WVU Pledges Caught Underage Drinking, Play The “We’re In Another Fraternity” Card

BlutarskyTFM11 years ago

After a recent incident in which 19 pledges were cited or arrested for underage drinking, the Sigma Chi chapter at West Virginia University has been suspended.

The whole situation started with what the chapter vice president referred to as a “team-building exercise.” According to the VP, who did not attend the event, the pledges were dropped off in the South Park neighborhood of Morgantown and instructed to make their way back to the fraternity house. That doesn’t seem too bad, right? Well, at some point, things got out of hand.

From Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Officers responding to the city’s South Park neighborhood for reports of a crowd “running … screaming, yelling and engaging in disorderly conduct” found them in “various states of intoxication” shortly after 1:30 a.m., police said in a press release. All were WVU students.

Alright, so the pledges got busted for being drunk and causing a scene in public. If that’s where this story ended, I probably wouldn’t have written this article. I mean, that’s a fairly common occurrence. It’s nothing all that noteworthy.

What makes this situation interesting is what the pledges did when apprehended by local law enforcement officials.

Police said pledges identified themselves as members of Tau Kappa Epsilon, another campus fraternity.

The pledges got caught by the cops, were interrogated, and when asked to identify themselves, they said they were in TKE. Classic.

The thing that honestly sucks for those guys–and it’s really just the nature of being a pledge–is that they were fucked no matter what they said. If they admitted they were Sigma Chi pledges, the actives would tear them apart for ratting out the fraternity. If they said they were part of another fraternity, as they did, then I’m sure they could expect the “You don’t want to be a Sigma Chi? You want to be a TKE?” talk. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

In a meeting with school officials and local police, the vice president said the chapter “accepted full responsibility for the incident.”

“The individuals were clearly under the influence. It wasn’t the event itself that was out of control, it was their behavior.”

Pledges, man.

You just hate to see this kind of stuff happen. An entire chapter is in hot water now because of the actions of a few. The chapter vice president had some final, and rather insightful, words to offer on the incident:

“We thought we had a good plan going, but I guess things got out of hand,” he said.

That’s usually the way it goes..

[via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]

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