DKE Alumni Letter

University Suspends DKE from Program Housing with No Justification

The undergraduates and alumni of Wesleyans Gamma Phi chapter of DKE strongly
condemn the University administration for violating its own promise to give the
Universitys fraternities three years to fully co-educate the house and for using
undergraduates as pawns while we work out the complicated mechanics of the
Universitys ever-changing demands.
By denying the men of DKE the right to live in their own house next school year, by
consistently moving the goalposts, and by imposing new last minute conditions that were
impossible to meet, the University has clearly demonstrated that it was not acting in good
faith from the beginning. The unreasonableness of their actions shows that their goal all
along was to shut down the fraternities without explicitly ordering it. As a result and in
order to achieve justice, members of the current undergraduate class of DKE and alumni
have filed suit against the University based upon sexual discrimination,
misrepresentation, and deceptive practices.
We believe it is unjust to punish the undergraduates through this transparent effort to
pressure the fraternity financially and deny us rental income for necessary upkeep and
improvements. If the Universitys long-term goal is to gain control of this privately
owned house and property, they should understand this will never happen.
There is no justification for preventing undergraduates from living in the house. They
have done everything demanded by the University and more. At the beginning of this
school year, in the interest of supporting efforts to assure student safety, we agreed to
grant campus security access to DKE consistent with that available to all University,
despite the cogent fact that DKE is privately owned. They have voluntarily undergone
awareness training on sexual assault and alcohol abuse, agreed to let campus security
monitor parties, and maintained a spotless record even in the face of unfair vilification by
anti-fraternity zealots who have threatened violence against them.
Despite our reservations about the feasibility of co-educating the house in a safe and
fair way, we worked in good faith to meet the administrations demands. We announced
our intention to partner with Rho Epsilon Pi (REP), Wesleyans sole sorority, which itself
has been denied a home if its own. We met with Rho Epsilon Pi representatives at both
the alumni and current undergraduate level and have begun to explore how best they
could use space in the house. As an initial step in the co-education process we offered
to make six beds in the southwest wing available to REP sisters. We were in the middle
of productive discussions when the University unilaterally declared that no one neither
DKE nor REP could live in the house next year.
The University has demanded that we commit absolutely at this point to have the house
fully co-educated within 3 years a demand they know is impossible to meet. We have
met with and given a walk-through to the Universitys own housing engineers in order to

explore the state of the facility and they know it will cost hundreds of thousands of
dollars to bring the house to a condition that will attract women. They also know the
fraternity does not currently have the resources to finance needed improvements.
Further, even if we were to find the funds to pay for these improvements, there is no
guarantee that women would actually want to live in our building. That is exactly what
happened at Trinity, where the all-male fraternities went through the same process of
turning co-ed yet were unable to attract women to their houses.
The Universitys unilateral demand that the fraternities co-educate, which was imposed
in a rushed and ill-conceived manner, is a solution in search of a problem. Wesleyans
own Clery statistics show that the vast majority of sexual assaults on campus occur
within its own dorms. Consequently, it is not clear how moving women into the
fraternities full-time is going to reduce the chances of sexual assault if these facilities are,
as the University seems to assume, dangerous places for women.
Nor do we understand how gender equity is served by the Universitys continued refusal
to let Rho Epsilon Pi have its own house. The University itself recognized that some
students want to live with others who share the same interests, and through its
community-based living programs, has even turned over its dorms to these special
interest communities. Yet it now refuses to allow the Universitys original communitybased organizations to exercise the same rights.
We have also included the link to our press release that was sent out today. We will
continue to keep you updated and suggest that you go to Cardnialtruths.com for
additional information.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wesleyan-chapter-of-dke-sues-university-forsexual-discrimination-misrepresentation-and-deceptive-practices-300038481.html