Jonathan LaneThe investigation into a series of Sigma Chi videos and photographs is scheduled to begin in earnest this morning.
Yesterday, the fraternity’s national organization suspended the Washington University chapter of Sigma Chi for 45 days. This decision was made by the Sigma Chi Fraternity Chapter Review Subcommittee, which unanimously voted for the suspension in order to allow the national organization’s officials to work with University administrators in investigating the fraternity’s actions.
Assistant Vice Chancellor for Students Jill Carnaghi said the “principals” of the University’s inquiry will convene today to discuss how to proceed in the case and to begin to “put all of the pieces together.”
The investigation will center on approximately 28 videos and 31 photographs of events that allegedly took place at the Sigma Chi house last week.
The videos primarily show groups of students telling jokes and performing in skits. Most were of a sexual nature and revolved around women they know or have had relationships with. During and after many of the skits, the videos depict performers being pelted with beer cans and boxes by members of the audience.
Another fraternity gave the videos and photos to the Greek Life Office on Tuesday. Since that time, the Office has released a statement condemning the actions as “inappropriate” and “unacceptable.”
Carnaghi said that a conscious decision was made to delay the start of the investigation until Friday.
“I didn’t want to make a rash decision in the heat of the moment,” she said. “I wanted to let the dust settle.”
At the same time, she made it clear that she has already reached some conclusions about the content of the videos.
“This behavior cannot and will not be tolerated,” she said.
Later, talking specifically about some of the sexual material and the disparaging references to a handful of female students, she added that “some of those derogatory comments are also unacceptable.”
Although the investigation is set to get underway today, Carnaghi said decisions about the shape and schedule of the inquiry have yet to be made.
“We have no timeline right now, but we’ve got be sensitive to the time of the year,” she said, alluding to the upcoming departure of most students for the summer. “You want to be thorough, but you also want to expedite things, especially with so many concerned individuals.”
Carnaghi refused to discuss the potential sanctions that may come out of the investigation, but did say “anything’s possible.” In the press release distributed by the Greek Life Office earlier this week, revocation of the University’s recognition of the Sigma Chi chapter was mentioned as a possibility.
Late in the day on Wednesday, Sigma Chi distributed a written statement to the local media that said the brothers and pledges of the chapter “take total responsibility for their actions” as depicted in the videos.
“We recognize that our actions do not meet the expectations of the campus community,” the release said. “We realize that what we thought was good-natured college hi jinx has been interpreted as ‘distasteful’ and ‘inappropriate,’ and we are working…to insure [sic] that we never cross that line again.”
The statement also mentions that the videos showed only one part of life at Sigma Chi.
“Unfortunately, no videos have been distributed displaying our more positive activities,” the release said, pointing to the chapter’s philanthropy events and high GPA. According to statistics released by the Greek Life Office earlier this semester, Sigma Chi had the fifth highest GPA of all fraternities-3.353-during the fall 2003 semester, which was near the 3.40 average for all Washington University undergraduates.
Director of Greek Life Karin Johnes said she had a positive reaction to Sigma Chi’s statement.
“I was pleased in that I think they are taking an appropriate amount of responsibility,” she said. “I felt like it was a good step.”
The videos came out on the same day that the University imposed sanctions on the fraternity for an incident on March 18 when two pledges were transported to the hospital. Multiple administrators have said that the events of March 18, along with other incidents in Sigma Chi’s history, will be taken into account during this new investigation.