Sigma Chi closes its doors for at least two years

The Sigma Chi fraternity house on campus will remain empty for the rest of this year and all of next, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln announced Tuesday. However, the house could be closed for longer, and it will take much more than unlocking the front door to open Sigma Chi.

"They will have to petition, frankly, to come back at all," said Juan Franco, the vice chancellor for student affairs at UNL.

The university revoked the defamed fraternity's charter and officially suspended it for four years. The suspension lasts from May 1, 2009, until May 1, 2013.

However, Franco said the university will consider letting a Sigma Chi colony move into the house at 1510 Vine St. in the fall of 2011 if the Sigma Chi house corps agree to stringent requirements.

Those requirements include frequent and thorough house checks, completing several remodeling projects in the next two years, paying for a resident assistant to live there and filling the house mainly with freshmen, Franco said.

Sigma Chi is the first fraternity in recent memory to be suspended from UNL, Franco said. The lengthy sentence was given so that when the fraternity reopens, none of the members will have been a part of the illegal and depraved acts that were made public last April.

"What we wanted to do was impact the culture," Franco said. "There were a large number of students (in Sigma Chi) who didn't think the university's policies mattered. We wanted to break that cycle."

Last April, UNL police arrested eight of the fraternity members after a freshman pledge told police he was sexually assaulted at a fraternity function and that he and his pledge class were repeatedly hazed throughout their pledging semester.

If the fraternity reopens in two years, members of that pledge class will have the opportunity to rejoin Sigma Chi if they have at least a 3.2 GPA, haven't been in trouble with UNL and have a letter of recommendation from Sigma Chi's alumni.

Individually, several members of the fraternity have gone or will go before UNL's judiciary board, Franco said. The suspensions or sanctions those students face are private.

Franco said most of the former Sigma Chi members who will go before the judiciary board are the students who have been arrested by police.

Mike Dunn, the executive director of Sigma Chi, said that he appreciated the way UNL handled the matter as privately as possible, as some of the court cases stemming from Sigma Chi's hazing practices are still forthcoming. But because of the pending trials, Dunn also said the university was "prudent" with its sanctions. If new information comes to light in those trials, Dunn said he hopes UNL might "re-evaluate" some of its sanctions.

Jon Knudsen, Michael Classen and James Glover have pled no-contest to hazing charges. Jeffrey Maillet, Keegan Anderson and Kyle Humphrey have hazing trials in the near future. Anderson has a bench trial on Sept. 25,  Maillet has a plea hearing Oct. 1, and Humphrey is facing six counts of hazing sometime after Oct. 28 – the next jury term.
As serious as the allegations against the fraternity may be, Franco said UNL has already seen some positives come in the wake of the Sigma Chi incident.

"It has united the Greek community," Franco said. "And empowered parents and students to come forward."

ryanboetel@dailynebraskan.com