κσ’s charter at ou yanked for blog post

The devil is usually in the details—or in this case, in the blog posts. The Kappa Sigma chapter at the University of Oklahoma has long been on probation from an incident several years ago; officials refused to describe the nature of the events that provoked a multi-year probationary period, noted exceedingly vaguely only as an "alcohol-related incident." (Dousing a cut in hydrogen peroxide could be aptly summarized as an "alcohol-related incident" as well.) In any case, the long probation was about to be finally lifted, when the Kappa Sigma national became aware of a blog posting online that "members of the fraternity were pooling their money to buy beer." No mention is made of evidence that any money was actually collected, that any alcohol was actually obtained with the hypothetical money, or that such doubly hypothetical alcohol was actually consumed anywhere near the fraternity house or by fraternity brothers.

No matter actual evidence, for the Kappa Sigma national forged ahead and revoked the chapter's charter for "violat[ing] terms of sanctions previously placed against the Chapter to operate in an alcohol free environment." Unclear is whether these terms actually required chapter members to abstain from writing about alcohol in blog posts (as opposed to drinking it). Perhaps the vaunted terms of sanctions also proscribed Kappa Sigma brothers from thinking about alcohol as well.

The reader will hopefully forgive the profligate use of italics throughout this piece. Blogging being our communication of choice, we feel rather strongly about brothers' unassailable right to express themselves in words without such severe penalty as expulsion from their fraternity. A reprimand for casting the fraternity in a poor light might be in order for a narrative flight of fancy. Expulsion for a wholly unsubstantiated tale of alcohol seems outrageous, and frankly un-American.

The Kappa Sigma brothers are now appealing the dechartering, preparing their case avidly with university officials and alumni—including marshalling actual evidence, something their national evidently neglected to do in their haste to oust. The chapter's former treasurer said rather sensibly, "Obviously we want to take a little bit of responsibility for what’s going on. . . . but basically for something as trivial as this to cause such a big wake, everybody’s a little upset about that."

Oklahoma DailyCurrently OK