The University of Wisconsin Police Department said Monday the cancellation of a fraternity event was due to staffing concerns, not racial profiling as the group speculated Sunday.
The UW-Madison chapter of Lambda Theta Phi was to hold the event to celebrate the first day of Hispanic Heritage Month with members of Alpha Phi Alpha at Memorial Union Saturday, however, the event was cancelled by UWPD Tuesday, Sept. 11.
According to Agustin Garcia, chairman of the Lambda Theta Phi Foundation, student members were not told the specific reasons of the cancellation, which prompted the organization to question whether racial profiling was used.
We were all shocked because this is the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month all over the country and this is the only campus where we've seen this happen,"" Garcia said Sunday.
""Was this becoming racial profiling - we questioned that.""
According to UWPD Assistant Police Chief Dale Burke, an issue over crowd control became apparent after police learned about a Facebook invitation with confirmed guest numbers too high for the capacity of the room the group had reserved at the Union.
""Safety is our overriding concern,"" he said.
""When we think there might be a situation that's developing that's going to put our students at increased risk, then we're just sometimes forced to take kind of drastic measures to make sure that that doesn't happen.""
Additionally, he said the group did not clarify that students needed to be a UW System student or a guest of a UW System student to attend.
Garcia said the fraternity members were informed Tuesday, Sept. 11, of the cancellation and that they lost money due to prior contracts with musical entertainment expected to play at the event.
""It's very sad that [it was] the first day of Hispanic Heritage Month and the campus decides to shut down the first event,"" he said. ""Everybody just kept pointing to the police.""
Genevieve Schultz, UW-Madison junior and president of the Multicultural Greek Council, said police informed the Union that they also could not staff the gathering because of Saturday's football game against The Citadel.
""To my knowledge this is the first time we've ever had to do this and I'm really hoping that it's the last time,"" Burke said.
A representative of the American Civil Liberties Union in Milwaukee and somebody representing the national Lambda Theta Phi Foundation contacted the university's office of
Administrative Legal Services, according to Burke, who attended a meeting with university officials Monday to discuss the situation.
