DKE talks to Union administration, weighs options

Some of the fraternity brothers stand outside the house that will no longer be exclusively theirs.

Over the past weeks, the campus community has become involved in the discussion that has arisen between Delta Kappa Epsilon and the administration regarding the sanctions placed against the fraternity on October 5, 2012.

On October 26, President of DKE Rahul Puttagunta ‘14 received an email from Director of Greek Life Sunni Solomon.

The email stated that “As of this morning, the decision has been made to uphold the sanctions. However, the space will not be opened to the general student population residing in Fox Hall. As such, the space will remain unchanged in private, but you must still work to develop proper social protocol in order to return to full usage of the first floor storage areas.”

Taking this to mean that the first floor of DKE would remain theirs, the brothers celebrated and alerted the campus that that particular sanction had been lifted.

On Tuesday morning, it was established by Dean of Students Steve Leavitt that there had been a misunderstanding and that this was not the case.

Instead, after discussion with both Deans Leavitt and Schurick, Puttagunta informed the Concordiensis that the deans had given the fraternity an option.

The brothers now have a decision to make.

They can choose to  accept the original sanctions, which include a full year of social probation as well as the opening of their common space to the general student body. Otherwise,  they can choose to have the space completely closed off to everyone, including themselves. The space would become unusable.

Both of the deans and Mr. Solomon did not respond to requests for interviews.

At the time of print, the brothers had not yet made a decision about accepting either form of punishment.

“At this point, I thought we had a compromise,” Puttagunta expressed.

“But it is clear the administration is very angry with us. We are worried that we are going to do our best but that we are going to lose our space in the end regardless.”

After discussing the decision at a house chapter meeting, Rush Chair and Social Chair Chris Sainato ‘14 explained that no matter what happens, “[DKE] has served as an example. We shed light on the flaws of the Greek Judicial System which is totally broken. It is not fair and it is not right, but it is what we have to deal with,” he said.

Sainato continued, “We shed light on the flaws in the administration. We showed the campus community that even if the administrators admit to doing wrong, they will cover it up for political reasons. Basically what we’re going to do is swallow our pride and push on. We’ll better ourselves as a fraternity and when week six [winter term--when the Judicial Board will meet again to discuss DKE’s fate], we’ll have a damn good presentation.”