As I was sitting in our house's common room a couple weeks ago, I, along with everyone else in the room, immediately looked at my phone upon receiving an email from Mark Starr titled: "Status of Sigma Phi Epsilon." All of us in the room were shocked when we read the content of the email, explaining that Sig Ep's nationals had revoked the Ohio Sigma Chapter's charter. In that instant, all of the social media platforms blew up about this and the whole Greek community at CWRU began asking what occurred to cause the removal. We found out that someone had made a recording of an illicit party being thrown at their house and had turned that information over to higher authority.
Now, an anonymous writer from The Observer, CWRU's campus newspaper, authored an editorial a few days ago titled: "What is truly setting our Greek Life apart". Many Greeks here at Case, including myself, read the article with an utter disbelief for how uninformed it sounded. The author continually pointed out things about "alcohol-related incidents" or "policies" that led to the decision for Sig Ep's removal, and how the Greek Life Office didn't treat people fairly. The writing style of the article was elementary, and failed to make any critical, well-thought out arguments as to why their point should be considered. If you're going to publish something like that, shouldn't it be thought-provoking and less biased?
Here's a thought, instead of pointing the blame at the GLO, why not think about what you yourself can do to help the Greek community in a time like this? Sure, it's easy to blame Greek Life for something like this occurring, but we as a community have to be better to avoid slip-ups like this one that cost a fraternity its existence on our campus. Policies are policies, and we need to make sure that we hold ourselves and other chapters accountable, even if we don't like the rules.
I firmly believe that whoever made the recording that caused Sig Ep's removal is a person lacking character, and obviously wanted to spite Sig Ep instead of taking a different, less sneaky course of action in this situation. Do I think that Sig Ep is innocent in this instance? No, it's their responsibility to adhere to sanctions and actively work to become better. However, the method by which they were reported and removed, I believe, is a stab to the back, and a poorly-handled way of going about the situation.
Greek Life IS different here at CWRU. We just have to remind ourselves how we set ourselves apart from everyone else.
