BALTIMORE — The University of Maryland is still facing two lawsuits from Greek life organizations who say their rights were violated during a hazing investigation. Attorneys for the chapters now say: the alleged constitutional overreach was all for nothing.
This all started back in February. The University received two reports alleging Code of Conduct violations, by the same fraternity, which has not been identified. An RA found prohibited substances, and drug paraphernalia in the fraternity house, and the parent of a pledge said their son had been subjected to hazing, including being forced to stay outside for several hours, necessitating a trip to the school's health center for suspected hypothermia.
The Office of Student Conduct (OSC) interviewed members of the fraternity, who "provided inconsistent and apparently false statements to OSC investigators," according to a federal court filing submitted by Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, written in response to the fraternities' initial lawsuit.
Five days later, the OSC received an anonymous email outlining allegations of hazing against multiple fraternities. The emailer did not name the chapters, but said pledges were being beaten with a paddle, burned with cigarettes and torces, forced to lay on nails, and forced to consume live fish, chewing tobacco, and urine.
According to the AG's court filing, the anonymous emailer also alleged to have personally experienced:
Being forced to attend a “Line Up” at which they abuse you for hours on end (5 in my experience) where they force you to wall sit, do push ups, plank, intentionally harm oneself, be naked/in underwear for the purpose of public humiliation, and be physically assaulted. At one of these events one individual passed out as they refused to provide us with water and forced us to drink straight vodka and they did nothing to help him, in fact they hit him in the face with a plastic bat and poured beer on him until he woke up.
The report led to an emergency meeting with all Interfraternity Council chapter leadership. They were informed of the nature of the concerns, and warned that further allegations would lead to a pause in new member activities, according to the filing. Chapter leadership were invited to ask questions at the meeting, or via email afterwards. UMD administrators say no information was provided by any of the chapter members.
The next day, March 1, two sorority pledges were taken to the hospital for alcohol consumption. Separately, but on the same date, a mother of a fraternity member contacted the school to report hazing. The University then looked at data from the school's health and counseling centers, and found a "troubling uptick" in visits by members of Greek life during the month of February.
According to the AG's filing, the "totality of the information" received led the University to issue a temporary cease-and-desist order, halting all new member activities for IFC and PHA organizations. The school also issued a "no contact order," saying current members were not allowed to speak to pledges about anything Greek-related.
"Because the February 27 referral alleged widespread hazing across multiple unnamed chapters and because of the nature and extent of the other evidence described above, the cease and desist order was imposed on all IFC and PHA chapters so that the University could have an opportunity to thoroughly but expeditiously investigate the allegations and identify specific chapters, if any, that were allegedly involved in hazing. The intent of the no contact restriction was to protect vulnerable underclassmen who are new or prospective members of chapters from being subjected to hazing as well as to maintain integrity in the investigation of the serious allegations set forth in the February 27 referral," the AG writes in the filing.
UMD hired an outside consulting firm, INCompliance, to conduct interviews with about 150 students. Representatives for some of the students claimed they were not allowed to have their own attorney or advisor present for the interviews, and some of them were forced to hand over their phones for the investigators to look through. The University has denied those claims.
Four fraternities - Theta Chi Fraternity, Kappa Alpha Order, Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity, Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity - and anonymous students designated as "John Does," filed a lawsuit against top University administrators, asking a federal judge to intervene with a temporary restraining order. That order would lift the suspension on the organizations, as well as the "no contact order." The fraternities argued their First Amendment rights - freedom of speech, expression, and association - and their Fourteenth Amendment rights - due process - were violated.
Two days later, the school lifted the suspension for all but 5 fraternities - Lambda Chi Alpha, Phi Sigma Kappa, Sigma Nu, Zeta Beta Tau and Kappa Alpha Order.
But the litigation continues. Attorneys for the fraternities say they want to set a precedent, and prevent something like this from happening again, either at UMD or any other university.
"The ultimate goal is to get a federal judge to say - this is wrong; you violated these students’ rights," Micah Kamrass, attorney for Cincinnati-based firm Manley Burke, said. "There’s nothing to say Maryland won’t do this again next week if some person who doesn’t like fraternities calls up an anonymous complaint from 5 states away."
The University argues the blanket suspension was necessary because administrators didn't know which chapters were facing the accusations.
In the AG's court filing arguing why the school was justified, Brown writes:
The Code of Conduct authorizes OSC to impose, as an interim measure, a Cease and Desist notice to student organizations, including chapters, “whose continued operation poses a threat to the health and safety of the University community.” The Code of Conduct further states: Directives to Cease and Desist may be effective immediately without prior notice to the Student Group or Student Organization if there is evidence that the continued presence and operation of the Student Group or Student Organization poses a substantial threat to the health and safety of their members or others in the community (e.g., hazing allegation).
The Code of Conduct also allows OSC to institute No Contact Orders in response to a referral. Ex. 2 at 10. “No Contact Directives are effective immediately without prior notice to Students whenever there is evidence that the continued interaction of the Student with other particular members of the University community poses a substantial threat to themselves or others, or to the stability and continuation of normal University operations including, but not limited to individuals’ educational or work environments.”
The AG says had the school done nothing after receiving reports of hazing, school leaders would've been exposed to potential liability.
When it comes to violating students' rights, Brown said the members were still permitted to hold some events and meetings, just none with alcohol present and none with new members present. He said members could still talk to pledges, just not about Greek life. He also argues that the February meeting in which chapter leaders were made aware of the allegations was sufficient in terms of satisfying the students' due process rights.
Kamrass, representing the fraternities in their lawsuit, says any content-based restriction on speech and association is a violation.
"The single most disfavored thing in First Amendment law is to prevent speech from occurring before it even happens. And that’s what they did for two weeks. That is so beyond how universities typically behave," Kamrass said. "My firm’s been in this area for about 40 years and we generally agree that the collective set of actions is the most egregious that they’ve seen anywhere around the country."
Wynn Smiley, CEO of Alpha Tau Omega, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, said: "If you or I were put in a similar situation, we certainly wouldn’t tolerate it. It’s as though the police think someone in your neighborhood is possibly doing something illegal because they’re hearing rumors so they go and tell every resident in the neighborhood, all your activities in the neighborhood are suspended and we’re going to randomly interview people in your household, and oh by the way, if you choose not to participate, we’re going to put you in jail."
As for the allegations outlined in the Attorney General's filing, Smiley said he's seen no evidence thus far that any of those allegations have proven true. "My understanding is that the initial allegations that were part of the rumors - we’re not hearing any of those, regarding the 5 groups that are continuing under suspension and being investigated."
Three of the five fraternities that were still suspended have since been cleared of wrongdoing.
"At this point, they put thousands and thousands of students through all of this, and they punished them for multiple weeks - wouldn’t let them do activities, wouldn’t let them speak to people, put them through these interrogations, all for nothing," Kamrass said.
One sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, and six sorority members, also represented by Kamrass, filed their own lawsuit with the same arguments.
"The only thing they ever got about women’s groups was that there were two emergency medical transports from women’s groups. They know who those are; the school has those records. So they could have very easily looked at those two groups and not shut down all the others," Kamrass said. "They had the ability to be a lot more targeted in this and they chose to go much broader."
Smiley worries about the "chilling effect" this could have on students' reporting dangerous activity. "Administrators know when they take action like this, that the likelihood of students self-reporting in the future, is going to go way down," he said. "There are Good Samaritan policies in place for a reason. We want students to make a wise choice if someone has had too much alcohol and needs to go to the hospital, we want them to call 911. We want them to get the student help. And actions like this, if I’m a student and I go, ‘man If I call 911, is the University going to shut the entire system down and get my friends and everybody in trouble,’ I’m probably going to be less likely to take action and self-report something."
UMD has until June 17 to respond to the fraternities' lawsuit.