Two fraternities who threatened to make history by severing their ties to UVA over new party guidelines have given in, but not quite backed down, and are threatening legal action over a recent suspension.
The additional rules were drawn up by student fraternity leaders during an eight-week suspension of Greeks at UVA that followed a controversial Rolling Stone story alleging a woman was gang-raped at the school’s Phi Kappa Psi chapter in 2012. They take the form of an addendum to the existing Fraternal Order Agreement, or FOA, the document that defines the frats’ relationship with the University.
Changes include requiring sober monitors at parties, limiting drinks to wine and canned beer, hiring a security agent to man the door at events where the guests outnumber the brothers and restricting entry to big parties with a guest list handed over to that agent.
The fact that rules to curb binge drinking and open parties are now included in the FOA is a significant change for UVA. While Greeks and other social organizations can exist without entering a formal agreement with the University if they’re willing to give up use of UVA buildings and Web server space, the official link is important to fraternities, said J. Marshall Pattie, UVA’s associate dean in charge of fraternity and sorority life, in an interview earlier this month.
But for several days last week, two fraternities appeared to be ready to give it up on principle.
The national leaders of Kappa Alpha Order and Alpha Tau Omega released identical statements on Tuesday, January 13, saying their UVA chapters were refusing to sign the newly amended agreements and claiming the school was trying to rob fraternities of their rights.
“Because we do not accept the validity of a suspension imposed in contravention of the existing FOA, university policy, Virginia law and the constitutional rights of our members, we are not compelled to sign a revised FOA to continue operations on campus,” their statements said.
The national leaders declined to elaborate, but appointed a spokesman: Kevin O’Neill, an attorney and lobbyist for the Greek umbrella group known as the North-American Interfraternity Conference and the executive director of the Fraternity and Sorority Political Action Committee, whose top organizational donor in the last election cycle was Kappa Alpha Order.
Shutting down all Greek organizations in the wake of the Rolling Stone story “was the equivalent of UVA having a cross-country player accused of a crime and suspending the entire undefeated basketball team and every other athlete on campus,” O’Neill said last week.
At the time, he hinted that the organizations were digging in for a fight with UVA over fraternity rights. But on Friday, January 16, the two fraternities released a joint statement announcing their local chapters had decided to sign.
“Given the threat of further sanctions and retaliation by the University the chapters reluctantly have agreed to sign the FOA so that our students can resume normal operations,” they wrote.
O’Neill acknowledged in the wake of the abrupt reversal that severing ties with the University was a move the fraternities were ultimately unwilling to make—yet.
“It’s very difficult on campus to recruit and operate as an unrecognized organization,” he said. The two fraternities “feel their students were coerced,” and may sue, he added. The NIC has submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for documents related to UVA’s decision to suspend fraternities in December, something O’Neill said was “clearly the first step in taking legal action against the University.”
He also said there’s a critical issue yet to resolve: liability. Fraternities have their own risk-management guidelines meant to ensure safety at parties, and adopting other, University-mandated rules puts fraternity members on shaky legal ground should something go wrong at a party, he said.
But Douglas Fierberg, a Washington, D.C.-
based lawyer well-known for representing the families of people injured or killed at fraternity parties, said increased liability isn’t a reason to criticize the new regulations.
“If the rules are designed to increase safety, the rules should be implemented, and the failure of somebody to comply with the rules should lead to legal liability,” said Fierberg.
He’s far from optimistic about the ability of the new FOA to make fraternities safer, though. The only way to do that, he said, is to take housing regulation out of the hands of fraternities altogether.
“They believe in their own minds that they’re young adults capable of making all these decisions themselves,” Fierberg said. “And it’s a fallacy, and it results in tremendous injury and death, because there’s no reason for the highest risk population at a university to manage student housing without any viable oversight.”
Fraternities, which generally own their houses, will “go down kicking and screaming” in the fight to maintain self-governance, said Fierberg, and attaching a few new rules to the agreement that grants them an official relationship with UVA won’t change things.
“It’s a sham,” he said. “If you want to say it’s a nicer sham, fine. It’s still a sham.”
Fraternities will have another chance to discuss the issue soon. The newly signed FOA expires in May, and UVA promised in a statement on Friday that it will revisit the rules then with student leaders.
Those leaders have remained silent throughout the last week, which saw the beginning of rush. Tommy Reid and Ben Gorman, the outgoing and incoming presidents of UVA’s Inter-Fraternity Council, did not return multiple requests for comment. A student who identified himself as the president of Alpha Tau Omega outside the fraternity’s house on Saturday declined to discuss the chapter’s brief revolt.
The University praised their involvement in drawing up the new rules and agreeing to them.
“We are grateful for the leadership shown by our students in achieving this result,” the school’s Friday statement read.
Fierberg had less glowing things to say about those in the Greek community who put up a fight against reform.
“The complaints of the Greeks are the pointless whining of children,” he said.