The Committee on Student Organizations released a report Thursday that cited the UW-Madison Delta Upsilon fraternity for violating student organization conduct policies, prompting the committee to suspend the fraternity’s charter for two years.
The committee consisting of students, staff and faculty sanctioned the fraternity following an incident in which members yelled racial insults and threw a bottle at two African-American UW students on March 16.
In the report, the committee found Delta Upsilon to be in violation of two Student Conduct policies: fraternities may be held accountable for the actions of their members while representing the fraternity and a fraternity must maintain the safety of all participants in an event.
“I think with all of our cases we are trying to hold organizations accountable to the standards that they agreed to in order to protect the rights and privileges of all student organizations,” Eric Knueve, assistant dean of the Division of Student Life, said.
The report also concluded the insults shouted by Delta Upsilon members were not racially motivated, but social class oriented. Members of the fraternity said in the report words such as “rich,” “one-percent” and “peasant” were used.
“We do not believe that [Delta Upsilon]’s culture is one of racial intolerance, but rather it is one in which good judgment seems frequently absent in some of its members’ behaviors,” James Luo, chairman of the committee, wrote in the report.
Additionally, the committee said in the report they could not determine whether the bottle thrown was aimed at the two UW students, due to conflicting accounts of the incident.
The committee also wrote in the report they were concerned the incident occurred only 22 days after Delta Upsilon was removed from alcohol probation for an underage drinking violation.
“My hope is that [the suspension] helps them to pause, take a break, reflect and get back to the values of what makes them such a great organization and rededicate themselves to those values,” Knueve said.
According to the report, while the committee ultimately decided on a two-year suspension, they did consider termination as a possible consequence due to the frequent and repeated violations of code.
The fraternity is able to appeal the committee’s decision.
