Chapman Dean Criticized for Not Allowing New Frats on Campus

Scarlet Letters

The 18 students who began the journey of making Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity a reality at Chapman University in California never expected to face so much criticism from the college's administration to establish the organization on campus.

“It’s not like we just made this decision without looking at what was on campus already,” Pascal DeMaria, one of the groups original organizers at Chapman told OCWeekly. The students researched the fraternity, traditionally a Jewish organization, but received anything but help from the university in getting the frat recognized.

Joe Kertes, Chapman's dean of students, was said to have written a letter to the fraternity's national headquarters asking for it to disavow any relation with the campus, including all prospects of establishing the fraternity.

From that point forward, the students were not allowed to formally recruit new members, were prohibited from holding social events as a group, and were even told to remove a group they had created for the frat on Facebook.

Students at Chapman were under the impression that they could potentially be suspended from the university if they joined the brothers. DeMaria even took the dean's actions as far as filing a grievance with the U.S. Department of Education.

Only 11 of the original members are still active, and it may be at least six years before Chapman allows another fraternity to be recognized on campus.