Fraternity Leaves National Group That Wants to Limit Investigations of Campus Rape Cases

The fraternity Lambda Chi Alpha has left a national umbrella group of fraternities that is continuing a controversial lobbying effort on the issue of campus sexual assault, The Huffington Post reports.

The departure comes as the North American Interfraternity Conference lobbies Congress for a bill that would restrict colleges’ investigations of sexual-assault cases to instances in which the incident is reported to the police. The proposal is widely opposed by advocacy groups for Title IX, the federal gender-equity law.

“For more than a century, we have supported the NIC’s efforts and advocated for its stated principles and values,” said Fletcher McElreath, chairman of the fraternity’s board, in a written statement. “Unfortunately, the NIC has recently elected to pursue counterproductive tactics that we believe are antithetical to our values, and we cannot support them.”

The conference said it was “deeply disappointed” in the fraternity’s decision. “The NIC has been engaged in a comprehensive internal dialogue to review the priorities, governance, operations, and standards that will best serve the needs of all 73 member fraternities while working collaboratively with our higher-education and interfraternal partners,” it said in a statement.