Alpha Delt Hazing Revealed

It hasn't been a great semester for Cornell Greeks. First we had the Pi Phi dress code incident, which was essentially a non-story as far as Cornell was concerned, but attracted a lot of national attention. (Sororities caring about appearances? Who knew?)

Next was the Pike rush week incident, in which a combination of dangerous drinking games, cold weather, and terrible leadership resulted in brothers' driving underage freshmen to the hospital to be treated for various amounts of alcohol poisoning, hypothermia, and cuts to hands and arms.

On Friday, IvyGate posted an email (titled "Lineup Tonight") from Alpha Delta Phi's pledge class president to his fellow new members in which he asks them to bring things like dog food, tabasco sauce, and goldfish to the house that night. (There has been no statement from Alpha Delt refuting the validity of the email, so I'll assume for now that it's accurate.) The person who leaked the email reported that the pledges were:

* Forced to chug a slurry of dogfood, tabasco sauce, and sour cream;
* Run relay races, while blackout drunk, through the great halls of the ADPhi manor–filled with flour, beer, and water–while being pelted with dodgeballs;
* Jog naked laps outside the house in the below-freezing Ithaca winter;
* Stand outside in a “lineup” for two hours, with only a shirt, jacket, tie and slacks.

In contrast to other recent hazing incidents at Cornell, which involved chapters with less than stellar reputations and histories, this is a hard one for Cornell to shrug off. As B.C. pointed out, Dean of Students Kent Hubbell '67 is one of many prominent Alpha Delt alumni in positions of power in the Cornell community. For example, John Dyson '65 is one of four trustees (.pdf) of the Fraternity and Sorority Advisory Council, and he sponsors a citizenship award every year.

Alpha Delt is one of the big, wealthy, West Campus houses which Cornell's Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs loves to showcase. I'm not going to take the time to dig up links, but OFSA likes to hold speeches, dinners, award receptions, and things like that at Alpha Delt's house.

Hazing is not something which occurs unbeknown to a chapter's leadership or alumni. The same people who are treated like royalty by Cornell are the ones who help to organize this kind of silly, dangerous crap.

There's a pattern of this sort of hypocrisy. The IFC VP Judicial from a couple of years ago was from Pike, a chapter which, as we've seen, doesn't exactly follow the rules. Alpha Delt has sent people to the IFC executive board in recent years.

We'll see what happens. There isn't just a disciplinary issue here, but also a political one. Any sanctions against Alpha Delt are a slap in the face to that house's illustrious alumni. But obviously something has to be done. Unfortunately for Cornell, we're not talking about some on-again-off-again animal house on the outskirts of campus, but one of the wealthiest, most prestigious fraternities.