Resolution of MIT Drinking Death

[James]

This is a large enough settlement to scare administrators from all over the Nation . . .


Wednesday September 13 2:39 PM ET
MIT Agrees To Pay $4.75 Million

By THEO EMERY, Associated Press Writer

BOSTON (AP) - The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has agreed to pay $4.75 million, endow a scholarship and make
sweeping policy changes in a settlement with the family of a freshman who drank himself to death at a 1997 fraternity initiation,
the young man's parents say.

Scott Krueger's parents, Bob and Darlene Krueger, said they reached the agreement, announced Wednesday, after two days of
meetings with MIT President Charles A. Vest. The university had no immediate comment.

In a letter sent to the Kruegers earlier this month, Vest apologized for the 18-year-old student's death.

``The death of Scott as a freshman living in an MIT fraternity shows that our approach to alcohol education and policy, and our
freshman housing options, were inadequate,'' Vest said.

According to the Kruegers, MIT will pay $4.75 million to the family and establish a $1.25 million sholarship fund in the student's
memory.

They said the settlement also includes several policy changes, including a requirement that all MIT freshman live in
university-owned, -operated and -supervised housing as of August 2002. Also, no fraternity and sorority recruiting events will
be held during freshman orientation, and freshmen will not be allowed to live in fraternities and sororities.

In addition, fraternities and sororities will be required to have resident advisers.

According to the Kruegers, the university also agreed to more strictly enforce rules against underage drinking. The drinking age
in Massachusetts is 21.

If Vest ``follows through with all of his promises, we feel that MIT will be a better place. And we hope other colleges will follow
suit,'' Darlene Krueger said.

Krueger decided to join Phi Gamma Delta to obtain housing, his parents said. After a hazing during which he drank large
amounts of alcohol, he slipped into a coma and died three days later.

Prosecutors charged the fraternity as an organization with manslaughter but were not able to bring it to court. MIT later banished
the fraternity.

The family never sued MIT but would have if the university hadn't agreed to the settle, according to the Kruegers' attorney, Leo
V. Boyle.

The Kruegers said they refused any confidential settlement offers.

``We were looking to make people aware of what goes on in the college and to keep it from happening to someone else,'' Bob
Krueger said. ``We can only try and bring some good out of our son's death.''

After the student's death, two dozen Boston-area colleges and universities - including MIT - pledged in 1998 to control
underage campus drinking.