69 at Party Face Alcohol Charges
Police busted a party Thursday at the University of South Carolina's Chi Psi house and charged 69 people with underage drinking.
The students were arrested by sheriff's deputies working with an alcohol enforcement team, police said.
It is not yet known if the university will take any action against the fraternity for the party leading to the arrests.
Greek Beat
Greeks at Northwestern University in Chicago have planned several unique philanthropy events for the month of May.
Last weekend, the sisters of Alpha Chi Omega and the brothers of Phi Kappa Psi sponsored a treasure hunt beach party to benefit a shelter for battered women.
"It was a little cold so we wound up ending a little early. ... But everyone seemed to enjoy it," one of the students who attended told Northwestern's student newspaper. The beach party had a performance by a band and free smoothies and raised about $1,700.
Kappa Alpha Theta sorority and the brothers of Chi Psi got wicked down for field games last weekend, raising about $1,000 for Court Appointed Speech Advocates with about 200 participants.
The brothers of Zeta Beta Tau are set to hold their annual Fence-In competition this weekend, where they put up a fence around their house's yard for a party. All cover charges gathered by fraternity brothers will benefit leukemia research.
Failed Fire Inspections Block Frat Party Registration
Four fraternities at the University of California in Berkeley won't be allowed to officially register parties with the college until their fire codes meet par.
The frats - Alpha Epsilon Pi, Chi Psi, Sigma Pi and Sigma Alpha Mu - failed fire inspections last week. Brothers believe that the rule may force them to have underground, unrecognized parties until the meet the fire standards.
Fraternity Bids Down, Greek Hopes Still High
Campus administrators have tried to put a positive spin on it, but the fact stands: Numbers are down for Lehigh rush.
The Brown and White, Lehigh's student newspaper reported that 238 men accepted their bids this year versus approximately 293 last year, a nearly 19% decrease.
“Numbers are down this year, but not when you average it out among the chapters,” said Tim Wilkinson, assistant dean of students for fraternity and sorority affairs.
Wilkinson is referring to the average number of new recruits per chapter, which st
ands at 13.1. This same measurement came in at 13.9 per chapter last year, representing a 5.8% decrease.
Most blame the poor recruitment on the crackdown on fraternities that has resulted in Alpha Chi Rho losing their house and Kappa Sigma losing their charter. The Hill, where most of the Greek housing is located, has also seen an increase police presence.
While the Fr
atBoyNews does not deal in conspiracy theory's, we are wary that Lehigh, under the leadership of their new President is undertaking an anti-Greek stance. These low recruitment levels will likely trigger new evictions under their Greek occupancy rule, which requires a 90% occupancy level for Greek organizations to keep a house on campus. This is how Alpha Chi Rho came to be without a house.
It's a chilling time line: August 2006 a new President takes office at Lehigh, six months later, two fraternities are gone, police now patrol fraternity hill, and recruitment is down. Is Lehigh attempting to "thin out" the Greek population?
Related:
Lehigh Crows Can't Fill House, Must Leave by Jan. 24
Lehigh Crows Taking Traditional Frat Boy Approach to Problem Solving
Kappa Sigs Gone at Lehigh
The Frat Boy News Daily College Column Now, in a lawsuit, Bailey's mother claims that no one called for help until 10 hours after her son was first believed to be in "dire need of medical help." The lawsuit lays out statistics about college frat life and the dangers of alcohol in the Greek system. It is those dangers that Leslie Lanahan, Bailey's mother, says she wants to expose in her wrongful-death suit against the Chi Psi fraternity and some of its members. "Frankly, this (the lawsuit) was the last step," Lanahan said from her Dallas home this week. "It was not something we wanted to do. But I feel there is a story out there that the world needs to know. I don't think any other family should have to endure what we had to endure." The night before, he and 26 other Chi Psi fraternity pledges at CU were blindfolded and taken to the woods near Gold Hill, west of Boulder, as part of an initiation ritual. The pledges were told to drink large amounts of whiskey and wine, police said at the time. After he was driven back to the fraternity, Bailey lapsed into unconsciousness. "He just had a very, very large personality," Lanahan said. "I think he lit up a room. He was ... very outspoken, very gregarious." Attorneys for the Chi Psi fraternity and various fraternity members declined to comment on the lawsuit. In court filings responding to the allegations, the defendants - including the fraternity - deny they were at fault in Bailey's death, and some claim they weren't even present at the Chi Psi Gold Hill ritual. Patrick Wall, president of the Chi Psi fraternity at the time of Bailey's death, said he didn't participate in the events at Gold Hill. Lanahan said she now spends a "good amount of her time" on the Dallas-based Gordie Foundation, launched by the family to work against alcohol abuse, binge drinking and frat hazing. That work, she said, "gives me some hope that the kids are actually going to try to make a difference."
By Howard Pankratz, staff writer for the Denver Post
Had University of Colorado student Lynn "Gordie" Bailey not died of alcohol poisoning in a fraternity initiation, he would have turned 21 today. 
suit seeks unspecified damages to compensate for the parents' "significant grief and emotional distress" over Bailey's death. It is set for trial in Boulder next year. "It's dangerous traditions," Lanahan said. "It cannot change and will not change unless people stand up and say, 'Wait a minute."' Bailey died on the morning of Sept. 17, 2004, of acute alcohol poisoning. His blood-alcohol level was 0.328 percent. 
None of the frat members called 911 for hours afterward. Instead, some scrawled vulgar phrases and drawings on his body. Lanahan said she is outraged that her son would die like that. She called him a superb athlete, captain of his high school football team and a lacrosse player who made the CU club team the day before he died. 
Some of the defendants say others bore responsibility for the death, ranging from a Boulder liquor store to Bailey himself. "Mr. Bailey was at all times a competent adult ... fully capable of controlling his own behaviors," defendant Nicholas Abrahamsen, a member of Chi Psi, said through his attorneys in court records.
Judge Allows Hazing Death Trial to ProceedThe mother of a dead Chi Psi pledge at the University of Colorado is hoping to gain some reconciliation through a lawsuit.
Gordie Bailey died in September of 2004 from acute alcohol poisoning after a fraternity initiation. His mother filed the lawsuit last year, and a judge motioned to proceed this week with a trial.
The pledge's mother believes that Gordie and his fellow Chi Psi pledges were blindfolded and driven to a remote mountain area where they were hazed and forced to drink "dangerous quantities of alcohol," according to the Denver Post. After Gordie passed out, brothers reportedly wrote vulgar pictures and messages on his body.A Colorado law states that "no social host who furnishes any alcohol beverage is civilly liable to any injured individual or his or her estate...due to the consumption of alcohol."
A judge decided to proceed, saying "The allegations here are that the deceased (Bailey) was blindfolded, taken into the woods, illegally hazed, and abandoned to die." "There is nothing in the allegations relating to entertainment, pleasant companionship, or hospitality. Therefore, assuming the allegations in the complaint to be true, the defendant was not a social host."
The court date for March 10, 2008 has been set in the civil lawsuit.
Frat Guy of the Week: Bill Belichick
The New England Patriots will head to their fourth AFC Championship game in the last 6 years under head coach Bill Belichick when they play the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday.
Belichick was a brother of Chi Psi fraternity at Connecticut's Wesleyan University. The Patriots won 3 Super Bowls in his first 5 years as their coach. At Wesleyan, Belichick played football, lacrosse, and squash. The 1975 graduate of the university earned a degree in economics.
Before taking a modeling gig that led to his casting on a TV show that went on to be one of the decade's most popular sitcoms, Ashton Kutcher lived it up as a Delta Chi brother at the University of Iowa.
