San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
A year after a pledge died, SDSU struggles to control fraternities
Confidential documents show that nearly 40 percent of the university’s Greek system chapters came under investigation — many repeatedly — from 2014-19
It should have been a momentous night, the kind a fraternity pledge remembers forever. Three months into his freshman year at San Diego State University, Dylan Hernandez was going to learn the name of his “big brother” in a ritual at Phi Gamma Delta.
But not long after the celebration ended, tragedy struck.
Following a night of heavy drinking, the 19-year-old Floridian returned to his dorm, where he fell out of his bunk bed and struck his head. Students found Hernandez unconscious in his Tenochca Hall room and frantically dialed 911.
It proved to be a fatal blow. Campus police would later determine that Hernandez’s blood-alcohol level was, at one point, about 0.23 percent, almost three times the legal limit to operate a motor vehicle.
But as shocking as the death was, it fit a pattern. For years, SDSU has been plagued by dangerous and sometimes illegal behaviors within its clutch of fraternities and sororities.
Now, one year after the tragedy, the scope of that misconduct is coming into focus.
An investigation by the Union
Tribune revealed that in the five years leading up to the accident, Greek chapters were widely and repeatedly called to account for a slew of violations. They allowed underage students to drink alcohol, performed abusive hazing rituals, and were accused of sexual harassment and assault, according to confidential records obtained through the California Public Records Act.
The disciplinary letters show that 19 fraternities and sororities found themselves in some level of official trouble with the school from 2014 through 2019. That is nearly 40 percent of at least 49 Greek chapters that were active at the time.
The records describe raucous parties — some attended by hundreds of people — where kegs of beer, hard alcohol and drugs were on hand. They cite at least 18 instances of students being taken to hospitals after drinking too much or suffering some sort of injury, as well as descriptions of serious property damage, including one
frat house that was later deemed “unlivable.”
Those 18 transports only reflect incidents that became part of a campus disciplinary procedure. SDSU says 365 students were taken to hospitals for alcohol and drug-related issues from fall 2015 through fall 2019. The school is not sure how many of those incidents directly involved fraternities and sororities, who rule over the university’s party scene.
Most of the 41 disciplinary letters summarize SDSU’S investigation into specific policy violations and detail the punishment and stipulations that resulted. Often the university required fraternities and sororities to take specific actions, such as attend educational workshops or develop safety plans for future events, before they could return to good standing.
Despite their bureaucratic language, the letters contain plenty of detail, giving a sense of what it’s like when Greek life goes awry.
The records describe two cases involving both a sorority and a fraternity that were accused of dissuading people who believed they had been drugged at parties from reporting the incident. In another instance, a fraternity held a “Career Day” event featuring a banner that was supposed to look like a porn star’s resume. Near the top was the name of a specific female student.
In one instance, a fraternity member who was serving as a “risk management” officer poured hard liquor down an ice luge for people to consume. A different fraternity engaged in hazing behaviors that involved “forced consumption of alcohol... and group violence” resulting in several injuries, records show.
One fraternity was put on interim suspension for reportedly forcing new members to live in a single room with a chicken. A sorority was put on probation after a midnight hazing ritual that made all of the pledges consider quitting.
The disciplinary records show that 12 of the 13 fraternities that were investigated by SDSU from 2014 through 2019 violated policies multiple times over. In some cases, the violations occurred while the fraternity was still under sanctions from a previous incident. And suspending or expelling fraternities is a process that can take years.
The records also make it clear that fraternities and sororities struggle as well to rein in bad behavior among its members. One letter states that unidentified Phi Gamma Delta members were in the process of being expelled when, after executive board members left the room to deliberate, they went on the building roof and directed “lewd and obscene” behavior toward SDSU’S Pride Center during a conference there. The center serves the school’s LBGTQ communities.
‘High risk’
SDSU praises its Greek life program on its website, saying it helps students mature and prosper. As is true at other schools, most of these Greek organizations do not get into trouble, and many alumni of fraternities and sororities consider the experience defining moments in their lives.
But campus officials told the Union-tribune that it regards fraternities as “high risk” organizations because so many of them run afoul of the university’s rules.
It is hard to tell how SDSU’S problems stack up against other schools.
“There’s not a clearinghouse, or a way of making comparisons, at the national level to understand what the challenges are between institutions,” said Randy Timm, SDSU’S dean of students. “I wish there was.”
But in “True Gentlemen: The Broken Pledge of America’s Fraternities,” author John Hechinger chronicles scores of serious incidents across the country, from a sexual assault in Baltimore, to the singing of racist music in Oklahoma, to the sight of a “pledge educator” in Ohio teaching members to break beer bottles over their heads.
The book primarily focuses on incidents involving Sigma Alpha Epsilon, but also broadly explores fraternity culture and its many trappings, and it analyzes fraternity deaths — a national issue.
SDSU’S Hernandez was one of at least 48 students to die in Greek-related incidents from 2000 to 2019. Eleven of the deaths happened in California.
Florida State University suspended its entire Greek system following the death of a fraternity student. But the ban wasn’t permanent, and such episodes, locally and nationally, have not dimmed the appeal of fraternities and sororities.
“They are as popular as they’ve ever been,” Hechinger told the Uniontribune. “If you had a heartto-heart conversation with just about any college president, he or she would tell you that fraternities are causing them no end of problems and they really wish they could do something about it.
“But they find themselves under attack by alumni, who are often very supportive of fraternities.”
Party scene
Like many universities, the problems within SDSU’S Greek system run deep and spill over into the surrounding community — in this case, College Area, the neighborhood where many fraternity and sorority members live.
“I’ve had students bang on my door late at night, puke on my lawn, pee in the bushes and stand around yelling,” said Molly Linberg, who lives on Stratford Drive, near several Greek houses.
“When is SDSU going to do something about this?”
One of the university’s challenges is that most of the problems occur off campus on private property that is largely beyond the legal control of the university. Many Greek events are held in “satellite” houses, a term often used to describe locations where fraternity and sorority members live, but aren’t official chapter houses. SDSU says it doesn’t know the location of all of these spots.
Today, because of the coronavirus pandemic, most San Diego State students are taking classes online. But the party scene in College Area has continued to crackle. Health officials say students in that neighborhood contributed to the coronavirus outbreak that surfaced in August.
Since the fall semester began, more than 1,400 SDSU students have tested positive for the virus, the highest number of any college or university in California. The school staunched the outbreak, partly by confining residential students to campus dorms for part of September. SDSU officials also roamed the streets of College Area, looking for students who were violating the ANTI-COVID rules.
On Oct. 30, county health officials took the unprecedented step of issuing ceaseand-desist orders to eight College Area homes because they were rumored to be the sites for upcoming Halloween parties. Six of the homes were SDSU fraternity and sorority houses, health officials said. University officials say they requested that the county take such action to help the school adhere to public health guidelines regarding COVID-19.
University efforts
To varying degrees, the school has been combating misbehavior in its Greek system for decades.
Nearly 20 years ago, SDSU created eCHECKUP TO GO, an online prevention and intervention program that helps students assess their use of alcohol and learn how to live healthier lives. It’s now used by more than 600 universities and institutions around the world.
SDSU also runs ASPIRE, a counseling program that is frequently assigned to students who have received alcohol violations.
And in 2008, the school created Aztec Nights, a series of on-campus, late night entertainment events that are meant to be alternatives to less healthy interests, such as alcohol and drugs. The program arose from Operation Sudden Fall, an undercover drug enforcement operation that led to the arrest of dozens of people associated with SDSU, particularly fraternity members.
The university has a “dry period” that’s meant to keep students safe, as well. From Aug. 1 to Oct. 1, alcohol is prohibited at all events run by the Greeks and other recognized student organizations.
After Hernandez’s death, SDSU President Adela de la Torre created two task forces, one that examined student activities and safety, and one that studied alcohol and drug misuse.
The groups, which were largely run by people who work or study at SDSU, or alumni and school supporters, did not clearly quantify the depth of alcohol use and abuse among the school’s student body in general and Greek life in particular.
Nor did SDSU seek to overhaul how fraternities and sororities operate, or provide a detailed account of why the school has had so many medical transports.
Instead, the university proposed or pushed ahead with smaller efforts to curb drinking, hazing, and sexual harassment and assault.
One of the few strong recommendations came from Lee Abed, president of the Interfraternity Council, which helps govern some of SDSU’S fraternities. He’s pushing to have IFC chapters led by students who are at least juniors to ensure a more mature level of leadership. Today, many presidents are sophomores. That partly reflects the lure of Greek social events for younger students.
“No matter how old the student is, the position is draining and stressful,” Abed said. “There is not a more difficult position in my eye on this campus than a chapter president.”
De la Torre says progress is being made, telling the Union-tribune in a statement, “The outcomes of the two task force groups ... have been comprehensive and far-reaching, and continue to serve as proactive efforts at SDSU to encourage health and responsible behavior.”
Others feel the college hasn’t done enough to rein in problematic fraternities and sororities.
“Countless panels and advisory groups have been convened over the years and very little meaningful change has come about,” said Brenden Tuccinardi, a senior who serves as editor in chief of the Daily Aztec, SDSU’S campus newspaper.
“My feeling is that SDSU would rather move on with the hopes that something similar (to the Hernandez death) never happens again, rather than address the root of the problem.”
Binge drinking
Not all fraternity violations are serious. But the ones that are often have a common denominator: alcohol.
It’s a constant source of worry for college administrators nationwide. Even though most college students won’t be old enough to legally drink until they’re several years into their college experience, about 1,500 a year die of alcohol-related injuries.
About 30 percent of fulltime college students ages 18-22 engaged in binge drinking in 2018, according to a large federal survey.
At SDSU, the use of alcohol by the Greeks and the rest of the student body is so pervasive the university estimates that several thousand students would benefit from recovery programs.
The problem is central to the disciplinary record of Phi Gamma Delta, the fraternity where Hernandez drank during last year’s Big Brother-little Brother ceremony
According to university records, Phi Gamma Delta was repeatedly investigated for committing a series of violations in the years before Hernandez’s death.
As early as 2016, allegations of “ongoing hazing,” binge drinking and sexual assault were already being leveled at the fraternity.
One letter describes a Phi Gamma Delta social event in which two people were transported to a hospital, one for intoxication and one for an injury. During the same event, there was a report of a sexual assault that quickly resulted in a member being expelled from the fraternity, records say.
SDSU put the fraternity on probation and required members to undergo a series of educational workshops in 2017. But that wasn’t the end of the trouble. Less than a year later, while the fraternity was still under sanctions from previous violations, the university began
investigating a new incident in which Phi Gamma allegedly failed to responsibly handle alcohol and keep it away from minors.
Phi Gamma challenged the allegations, but got push back from university officials who suspected members of lying and retaliating against people who spoke out against the frat, records say.
“This behavior demonstrates that Phi Gamma Delta is more concerned with who the chapter believes ‘wronged’ the fraternity than holding chapter members and the organization accountable,” a disciplinary letter says.
The college placed new sanctions on the fraternity, but in early 2019 it was again accused of giving alcohol to underage people. Later that year, Hernandez died.
This August, the fraternity’s national office permanently suspended its SDSU chapter, citing the college Police Department’s investigation into Hernandez’s death. The university also expelled the organization until 2030.
A culture of silence
Although fraternities were cited more often, a handful of sororities found themselves in trouble with the school.
At one sorority, the ability of leaders to spot trouble and handle it ethically was brought into question following a serious drug accusation in October 2018.
Records say an Alpha Phi member approached her sorority’s executive board after she believed she had been drugged at a fraternity event.
The member said she had difficulty standing, speaking and violently vomited after drinking alcohol at the party and that she later sought medical care and said she tested positive for a drug in her system.
The member told college officials that her sorority’s board did not believe her and instead “acted to suppress or dissuade the individual from reporting to the University and police,” records said.
Alpha Phi was placed under interim suspension until a new, better-trained board could be put in place. The university also sanctioned Sigma Phi Epsilon, the fraternity where the drug incident occurred.
Among sororities, hazing and harassment allegations were some of the most common.
In disciplinary records from January 2018, college officials said a “culture of hazing” within the Sigma Theta Psi sorority was perpetuated by the expectation that pledges keep quiet about their experiences.
According to a letter, sorority sisters were known to berate pledges if they made any mistakes during new-member events. After a camping trip in Bonita, all prospective members nearly withdrew from the pledging process after they were pulled from their tents at midnight. During the subsequent lineup — which sorority members said was designed to encourage the pledges to defend each other and stick together — one pledge had a panic attack. Three pledges formally withdrew the next morning.
The sorority had all pledges sign a “Pledge Waiver” that members presented as a sort of non-disclosure agreement. During the investigation, prospective members said they thought they would be sued if they shared their concerns with college officials.
Repeat offenders
Records indicate it can take years of consistent misbehavior before the college has racked up enough evidence to support a suspension or expulsion. Sometimes even those hard-line tactics don’t get the job done.
Most of the fraternities that got into trouble between 2014 and 2019 had committed multiple offenses. And seven fraternities committed violations while they were still under sanction from a previous incident.
Kappa Sigma, one of the fraternities that was recently served a cease-and-desist letter by county health officials, had already been suspended until August 2022 earlier this year.
It’s not impossible for troublemaking fraternities and sororities to change course, but progress can easily be thwarted.
In 2014, Delta Sigma Phi alumni gave the fraternity its own chapter house near campus to bolster the group. The frat squandered the gift in less than a month, committing serious alcohol, hazing and harassment violations during three parties, leading SDSU to quickly close the chapter for two years, records show.
“There was no control over who consumed what” at one party, records say. SDSU also found that a “group of new members were required to drink in excess,” at a second party, and that “a member (along with two other individuals ...) waved a sex toy at the Take Back the Night marchers” at a third party. Take Back the Night is a movement that stands against sexual violence.
“When we turned the house over to them they went ‘Animal House’ and each party was a bigger adrenaline feed,” recalls Erik Johannesen, a Delta Sigma Phi alumni adviser and San Diego antiques dealer. “The kids heard about other parties and wanted to oneup them.”
The fraternity later reopened and had been keeping a much lower profile, he said. But it didn’t last. Johannesen said that eight Delta Sigma Phi members who live together off-campus threw a party in September, violating a moratorium on such events. SDSU found out. Johannesen said he learned in mid-november that SDSU placed the fraternity on probation until next spring.
The chain of events left the adviser frustrated with some of his students and the university’s response.
“Those eight students thought they could do whatever they wanted, pure and simple,” Johannesen told the Union-tribune. “They should be punished. But the entire fraternity shouldn’t be sanctioned. This wasn’t a fraternity event.”
Greek life
The word Greek isn’t supposed to be synonymous with trouble.
Broadly speaking, fraternities and sororities are devoted to promoting friendship, scholarship, leadership, community service and philanthropy. It’s been that way since the 18th century.
And for the most part, the system works. Educators say the majority of Greek chapters do not get in trouble. And many members are high achievers.
Some SDSU chapters, like Gamma Phi Beta and Delta Zeta, maintain grade point averages that are significantly higher than the general student population.
About 10 percent of the nation’s college undergraduates belong to Greek chapters, which are largely secretive, self-governing organizations that offer something students badly want — a home away from home; a place to hone their identity.
“My fraternity was an integral part of growing up and learning how to survive adulthood,” Jeffrey Piraino, a Los Angeles County Fire Department captain who joined SDSU’S Sigma Chi in 1989, told the Union-tribune in an email.
“My fraternity also taught me how to clean a bathroom, vacuum my room and to respect and maintain the fraternity house because my ‘good old mom’ wasn’t around anymore.”
Piraino’s experience is not unusual.
“Most fraternities and sororities do well,” said Stevan Veldkamp, who directs a national Greek life research center at Pennsylvania State University. “But when things go bad, they can go really bad.”