When Fraternities Go Underground, Problems Surface

Greg Kahn for The Chronicle

Fifteen years ago, Alpha Tau Omega’s American University chapter had its charter yanked after a long string of hazing and alcohol violations. But instead of disbanding, the brothers of Epsilon Iota — the name given to the chapter — went underground. They continued recruiting and hazing new members and hosting raucous parties, but now with even less oversight than before.

In short, the fraternity went rogue. And like other offshoots that spring up after national organizations or colleges try to shut Greek groups down, Epsilon Iota became more reckless once it was freed from the rules that apply to others.

In 2014, some 70 pages of lurid emails and text messages surfaced in which people who were believed to be members bragged about abusing drugs and raping drunk women.

Students demanded that the university crack down. Until recently, the most it determined it could do was to warn students and their parents year after year to stay clear of Epsilon Iota.

The Washington, D.C., university isn’t alone.

A national furor over sexual assaults, dangerous drinking, and hazing is putting pressure on colleges to shut down problematic chapters. But administrators often struggle to contain groups that revive themselves after the hammer falls.

Some colleges have tried to ban participation in the groups, which include sororities, and the national organizations blame the breakaway chapters for sullying their reputations. Aside from issuing caution, everyone says their hands are tied.

Underground fraternities “are recruiting students and actively thumbing their noses at the universities,” said Gentry R. McCreary, a consultant with the Ncherm Group, a firm that advises colleges on risk issues, including behaviors like hazing and problem drinking.

If these groups are hard to control at private universities like American, “they’re impossible to regulate at public schools,” said Mr. McCreary, who is a former director of Greek affairs at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. “You can’t restrict people from associating with anyone they want to associate with.”

And for some students, there’s a certain cachet to belonging to an underground frat.

“The way they see it, no one’s checking IDs at the door and they have a lot more freedom,” said Hank Nuwer, a professor of journalism at Franklin College and a national expert on hazing. “As a grandparent, they scare the heck out of me, but they aren’t going to scare an undergraduate.”

A few years ago, a fraternity humor website listed the pros and cons of “going rogue.” Among the pros:

“Dry rush enforcement and hazing allegations and all that other garbage superiors hold over your heads like a guillotine would be a thing of the past.”

Warnings and Monitoring

Colleges face a huge range of challenges when trying to crack down on unauthorized groups, but that hasn’t stopped them from trying.

Officials at the University of Pennsylvania announced in April that they would begin monitoring behavior at unrecognized fraternities and sororities that operate off campus. Those groups, some of which formed after Greek chapters were kicked off campus, will have to adhere to the same hazing and alcohol standards as recognized Greek groups.

The notice went out after students protested a sexually suggestive party invitation that an unrecognized off-campus fraternity known as “Oz” sent to freshmen women. “We’re looking for the fun ones,” it read in part. “Tonight is your first showing. So please wear something tight.”

Students at American were similarly outraged by an invitation this spring — this one sent by Epsilon Iota, the same chapter that was shut down years ago.

The dean of students’ office sent out a note to “strongly discourage” people from attending that event, or any other sponsored by the fraternity. The student government followed up with a warning detailing the litany of abuses members had been accused of.

Epsilon Iota “is fundamentally at odds with our campus values and presents a danger to our community,” the message from student government said.

The warning went out two weeks before Taylor Dumpson took over as American’s first black student-body president — a milestone that prompted someone to hang bananas with noose-like ropes on the campus. Some were marked with the letters of the historically black sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, that Ms. Dumpson belongs to.

Despite her own participation in Greek life, Ms. Dumpson draws a bright line between the official chapters and rogue groups like Epsilon Iota, which she considers more an “underground cult.” By promoting a “rape culture,” the group gives all of Greek life a bad name, she said.

Members of Epsilon Iota, contacted through the group’s Facebook page, did not respond to requests for comment.

A university spokeswoman said American hasn’t ignored the problem and that it “works actively to notify students of the fact that this group is not affiliated with AU and that students should not participate in any of their activities. This is done at orientations as well as through letters to parents and students.”

Some worry, though, about the unintended consequences of alerting students to an event hosted by an unsupervised fraternity with a reputation for wild partying.

“Warning students about them can be counterproductive because you’re shining a light on a group they might not have been aware of,” Mr. McCreary said.

The university pointed out that it didn’t provide any details about the party, including the location, but it did warn students that members of the group had been accused of sexual assault during previous parties.

The dean’s letter also said the event was being monitored by campus and local police officers and that anyone violating the university’s student-conduct code could face sanctions.

And last month, it took its harshest action yet, issuing interim suspensions to 18 suspected members of Epsilon Iota for alleged violations of the student-conduct code, including “perpetuating an underground group” that violates university policies.

Steps like those should be enough to dissuade students, but another effective strategy, according to Mr. McCreary, is getting sororities to agree not to participate in social events with rogue fraternities.

Policies Toward Rogue Chapters

But sororities, too, have struggled to deal with unrecognized offshoots that rise from the ashes of closed chapters.

One unrecognized sorority at Pennsylvania State University, known as Trilogy, uses that lack of oversight to its advantage in recruiting pledges, according to a piece in The Daily Beast.

Trilogy emerged as an independent student group after the national board of Delta Delta Delta closed the Penn State chapter in 2009 over hazing and other violations.

A campus spokeswoman said its sole function, as one of more than 1,000 student groups, is to raise money for a charity dance marathon. But like any other group, she said, its members are free to socialize at fraternity parties. Trilogy members were reportedly partying at the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house where a pledge, Timothy Piazza, suffered fatal injuries after consuming a massive amount of alcohol and falling down stairs in February.

Since it’s not an official sorority, Trilogy wouldn’t be bound by the strict limits Penn State’s president, Eric J. Barron, imposed on the Greek system after Mr. Piazza’s death. He permanently shut down the campus chapter of Beta Theta Pi and imposed strict limits on the rest of the Greek system.

But university officials said individual members of Trilogy could be punished if they were found to have violated university rules.

Other colleges have taken a tougher approach.

Lafayette College banned participation in unrecognized chapters in 2013, after the alcohol-related death of a freshman who had reportedly attended recruiting events at underground fraternities.

In 2014, Amherst College’s Board of Trustees extended the college’s ban on fraternities and sororities to include underground groups both on and off campus, as well as “fraternity-like” and “sorority-like” organizations. Students found to be participating in such groups could be suspended or expelled.

The board explained in a statement that the underground groups had a big impact on campus social life, but because they weren’t recognized, the college wasn’t able to enforce behavior rules. Still, “the appearance of college responsibility cannot be avoided, both because the membership of underground fraternities consists of Amherst students and because the college has acquiesced in the fraternities’ existence,” the board said.

A college spokeswoman said no one has been disciplined for fraternity activity since the policy was enacted.

Lehigh University, which doesn’t ban participation outright, posts a list of Greek groups that have been banned for violations and alerts students and their parents about the dangers of participating in underground groups.

Lehigh also contacted the national organizations of two fraternities that are operating off campus; one severed its ties with the campus chapter and the other didn’t.

‘Nothing We Can Do About It’

If colleges profess a degree of helplessness to deal with unauthorized fraternities, so do the national chapters of the groups that have kicked them out.

Wynn Smiley, chief executive of Alpha Tau Omega, whose closed chapter at American University spawned Epsilon Iota, said members are “livid” about how the rogue group has sullied the fraternity’s reputation.

“There’s absolutely nothing we can do about it,” because the national group severed ties with the chapter back in 2001, he said.

In 2014, the national chapter of Kappa Sigma released a statement following the alcohol-related death of a freshman who was pledging its chapter at West Virginia University. The national group said it was saddened by the death, but that there was little it could do because it had already yanked the chapter’s charter due to previous, unrelated violations.

For universities, the question of whether to shut down a problematic chapter or simply monitor it more closely is more complicated than it seems.

“If you don’t recognize them any more, you’re basically giving them carte blanche to do whatever they want,” said Mr. McCreary. “And that can create more problems than it solves.”

Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.