MIAMI — The University of Miami fraternity that was shuttered last Friday after a video surfaced of members singing a disturbing chant about women has run into trouble at least two other times — once after two frat brothers were arrested on felony charges of making fake drivers’ licenses and the second for hazing allegations.
Different chapters of the same fraternity — Sigma Phi Epsilon, or SigEp for short — have also been suspended or shut down completely at the University of Florida, the University of Central Florida and Florida State University over the years.
Sigma Phi Epsilon’s most recent UM suspension stemmed from an Oct. 1 pool party at a home about 15 blocks west of the school’s Coral Gables campus. A video surfaced showing frat brothers leading a chant about having sex with a dead woman.
UM received a video Friday morning and ordered the chapter to stop operating, university officials said. They forwarded the video to the fraternity’s national headquarters, which suspended the chapter late Friday afternoon.
“Last Friday at Noon, we received a video that showed SigEp members violating alcohol policies and chanting a deeply misogynistic song,” Heather Matthews, national chapter spokeswoman, said in an emailed statement to the Herald. “The national Fraternity felt the video provided enough information to make the determination that chapter closure was the best course of action. We informed the chapter that afternoon.”
Neither UM nor the fraternity’s national headquarters said how long the suspension would last or whether it would be temporary or permanent.
Arrests on felony charges in 1990s
This is not the first time UM’s Sigma Phi Epsilon chapter has been reprimanded.
In 1993, the national organization revoked the fraternity’s charter after two fraternity brothers were arrested and charged with 14 felony counts related to making false drivers’ licenses, unlawful possession of fraudulent drivers’ licenses, counterfeit drivers’ license equipment and possession with intent to sell or deliver a controlled substance, according to Miami-Dade court records and an article in the March 12, 1993, edition of the UM Hurricane.
All of the charges except one against one of the students were dropped or prosecutors declined to press charges, Miami-Dade court records show. One charge of possession and unlawful use of a driver’s license resulted in a withheld adjudication and three years probation, meaning there was no conviction. Miami-Dade court records did not have a record of the other student’s charges.
The national organization suspended UM’s SigEp chapter; the fraternity did not return until 2000.
“The alumni expressed extreme concern — because the chapter had members arrested — that the organization wasn’t being effective,” Richard Walker, UM’s associate dean of students at the time, said in the Miami Hurricane article.
When the Herald asked UM on Monday about the 1993 incident, Jacqueline Menendez, a UM spokeswoman, said in an email that their files went back to only 1998.
At the time of the 1993 suspension, the chapter was on probation. UM suspended the fraternity in 1991 after hazing allegations arose, according to an Oct. 11, 1991, article in the UM Hurricane.
Hazing allegations have beset Sigma Phi Epsilon chapters at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida State University in Tallahassee and the University of Florida in Gainesville. Hazing has also led to sanctions at other Florida fraternities over the years, including prison terms for some members.
Problems at UCF, FSU and UF
In 2007, UCF suspended its Sigma Phi Epsilon chapter after a student told his father that pledges were “required to roll around on the ground and jump into a pile of garbage that included food,” Tom Evelyn, the UCF spokesperson at the time, told the Orlando Sentinel.
The UCF chapter has been closed since that year, said Matthews, the spokeswoman for the national organization. She did not respond to questions from the Herald about the reasons for the closure or why the chapter has remained closed since.
Within a few weeks of UCF suspending the fraternity, two Sigma Phi Epsilon members of the FSU chapter, along with two Tallahassee Community College students, were arrested in January 2007 on misdemeanor hazing charges.
Police found 31 Sigma Phi pledges in the crawlspace of an off-campus home, the Tallahassee Democrat reported at the time. The pledges were “covered in ‘raw eggs, catfish-stink bait, flour and vinegar,’ and they were shivering from the 30-degree temperatures outside,” the newspaper reported.
The police who investigated “heard what seemed like screaming from the back of the house,” Maj. Jim Russell of the FSU Police Department told the Tallahassee Democrat at the time.
An FSU spokesperson said Wednesday the university had no comment about the case. Leon County court records show the cases were dismissed for three students, with a fourth student getting an adjudication withheld followed by probation.
More recently, in 2012, SigEp’s national board suspended its University of Florida chapter pending multiple investigations into conduct violations related to hazing, theft and alcohol consumption by minors, The Gainesville Sun reported.
A University of Florida spokeswoman called the recent UM incident “distressing.”
“... UF does not believe there is any correlation between the operations of this South Florida chapter and the one in Gainesville,” spokeswoman Cynthia Roldán Hernández said. “UF will continue to work with the organizations that comprise the Florida Greek community to ensure Gainesville-based chapters adhere to the values expected from all.”
Sanctions of other fraternities
Besides Sigma Phi, several fraternities at Florida universities have been disciplined over the years, especially after a 2005 state law made it a felony, with a five-year maximum sentence, if convicted of a hazing that resulted in serious injury or death. Previously, hazing was a misdemeanor.
The University of South Florida in Tampa shut down its Lambda Chi Alpha chapter in November 2006 over allegations of hazing and alcohol violations.
Around the same time, the University of Florida suspended its Pi Kappa Alpha chapter after news reports said three women, including a 17-year-old high school student, were drugged at a party at the chapter’s frat house, the St. Petersburg Times reported.
In the most severe hazing cases, prison sentences have been meted out.
In January 2007, two Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity members at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee — Michael Morton of Fort Lauderdale and Jason Harris of Jacksonville — were sentenced to two years in prison for severely beating a fraternity pledge with wooden canes.
Three other Kappa Alpha Psi brothers pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor hazing charge and received probation and time in a work camp.
____
(Miami Herald research director Monika Leal contributed to this report.)
