Mistake After Mistake

Death, policy violations cast shadow on MIT fraternities

MIT students suffer the stigma of being slightly socially challenged but bright and technologically adroit. But MIT's fraternities have been doing their part of late to disprove at least the second part of the stereotype.

In September 1997, the Boston City Licensing Board shut down MIT's Phi Gamma Delta fraternity after first-year pledge Scott Kreuger died from alcohol poisoning at one of the fraternity's parties. Every since, the news media has given MIT fraternity antics national attention. That attention is currently being lavished on a recent rash of stupidly self-destructive stunts.

Last year, Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) served alcohol to a prospective student during campus preview week. MIT placed it on alcohol-free probation. This September, the fraternity allegedly served alcohol to an underage Wellesley College student who eventually required hospitalization. MIT suspended the fraternity, effectively banning it from participating in school events.

The Wellesley incident, along with residential reports of public urination and throwing trash onto parked cars from the roof of the fraternity house, led the licensing board to call SAE members to appear at a hearing. Daniel F. Polaski, chair of the Boston City Licensing Board, is a self-described "big fan of fraternity houses in the city of Boston." One might have thought that SAE had a pretty solid chance of escaping with a slap on the wrist. While the other complaints against SAE remain relatively disregarded, however, SAE's main offense in the eyes of the board has become simply the failure of SAE members to attend the meeting. Raging about the "total lack of responsibility and character" shown by the absence, Polaski now has threatened to revoke the fraternity's housing permit.

Last Wednesday, an MIT sophomore involved in a prank to publicize a fraternity Halloween party ended up hospitalized after a pyrotechnic device exploded in his hands. A costumed group of students entered a crowded MIT lecture hall to promote Phi Kappa Sigma's upcoming Halloween party that raises money for the Leukemia Society of America. The packed lecture hall watched as the sophomore in question, hoping to add to the aura by creating a theatrical puff of smoke, ended up with deep gashes on his hand.

Robert J. Sales, associate director of the MIT News Office, remains unsure why the student didn't simply buy a kit with a battery and flash, one not designed to explode.

Fraternities have certainly had a negative impact on the popular opinion of MIT. The Institute now has a reputation for binge-drinking, fraternities that may lose their houses due to their inability to attend a hearing and, perhaps worst of all, technologically incompetent students.

MIT doesn't have the dormitory space to house all its students, but given all the trouble fraternities have caused over the past few years, one wonders why the Institute is not building more dormitories--fast.