When the national organization of Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity suspended the brothers of the University's Mu Chapter this summer, it gave a handful of reasons for doing so: allegations of hazing, an inability fill the house, a lack of respect for the house and general concerns about chapter operations.\nA cloud of suspicion, though, still lingers about the reasons behind the suspension. Now, as Alpha Epsilon Pi leaders and the fraternity's rank-and-file begin a school year without a house and uncertain about whether their organization will survive, some of those suspicions are being explored.
A Shaky End to Spring\nIt all began in mid-May, when Nationals temporarily suspended the brothers for 30 days pending an investigation into alleged hazing. Third-year College student Adam Smith, acting Mu Chapter president until the chapter's suspension, then made several attempts to find out what facts lay behind the allegations and to stay informed about the investigation.\n"[I] contacted the [National] director [and] I e-mailed him asking him about any updates about the investigation or the allegations because they really told us nothing about it," Smith said. "No one went to the hospital - usually the thing that sparks a hazing accusation."\nNationals and Mu Chapter members eventually scheduled a conference call at the end of the 30-day suspension. When that call came, Nationals delivered news that Mu leaders were stunned to hear.\nSmith said he expected that the conference call to be a preliminary investigation of the hazing allegations, which fraternity members said they still knew little about.\n"But it wasn't a call to investigate," said Smith, who denied the hazing allegations. "It was to tell us that we were being reorganized. There was no investigation. There was no questioning."\nThe formal, long-term suspension letter, which Nationals distributed to Mu Chapter members June 25, describes a reorganization as "the most serious action that can be taken to address concerns in a chapter, short of closing the chapter."\nMembers are suspended before and during a reorganization, and Nationals determines restored membership after an interview with the director of chapter development - in this case, Andrew Neiberg.\nNeiberg declined to comment about the Mu Chapter's ongoing reorganization, citing legal concerns, although Smith said Nationals provided several additional reasons for suspension and reorganization during the conference call.\n"They said that our chapter doesn't foster the type of culture that they prefer," Smith said. "[Nationals told us] a tipping point was the hazing allegations but [they] said we should be shut down because of 'declining rush numbers,' which wasn't true."\nThe chapter recruited 14 new members last fall - a number that, Smith said, is above average.\nSmith also said he also found it odd that Nationals bypassed the University's administration and the Inter-Fraternity Council during the hazing investigation.\nMichael Citro, University assistant dean of fraternity and sorority life, said on the whole, reorganizations of this type are not uncommon.\n"The reasons for an organization to do that vary in scope, but it's not unusual," Citro said.\nBut IFC President Charles Gamper, a fourth-year College student, said he was shocked to hear about the fraternity's suspension and reorganization.\n"This reorganization is surprising and rather sudden," Gamper said. "AEPi at U.Va. has been a very strong chapter. They have a great record of community service and they have had a great relationship with the IFC."\nGamper also noted that the chapter has not had any problems recruiting new members nor has it received any complaints from University administrators.
Other Complaints\nOfficial grievances, however, do not fully represent the history of tensions between Nationals and the Mu Chapter. Alpha Epsilon Pi officials also were allegedly concerned about a visit to the Mu Chapter house last fall - a visit that came the morning after a raucous party.\n"[Executive Director] Andy Borans and Supreme Master [Mark] Schiff and [others] came one morning at 9 a.m., and we had some sort of date function or party the night before, so the house was still kind of messy," former Mu Chapter president and fourth-year college student Carter White said. "They spent an hour yelling at us. [The] vice president got an e-mail from Nationals telling him that they thought I should step down as president."\nThe mess that greeted those officials during their visit was not the only breach of etiquette that aroused anger. They also complained about not being offered cups of coffee or any other refreshments, Smith and White said.\nAlpha Epsilon Pi officials, though, tell a different story, emphasizing that the Mu Chapter's house had fallen into a state of disrepair and that reorganization was a last - but imperative - resort. In an open letter, the National organization stated that reorganization, which prohibits suspended members from living in the house for a year, will allow officials "to make some much-needed renovations to the property."\nThis need for renovations, moreover, is something all sides agree on: Smith said the chapter made repeated annual requests for them and that Nationals provided them with $10,000 for cosmetic fixes but did not include interior repairs last semester.\nAlpha Epsilon Pi alumni also attest to the need for repairs. 1985 alumnus Bill Bernstein, who has visited his old house frequently since graduating, said he has noticed infrastructural shortcomings for more than 10 years.\n"We alums kind of understand why they're doing it - I think [the brothers] should not have been surprised with this and they should have worked with Nationals," Bernstein said. "[But] why these guys? They could have done this five years ago, they could have done this 20 years ago."\nApart from allegations of hazing and a deteriorating house, Smith and other former brothers said they have another, more concerning hunch about why Nationals went ahead with reorganization plans this year. The nature of that hunch - aired publicly in a recent report by a local television station - has raised a significant amount of controversy at the start of this semester.
Not Jewish Enough?\nAlpha Epsilon Pi was founded as a Jewish fraternity in 1913 at New York University, and though membership is open to non-Jews who willingly espouse the fraternity's mission, members of the Mu Chapter said they felt pressure in the past to boost Jewish membership. Several brothers openly wondered whether the reorganization decision had something to do with what Nationals may have seen as an unfavorably low number of Jewish recruits at the Mu Chapter.\nDavid Ferris, a 1980 alumnus, said he remembers the Mu Chapter "walking a tight rope that was kind of unspoken" as a fraternity that identified itself as Jewish on Grounds.\n"I can understand why the organization would want to maintain a certain Jewish orientation," Ferris said. "But society is changing, and I'm just not sure you can do it."\nThe controversy intensified last week, when local FOX affiliate WAHU 27 published a report in which some former brothers explicitly raised the question of whether the diversity of the brotherhood was a factor in the decision to reorganize.\n"It's tough to say that discrimination wasn't a factor because it just feels like they've told us straight up many times, 'You're not Jewish enough,'" Smith told the TV station.\nWhen Nationals reorganized the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's chapter in 1990, it was only 10 percent Jewish. Only 10 of the fraternity's 55 members were invited back. The following year, the chapter was almost 100 percent Jewish and has since won Nationals' outstanding chapter award.\nSimilarly, in 1998, the Alpha Epsilon Pi chapter at the University of California, Los Angeles reorganized after offering a bid to a non-Jewish, black student. Sidney Dunn, executive vice chair of Alpha Epsilon Pi at the time, told UCLA's Daily Bruin newspaper that "with a significant Jewish population at UCLA, we were not attracting enough men."\nOne past member of Alpha Epsilon Pi, who wished to remain anonymous, confirmed for The Cavalier Daily a quote he left on a Web version of the WAHU 27 story, in which he described rush techniques he learned at fraternity conclaves in 2007 at Temple University, 2008 at the University of Delaware and 2009 at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.\n"I can give you dates and locations, but I will not give you direct quotes because I don't carry a journal around with me at all times to take notes," he said. "At these conclaves they held seminars on rush techniques at which they stressed only inviting Jewish students to rush events, even providing advice on dealing with their possible non-Jewish roommates. I have also been told that we need to increase amount of Jewish brothers in our house in a meeting with the Executive Director of AEPi at the National Convention in Chicago in the summer of 08."\nAlpha Epsilon Pi officials declined to comment about allegations of restrictive membership requirements.\n"They can claim anything they want," Nationals Executive Director Andrew Borans said. "But I can't respond to anyone's claims ... We closed because of low occupancy and because of hazing issues."\n\nThe Future\nInterviews for re-admittance begin today and end tomorrow and are entirely optional for suspended brothers. Smith, after his one-month stint as president, said he will not interview and thinks it is unlikely that many upperclass brothers will either.\n"I think that most of the pledges are going to interview but a lot of the upperclassmen aren't," he said. "We kind of just don't want to get ourselves involved with that again. But if the younger guys want to take it and run with it, that's fine with us."\nSmith added that he thinks he and his former fraternity have at least left their legacy.\n"At least it's people that we let in the fraternity," he said. "As much as we had problems with Nationals, we still feel a connection with the chapter"
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