Fraternities

A fire in an off-campus fraternity house near Bloomsburg University killed three people early Sunday, while others jumped to safety in their underwear from a second-story window. Five male fraternity members and a visiting alumnus were sleeping in the Tau Kappa Epsilon house when the fire broke out about 6 a.m. Three managed to get out safely, university spokesman Jim Hollister said. Hollister said it was too soon to tell whether the bodies were those of the missing students.

Eight fraternity brothers have agreed to pay a combined $500,000 settlement in the drinking-related death of a Cal State Chico freshman after an initiation ceremony. A judge will decide whether the national and local chapter of the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity will go on trial Aug. 19 in the lawsuit filed by the parents of Adrian Heideman. Attorneys for the East Coast-based fraternity, which has asked the judge to dismiss the case, said Heideman alone was to blame for his death.

A Cal State Northridge fraternity has announced that it will host sexual harassment seminars in conjunction with the National Organization for Women to make amends for an unauthorized party flyer that featured a sexy drawing of a woman and invited guests to "rape, pillage and burn." Campus officials and student leaders applauded the move by the leadership of Lambda Chi Alpha, but some members and alumni complained that the fraternity was kowtowing to pressure from campus feminist groups.

Rather than fight a potentially expensive lawsuit, Cal State Northridge has agreed to reinstate a campus fraternity suspended for distributing flyers considered offensive to Mexican-Americans, school President Blenda J. Wilson said Wednesday. The decision prompted a group of angry students and professors to walk out of a meeting called by Wilson Wednesday evening to discuss settlement of the suit, which was filed by the campus chapter of Zeta Beta Tau.

Cal State Northridge students held two demonstrations Monday to protest university President Blenda J. Wilson's decision to cut short the suspension of a fraternity that was being punished for distributing an offensive party flyer. About 200 attended a lunch-hour rally and another 200 took part in an evening rally, marching across the campus carrying signs with slogans criticizing the fraternity, Zeta Beta Tau, and Wilson.

Chapman College's largest fraternity, suspended by the school earlier this month after two of its members threw a party with a topless stripper, has been granted a reprieve while a student panel reviews the incident. The Sigma Phi Epsilon men held the party at their off-campus apartment Sept. 28, according to fraternity president Dean Cooper.

The parents of a teenager who died from alcohol poisoning two years ago have settled their lawsuit against the fraternity involved. Adrian Heideman, 18, died after an initiation of the Pi Kappa Phi chapter at Cal State Chico. During the pledge ceremony, Heideman drank a bottle of brandy and passed out. He was found dead early the next morning. Settlement details were not made public. Eight fraternity members had already settled with the family for a combined $500,000.

A fraternity was shut down because it hazed pledges by forcing them to run naked through fraternity and sorority houses. Officials of North Carolina State University in Raleigh and the national offices of Sigma Phi Epsilon suspended the chapter of Sigma Phi until next fall. Although the fraternity's activities will cease, the students can return to classes and live in university or private housing.

UC Santa Cruz has revoked its recognition of a fraternity whose members were accused of kidnapping and killing a pet koi from a college fish pond in May. On Friday, the Student Judicial Affairs Office determined that the entire fraternity, Delta Omega Chi, was at fault. Delta Omega Chi did not appeal the university's decision. The fraternity can no longer book campus facilities, use the college's advisory staff or mention UC Santa Cruz in official correspondence.

A Cal State Northridge fraternity has sued school officials, contending the university violated the First Amendment by suspending the fraternity for distributing a party flyer that critics said was racist and sexist. CSUN officials in November suspended the campus chapter of Zeta Beta Tau for 14 months because of a flyer advertising an October party to honor, among others, "Lupe."