Columbia, SC (WLTX) - The majority of fraternities at the University of South Carolina have been suspended from recruiting, after the school says the organizations violated school policy in dealing with new pledges.
Thirteen of the school's fraternities received a letter late Monday from Jonathan Withrow, the Vice-President of Conduct for the school's Interfraternity Council. In it, he says that the numerous recruitment, alcohol, and risk management violations have occurred over the last several weeks.
According to the letter, the groups violated the policy even after an emergency meeting was held last Thursday where they were warned to keep to the school's rules of conduct regarding recruiting.
USC spokesman Wes Hickman said students reported the violation to USC officials.
"This is a great example of students standing up and doing exactly what they're supposed to," Hickman said. "We have a program here at USC called Stand Up Carolina, and the whole premise is when you see something that you don't think is right, say something. That applies to a while range of things, and in this particular case it was applied to the presence, or the alleged presence, of alcohol at rush events.""
The following fraternities were affected: Alpha Epsilon Pi, Alpha Tau Omega, Chi Psi, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Kappa Alpha Order, Lambda Chi Alpha, Phi Gamma Delta, Phi Kappa Sigma, Phi Sigma Kappa, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Sigma Chi, Theta Chi, Tau Kappa Epsilon.
The organizations are not allowed to contact recruits for now.
Those fraternities must sign up for a meeting time to discuss the allegations, which would included members of each fraternity's national organization. If the meeting goes well, the groups will have to get explicit approval from the InterFraternity Council to resume recruiting. The IFC is group comprised of USC students.
