The University of Maryland has ended two weeks of restrictions on fraternities and sororities that students said violated their rights but that the school argued were necessary to prevent a tragic incident. Now administrators say they are investigating five fraternities and several individual members.
Students involved in Greek-letter life on the College Park campus were surprised and angered by the March 1 edict against events involving alcohol or socializing with new recruits, saying they were given no information on the reports that led the school to shut down many of their activities. Several have sued the school in federal court.
That suit, backed by the national Fraternity Forward Coalition, will continue. “We are astonished by the school’s willingness to repeatedly violate their students’ civil liberties — their rights to freedom of association, due process and privacy — and their own administrative procedures in chasing a meritless investigation,” spokesman Wynn Smiley said. “Administrators who participated in or were complicit in this egregious erosion of student liberties must be held accountable.”
The order came as the groups began inducting new members. Hazing of such “pledges” at fraternities and sororities across the country has led to numerous deaths from alcohol poisoning; students have also died or suffered traumatic brain injuries from physical abuse. Dozens of fraternities at the University of Virginia voluntarily suspended recruitment events after a recruit was hospitalized Feb 21.
“We recognize that temporarily pausing select activities has had an effect on our fraternity and sorority community, particularly new members,” the University of Maryland said Friday. “However, we chose a course of action that prioritized safety and prevention, with the aim of assessing the reports we had received and preventing a significant health and safety incident from occurring.”
The university’s 13 multicultural Greek organizations and five historically Black fraternities and sororities were not included in the order. The school said the reports of misconduct were “concentrated within” the 37 groups that are part of the school’s Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Association. On Friday, 32 of those groups were allowed to resume all activities. A university spokesperson identified the fraternities that remain under investigation as Kappa Alpha, Lambda Chi Alpha, Phi Sigma Kappa, Sigma Nu and Zeta Beta Tau. Representatives for the fraternities could not be reached immediately Friday night.
Fraternity and sorority members were initially barred from speaking to recruits at all; that order was subsequently modified to allow conversations unrelated to Greek life. The school then hired a consulting firm called INCompliance to interview students about the allegations. Some said they were pressured to share their emails, text messages and calendars with the consultants, who refused to explain what they were investigating. University spokeswoman Katie Lawson said she had “no knowledge of any individual being asked to turn over their phone.”
Smiley said school officials may not have known what happened in those meetings and that multiple students were “subjected to some pretty questionable interrogation tactics as adult U.S. citizens who have been accused of nothing.” In nearly three decades representing fraternities, he said, “I’ve never seen a situation like this.” Students were allowed to bring a “support person” into the interview, which could include a lawyer. Initially, those allies were allowed only to observe, not engage; that changed after complaints from students, Smiley said. The school said students were “expected to participate” in the interviews and suggested that refusing to do so would violate the school code of conduct.
In their lawsuit, fraternities said the university violated that code, which says “students have the right to be notified of the allegations and specific policies they are alleged to have violated, to have access to the information underlying the allegation(s), and to have an opportunity to respond.” The school said in statements that the goal of the initial interviews was “to collect broad information” and that specific allegations will now be investigated under the code.
Susan Svrluga contributed to this report.
