One of Trinity College’s three sororities has been told that new/prospective members may not be recruited, accepted, or involved in Kappa Kappa Gamma’s activities during the remainder of the 2013-2014 academic school year. The sorority also was informed that it should not be sponsoring or co-sponsoring any social activities involving alcohol during this same time frame.
These were the decisions made by the Student Honor Council following the temporary suspension of this sorority’s activities. In mid-November the Hartford Police Department received an anonymous tip that new members were being placed in danger.
The punishment being doled out is not, however, for the treatment of pledges. In a letter to the Trinity College community, Frederick Alford, Dean of Students, wrote:
The council could find no evidence to suggest that women who were sleeping in a heated room in an outbuilding that the sorority uses as its chapter room were there under duress or that they were engaged in activities that would have violated the hazing policy. The council did not believe that the women were required to spend the night, and the weight of the evidence indicated that many new members did not participate.
It was determined that Kappa Kappa Gamma:
violated the rules governing social organizations, specifically for not being truthful about its new member education plans or about whether it had fully initiated them into membership. The panel also found that the sorority had violated the social host policy by hosting an unregistered social event and disrupting the lives of neighbors, and had not been forthright about that event.
To have new member privileges restored, the sorority will be able to petition the Dean of Students in September 2014, and it is expected that Kappa Kappa Gamma will do so. For those privileges to be restored, the sorority will need to prove it is “making progress in meeting the rules, guidelines, and intent of the new rules and expectations for selective social organizations.”