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COLGATE FRAT WANTS DA TO PROBE HOUSING RULE; DELTA KAPPA EPSILON SAYS COLLEGE FORCED IT TO SELL ITS HOUSE OR BE BANNED.
The Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York)
November 11, 2005 Friday
By Sapna Kollali Staff writer
The fraternity suing Colgate University in federal court has asked the district attorney to investigate the Madison County college's new housing policy.
Delta Kappa Epsilon's lawyer, Thomas Wiencek, sent a letter last month in which he asked Madison County District Attorney Donald Cerio to consider criminal charges against Colgate because, he says, the college forced fraternities and sororities to sell their chapter houses or face elimination.
Cerio said he is reviewing the information Wiencek sent but has not decided whether to investigate the university.
"It's an unconventional application of the statute," Cerio said.
Wiencek said the DKE alumni asked him to write the letter because "they felt they had a gun to their head" during negotiations in the spring to sell their chapter house, at 110 Broad St. He said Colgate provided alumni with no choice during negotiations.
"Colgate said they could either sell on their terms or be eliminated and lose 100 years of history. ... If they had said students can't live there if they don't sell, but they could use it for dinners and social activities, that would be different," Wiencek said. "The terms of the sale agreements, in my view, were so one-sided that it amounts to coercion. They were forced."
Colgate spokesman Charlie Melichar had not heard of DKE's letter to Cerio, but said the university does not believe it has done anything wrong. He said most of the Colgate community supports the new housing policy.
"We're confident that what we've done is in the best interest of the students and follows the letter of the law," he said. "We have 10 organizations on campus and the alumni and students of those groups are working with us on the ... policy. The energy on campus is positive."
This is the first semester of a new housing policy on campus that requires university ownership of all Greek letter organizations. DKE is the only chapter that did not sell its house, and it is not a recognized student group this semester.
Alumni members of two other fraternities, Phi Delta Theta and Beta Theta Pi, also filed lawsuits against Colgate in recent months, claiming they were forced to sell their chapter houses. They've asked the state Supreme Court to reverse the sale agreement. The fraternities' full alumni membership and boards have not endorsed the lawsuits.
DKE, itself, already has filed two lawsuits
- A federal lawsuit, filed in March, charges the university with violating antitrust and First Amendment laws by monopolizing student housing.
- A state lawsuit, filed last month, seeks to reinstate DKE as a recognized student group, claiming the university unfairly applied its new housing rules to the fraternity's undergraduate members.
Wiencek said his request to Cerio is separate from the two civil lawsuits.
"We feel we've been wronged, and we're going to exercise every legal
right we have," he said.