Former UW-Madison fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon regained the designation of registered student organization Wednesday after members of the Associated Students of Madison Student Judiciary overturned a prior ruling by the Committee on Student Organizations.
The Student Judiciary is the appellate body to the CSO, according to Student Judiciary Chair Tim Leonard.
The CSO revoked SAE's status as a student organization following a party the fraternity held last Halloween. Madison police issued SAE more than $94,000 in fines for the incident. Following the CSO ruling, the Interfraternal Council terminated SAE's membership and the National Chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon revoked its charter.
Now, SAE has a chance to be reinstated into those organizations.
Leonard said the decision came down to discrepancies in the CSO timelines.
CSO bylines state a complaint filed against a student organization must be lodged no later than four weeks after the incident that it references.
Greek Advisor Barbara Kautz issued a complaint against SAE Dec. 21, 2005; the party occurrect. 28, 2005.
However, CSO Chair Nick Fox said since the police did not publicly file a report until Dec. 16, 2005, his organization considered that date the incident\ and began its four-week complaint limit at that point.
The Student Judiciary overrode this interpretation of the bylaws, and the majority opinion stated the CSO could have collected evidence against SAE before the public disclosure of the police report by interviewing officers and examining Interfraternal Council records.
Fox said the Student Judiciary disregarded common law by letting SAE claim a violation of timeline in its appeal.
""If you fail to bring up an argument or defense in the first instance, you basically waive your right to that argument or defense in any appeal after that,"" Fox said. ""I think the Student Judiciary completely overlooked that.""
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