Correction Appended Below
Sigma Alpha Mu will no longer be able to make use of its house on Fraternity Row following a decision by Washington University administrators in the wake of a drug bust there on the last day of fall semester.
Sigma Alpha Mu (SAM) will, however, keep its recognition as a University fraternity.
The house of the University's chapter of SAM, known as the Phi chapter, sits at the far eastern end of Fraternity Row.
Administrators made the decision to expel SAM from the row within the week of the bust, according to SAM Phi Chapter President Adam Savaglio, a sophomore, who said that he was part of the decision-making process. The decision becomes effective at the beginning of spring semester.
"I met with Greek life and came to an agreement," he said. "We worked with them, with our national office."
SAM brothers who lived in the house last semester will move into Residential Life housing. Savaglio said that the chapter will wait before searching for another official residence.
"We'll have to take it semester by semester and see what happens," he said. "We've come to Greek Life with a plan but we're trying to rev our internal standards, make sure it doesn't happen again. Something like this is not tolerable."
The Washington University Police Department (WUPD) action that led to SAM losing its on-campus housing was confirmed by Assistant Vice Chancellor for Students Jill Carnaghi at the end of the fall semester, but she did not give further details.
WUPD's media log reported an arrest during the incident but did not give names of persons arrested.
Chief of Police Don Strom did not comment on the incident itself because of the ongoing nature of the investigation.
Savaglio issued a written statement to Student Life on the Saturday afternoon following the bust confirming that University officials had informed his chapter of "an investigation into possible misconduct by individual students living at the Sigma Alpha Mu house."
Savaglio did not specify the exact nature of the misconduct, but denounced any violations of University and fraternity policy that might have occurred.
"The Phi chapter of Sigma Alpha Mu supports actions by authorities to uphold the law and campus policy; any violations of campus policy and Fraternity policy by individual members is unacceptable and inconsistent with the values and traditions of Sigma Alpha Mu," Savaglio said in the statement. "If it is determined that any individuals violated chapter regulations they will be subject to disciplinary action from the Fraternity, including the possible loss of membership."
In the statement, Savaglio also announced that the fraternity had voluntarily suspended all social activities to aid the investigation and to allow the fraternity's members to prepare for exams.
There was no information about the incident in WUPD's media log within 48 hours of the incident, though the event was added to the log the following weekend.
"If there's any reason to believe that the investigation could be compromised by giving information, we will withhold that information," Strom said.
The University might have broken the law, according to Adam Goldstein, attorney advocate at the Student Press Law Center. Not publishing a report in the crime log within 48 hours of an event on campus violates a federal law known as the Clery Act, he said.
"If there was a drug bust that happened, they had 48 hours under federal law to include it in the crime log. If it's not in the log then they're out of compliance of the Clery Act," Goldstein said.
Originally called the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act, the Clery Act was passed in 1990 and named for Jeanne Clery, a 19-year-old Lehigh University freshman who was sexually assaulted and murdered in her residence hall in 1986.
The law requires public and private post-secondary institutions receiving federal financial assistance to add campus crimes to their police logs within two business days of the initial report of the crime to the police department. Institutions that violate the Clery Act are subject to financial penalties from the U.S. Department of Education.
Departments may withhold information that would jeopardize a victim's identity or whose disclosure would violate the law.
SAM was founded in 1909 at the City University of New York. Its mission, according to the national fraternity's Web site, is "to guide each undergraduate member toward a more meaningful life, to prepare members for responsible fraternity and community involvement, and to create social and service opportunities for its alumni."
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
An earlier version of this article misquoted Washington University Police Chief Don Strom regarding the circumstances under which the police department withholds information from its media log; information is withhold only when it could compromise the investigation, not the University. Student Life regrets the error.
* This BS drug bust continues to affirm my seemingly conspiratorial (yet increasingly logical) belief that Wash.U. has a grand plan aimed at reducing the influence of the school's most socially influential fraternities. First they went after Sigma Chi in the spring of 2005, then they came down hard on SAE in the late fall of 2005, then they pulled some draconian fear tactic moves aimed at limiting Sig Ep' and Kappa Sig's fun quotient in the fall of 06 and spring of 07, respectively. They very strategically go after certain houses with what I have come to believe is the hope that those houses will cave to the pressure and then cave as fraternities.
*These policies are always publicly advocated by the likes of Carneghi and a number of low-level GLO officials, yet the real decisions are clearly made at the top. Whether or not the top is Wrighton, McLeod or the school's trustees I honestly have no idea. I do not profess to know of the internal workings of the administration (A VERY VERY secret one at that) but it seems that any close observer can start putting the pieces together and realizing that the university is working to systematically undermine the influence of Greek Life on campus. They are doing so, however, in a sly and disingenuous manner, however. By choosing to very publicly reprimand Greek organizations, they paint a highly misleading picture of Greek Life at Wash.U. In point of fact, the Greek system at WUSTL is utterly tame, egalitarian and self-regulated. Yet, by highlighting very public drug incidents, the school can win the public relations war while limiting the dissent of potentially irate alums.Think I'm crazy? This is a policy which has been openly pursued at other institutions and it makes perfect sense that they'd bring it to WU as well.