Charter Pulled

[coastalpike]

Kappa Rho (Coastal Carolina) had its charter pulled last week for an alchohol-related incident at its bid day party. The school is not allowing us to come back for 7 years. Kind of a harsh punishment for a chapter that never had any violations in its 10 year existence.

[Firehouse]

Sounds like you got hosed. Do you have lawyers? Did the university follow due process, and treat you like all other underage drinker organizations?

[coastalpike]

I am an alumnus now but I was kept in the loop while everything was going on.

After the spring off-campus bid day party, 2 new members were hospitalized. One new member had diabetes and the other had some kind of stomach disorder. Obviously no one in the fraternity would have let them drink if they had know about their conditions. Some of the brothers noticed these two kids were starting to get sick so they did the right thing and brought them straight to the hospital.

Whenever a CCU student is hospitalized the university is called. As soon as they found out this had something to do with a greek organization, the local media went nuts with all kinds of different stories. They originally charged the chapter for contributing to the students (who were 21 by the way) going to the hospital. They could not pin that on us so they interviewed all guests who were at the party with hopes they could pin something else on us. Sure enough, a woman who attended the party told the so called "review board" that she saw a brother give a bottle of Jim beam to an underage new member and tell him to take a swig. That is considered hazing so that is what we were charged with. The school pretty much had to show the local community that they do not tolerate this kind of behavior so they layed the hammer down on us as hard as they can, 7 years suspension. And they may not even allow us back when we petition to come back in 7 years.

The chapter did hire a lawyer as soon as this all happened. The lawyer met with the school, and realized that the school had no evidence of anything so he advised the chapter to not go to the individual interrogations. At this point the shool was going to get the local police dept involved and charge brothers individually for minor possesion, distribution to minors, etc. Well this really pissed the school off so they decided to give us a harsher penalty than what they were originally planning on giving us, 7 years.

The chapter has never had any sanctions placed on it during its 10 year existence. About 100-125 alumni wrote to the VP of student affairs about the matter and not one of us received any response back.

From what I am hearing from the active chapter, nationals did not provide them with any help at all. They said the only thing nationals told them to do was pay off whatever they owed to them from their recent initiation fees.

The chapter is still functioning underground with about 60-70 guys. Since they cannot use the name Pi Kappa Alpha anymore they are now called the firemans club.

[Firehouse]

This sure doesn't sound right. National usually stands behind a chapter when the administration tries to abuse the organization. There are a lot of cowardly self-righteous weseals who work in greek affairs and student affairs.
I'm really sorry you got hosed. You say your alumni wrote letters; they should go directly to the university presdient, face to face, and make a point of letting him know that the creepy student affairs types refused to respond.

[FratAmerica]

From the way I heard it, the Chapter bought the alcohol for the bid day party from the chapter treasury - a violation of Pi Kappa Alpha's standards. Nationals is there to support its chapters, but when they break the Fraternity's own rules don't expect Nationals to "go down with you". I also heard that the Chapter owed a HUGE debt. If that's true, I don't think the Chapter can cry too much about unfair treatment.

Sad story, truly sad to lose any chapter. But, sometimes you have to lay in the bed that you've made.