Greeks oust the 'Dekes'

The hazing rituals that occurred during "Hell Week" of 1998 at the Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE) fraternity led the parents of John DaLuca, a 19-year-old freshman who hung himself scant days after finishing initiation rites, to file a wrongful-death suit against the fraternity and its alumni association. The same hazing incident led the UW Interfraternity Council (IFC) and the Office of Student Affairs to conduct separate investigations into the matter. Subsequently, the UW canceled the fraternity's recognition contract with the school, which cut off the fraternity's access to lists of incoming freshmen.

Now, more than three years later, the IFC has taken the most drastic action it can take: it's kicked DKE out indefinitely. Wednesday's 26-0 vote by the presidents of all the IFC houses -- with the exception of Greg Browning of the Theta Chi fraternity -- expelled the "Dekes."

But three years is a long time for an institution that loses a fifth to a quarter of its membership every year. In fact, the last active members that were active members in January 1998 will graduate in eight days.

Plus, there was action taken between 1998 and the present. A month after the incident, in February 1998, DKE was suspended from the IFC and then put on probation status the following year. In autumn of 2000, the fraternity's probations status was suspended, but sanctions, such as providing risk-management speakers on alcohol and hazing awareness in addition to the IFC member houses' normal duties, were imposed.

Even IFC President Rob Keating expressed limited sympathy over the time lapse between the incident and Wednesday's action by the IFC, saying, "It's a tough situation because the guys that are most hurt by this are guys that had nothing to do with the original incident."

So haven't the Dekes had enough?

Absolutely not.

The incident did not inspire any sense of regret or wrongdoing in the local or national chapters of DKE whatsoever. In fact, both the chapter and the alumni association, which was named in the DaLuca suit because of intimate involvement by a number of its members in the hazing, have done everything they can to block the investigations by the University.

When the UW requested the house to formally explain the incident, William Hays, notable Deke alumnus, along with other senior alumni, began to plan retaliation. Hays wrote in an e-mail to the fraternity's international director that if "it gets too ugly," they would "roll out the big money men" in an appeal to the UW's Greek alumni in order to take a bite out of donations to the UW -- 80 percent of which come from Greek alumni.

Keating expressed similar sentiments over the difficulties in DKE's dealings with the IFC that shed some light on the length of time between the incident and Wednesday's hearing decision. "This thing should have happened three years ago," Keating said. However, the Dekes have repeatedly refused to cooperate.

Keating explained that there had been "no compliance" with IFC inquiries. "We originally suspended the Dekes [because] they had a gag order not to discuss anything."

In addition to a lack of cooperation in dealing with investigations, there was not only a lack of disciplinary action by DKE's national organization, but according to both Keating and Andrew Janison, IFC vice president of standards who was in charge of Wednesday's hearing, the fraternity's national organization has recognized the UW Dekes as one of the nation's strongest within the years since the 1998.

Janison went on to say that the IFC planned on drafting a letter to the DKE national organization requesting that it revoke the UW chapter's charter.

"Ideally, what will happen is that they will be expelled (from the IFC) until they are recolonized," said Janison, referring to a process wherein the national organization dissolves the chapter and cancels its charter, and then charters an entirely new chapter at the UW a few years down the road, once all the active members associated with the current chapter have moved on. Such was the case for the Theta Xi fraternity after a Jan. 12, 1990, hazing incident that Seattle police reported involved two "agitated, but unharmed" female sheep. The fraternity's 75-year-old charter was revoked by the national organization and a new charter wasn't issued until October 1998. The fraternity has improved its reputation notably since the new charter was issued.

However severe expelling a fraternity from the IFC is and however more severe appealing to the fraternity's national organization to revoke its charter is, the Dekes have brought it upon themselves. Repeated and deliberate efforts to block investigations by the IFC, the University and others have no place in a Greek system that has done wonders to revamp itself after years of being reputed partiers and belligerents. In expelling Delta Kappa Epsilon, the IFC has shown that it's serious about cleaning up its act.

After all, the only thing that could show a more sincere reform effort than suspending or probating exceptionally belligerent fraternities is voting them out -- unanimously.