear. One Cal Poly pledge said his team was outnumbered 5 to 1.

“The teams were lopsided and that could be some evidence to indicate that it was hazing,” said Love.

UCI’s Lambda chapter had a clean reputation until the tragedy last month. According to Sally Peterson, UCI dean of students, the fraternity held a successful fundraiser last school year for the victims of the tsunami and put in a lot of time raising awareness about the much-needed bone marrow donations for the Asian community. The group’s participation won them a fundraising award from the dean.

Irvine is the fraternity’s fifth chapter and was started in 1989. With 40 members, Peterson said the group is not considered big or popular at a school with such a large Asian population.

“If evidence shows that hazing occurred,” said Peterson citing state anti-hazing laws, “then the Lambdas don’t have a future here.”

Gabriella Manchester, Luong’s high school teacher of three years, recalled that Luong was an excellent student in her conflict mediation class.

“He was the kind of kid that any teacher and parent would be happy to have,” she said, adding that his brother is now in her class at San Gabriel High School.

After Luong’s unfortunate death, fellow pledges at Cal Poly gave up their plans for a fraternity chapter, and opted instead to start a campus community service group in honor of Luong.

Irvine police have interviewed over 30 people, conducted search warrants on people’s homes and seized computers to see whether past e-mails could shed some light on the football game.

Since the incident, UCI’s Lambda chapter has shut down its website and no members returned e-mails for this article.

Run-in with the Law

The recent death of Kenny Luong, a prospective Lambda Phi Epsilon member, follows other unfortunate events that may have seriously tarnished the fraternity’s reputation.

San Jose State University Lambda member Alam Kim was stabbed to death on his 23rd birthday in a 2003 fight between Lambda and its rival Pi Alpha Phi. Three others were stabbed and one suffered a head injury. The melee drew around 100 people including members from UC Santa Cruz.

UC Davis Lambda members were disciplined in 2002 after they broke into the Pi Alpha Phi house and vandalized personal property and emblems considered by the rival fraternity as sacred.

At UC Riverside in 2001, police found narcotics including ecstasy and LSD during a drug raid at the Lambda house, after an undercover cop bought drugs from the fraternity’s president.

exlurker · #3 04-25-2007, 07:21 PM

Update April 2007: Family Sues Fraternity, UC - Irvine

The San Jose Mercury News has the story:

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_5746768

sanjiyan69 · #4 04-26-2007, 05:35 PM