MIT Fraternity Member Has Diploma Revoked

Over a year after a pledge at MIT's Phi Gamma Delta fraternity died from alcohol poisoning, MIT has revoked the diploma of Charles H. Yoo, a 1998 MIT graduate who was the fraternity's pledgemaster at the time of the incident.

MIT officials, who said they could not comment on the case because of student privacy rules, revoked Yoo's diploma for five years after a proceeding by MIT's Committee on Discipline, according to Yoo's lawyer, Timothy M. Burke.

Burke said his client plans to sue MIT for the diploma, arguing MIT does not have the right to revoke a graduate's diploma and that his client was denied due process.

"There was no due process afforded in terms of having a meaningful hearing where a person has the opportunity to confront their accusers," he said. "There were no witnesses and no documentary evidence was introduced."

According to Burke, MIT revoked Yoo's diploma because University officials believed Yoo had purchased alcohol for the event and created an atmosphere in which students felt compelled to drink.

But Burke said that although Yoo was in charge of the event, he did not purchase the alcohol or coerce students to drink.

"The beer that they alleged Mr. Yoo purchased was from a prior event," Burke said. "And it was clear from the information that came about that there was no specified amount of alcohol" pledges were required to drink.

According to police reports at the time of the incident, however, the first-year student, Scott Krueger, was forced to drink vast quantities of alcohol at a Phi Gamma Delta party. He fell into a coma at the fraternity, and three days, later, passed away.

Yoo's case comes just a month after two Harvard students sued the College for their diplomas, claiming the University did not have a right to suspend them and that they had been denied due process.

But Harvard had suspended the two students involved before they received their diplomas. And College administrators said that, except for cases of academic fraud, they were not aware of any cases in which Harvard had rescinded a diploma after graduation.

MIT officials declined to comment on whether the school had ever rescinded a graduate's diploma in previous cases, but Yoo said he was not aware of any such prior incident.

"According to what I've heard, it's unprecedented," he said.

Yoo said that although the incident occurred in 1997, MIT did not take disciplinary action against him until this year because MIT--unlike Harvard--has a policy of not pursuing disciplinary cases until criminal investigations of the matter are resolved. The Suffolk County District Attorney's office charged the fraternity with manslaughter last year, but the fraternity disbanded in order to avoid the charge.

In the past, courts have upheld diploma revocations, but Burke said he believed those precedents apply only to instances of fraud.

"Those cases are essentially on some measure of academic fraud," he said. "That certainly hasn't been the case here."

Yoo said that while his job as a foreign currency trader at the Philadelphia Stock Exchange is secure despite the revocation, he fears MIT's decision may prevent him from attending graduate school.

"I still have my job, but it's pretty much put off any other future plans I have...if I want to continue my education," he said.