44 CommentsAfter a hazing scandal that put ZBT in high risk of losing its charter and subsequent controversy and mockery, a statement by the fraternity announced that the decision to rescind the charter was officially reverted.
Spec has the full story, reporting that KevSho made the decision after meeting with ZBT and Greek Judicial Board leadership. While the Greek Judicial Board voted to revoke the fraternity’s charter, Shollenberger ruled in favor of the frat’s appeal on Monday. ZBT states that it looks forward to “restoring its rich legacy” and to “foster a non-hazing Brotherhood.”
Loading …
44 Comments
@Ask Shollenberger Why he decided to overturn the decision that a committee of ZBT’s peers AND Dean Martinez both made? Shollenberger needs to defend his decision as it sets a precedence for future hazing cases.
@Anonymous LOUD NOISES!
Sorry, just wanted to get on this.
@Hi You are fighting on Bwog.
And it’s Spring Break.
Don’t over think this.
@^ meant to be a reply to “shred of evidence” thread
@Same as above And varsity team GPAs are well documented and transparent. My team enjoys a 3.34 average, which is the 5th highest in our sport out of all D1 schools in the nation.
@Wow a 3.34 How do you sociology majors do it?????
@Anon oooooh, all hail the 4.0 chemical physics major, arbiter of all things academic! so much better than we underlings — such a harder life you lead.
@Biochem I can tell you that Chemical Physics majors make PChem even more hellish than it all ready is
@Biochem *Already. My bad
@Don't forget... The engineering athletes (and we do exist).
@non greek @blah: not saying you in particular aren’t a hard worker or a smart person, but don’t you agree that the athletes get special treatment when dealing with disciplinary committees? why aren’t we hearing about the girls that were hazing and are only hearing about zbt?
and ps, its not like the rest of of us don’t do anything with our time. so sorry that you think our activities/internships/clubs/jobs are somehow less important than your practice. oh and pss you chose to be an athlete so time to stop complaining!
@jew ZBT international is no longer jewish so it doesnt really matter if they say they were the first jewish frat,, they decided to stop being jewish.
@Against Hazing This is a disgrace. Somebody needs to hold ZBT to account (while also asking KevSho what the rationale for his decision is).
Not only did ZBT haze people – forcing them to drink while hurling insults at them – but the people they hazed were FRESHMEN GIRLS on the field hockey team. This goes beyond hazing and into sexual assault, yet nobody is being held accountable.
@Anonymous Does it matter that they’re girls?
@Anonymous yes, when they were older, physically larger males who the freshman girls were made to think were “cool.” they have social power over the girls who were hazed. it likely made it that much harder to opt out, or to be the whistle blower who told the coach after the fact, when it was a group of guys that the hazing teammates knew the hazees revered in some way standing (physically) over them telling them to drink and to reveal embarrassing personal details. people of both genders fucked up here in organizing this, and in making it a yearly tradition at that, but it does matter that guys did the actual hazing when you consider that the hazed freshman girls have spent most of their lives deeply embedded in female-only teams and social circles, by nature of their dedication to the sport. it adds another degree of pressure and discomfort to participate, which is, of course, the point of hazing.
@Anonymous Get your facts straight, that never happened, ever
@Cody How at all does that equal sexual assault to you? It sounds horrible, and I don’t support it, but to equate it to sexual assault just because men and women were involved is an absurd jump in reasoning. This is the type of sensationalist comment that obstructs any honest discussion or analysis.
@blah The ZBT brothers did not haze freshman girls, older girls hazed freshman girls in the ZBT house. You can’t just mix facts the way you feel like it, you know
@Anonymous So if you have rich alumni and power inside the administration, you can get away with bloody murder
@They must be Jewish looks like the ZBT’s have a rabbi in the administration…
@Twitch I’d remind everyone that AEPi–which had won highest GPA of the greek houses the year before (greek average is higher than non-greek, but that’s probably because the proportion of CC is higher in the greek system, balancing out overall)–lost its house and got three year probation when a single brother sold drugs. The university never accused and had no evidence that the fraternity knew about it.
This happens and ZBT is saved? Fuck athletics. They do nothing but dilute our degrees.
@Twitch I bring it up because AEPi is actually trying to be a Jewish fraternity. Does ZBT have shabbat dinners and fabrengens? Do they even have Jews?
@The Ghost of Jewish Frat Past Give AEPi the ZBT house!!!
@blah Yes, it’s the athletes (who have a higher than average GPA than the rest of the school while practicing 15-20 hours a week, and actually compose the Ivy League you’re so excited to be a part of) who are diluting your degree. Definitely not the other groups (minorities, rich people, etc.) who get preferential admission with none of the extra work…
@Anonymous Can you at least provide like… a shred of evidence that athletes have higher GPAs?
@agreed evidence from spec that athletes tend to not have very high GPAs
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2013/03/12/athletes-deserve-respect
@Anonymous http://fiveyear.columbia.edu/athletics.php
I don’t know about *higher*, but the average GPA has historically been >3.0 for student athletes, with an awful lot of 4.0 semesters. Not exactly diluting the degree.
@Anonymous can you at least provide like…a shred of evidence that they don’t?
@Anonymous It’s on the person who made the claim to provide evidence, not on the scrutinizer. Greek life average GPAs are recorded and well-documented. Are athletic GPAs are transparent as that? I’m not sure. Does OP know?
@Anonymous Link/source to frat GPA’s please?
@Anonymous Considering that multiple commenters on this article have claimed that athletes are “diluting our GPAs”, the burden of proof actually rests equally on them.
The hordes of people who claim blanket stupidity and academic underperformance among the athletes are never asked to substantiate their claims with “like…a shred of evidence” beyond vague sentiment.
@Anonymous any student athlete trying to participate in an intellectual discussion in a small, seminar-style classroom setting… ever…
@non greek @blah: not saying you in particular aren’t a hard worker or a smart person, but don’t you agree that the athletes get special treatment when dealing with disciplinary committees? why aren’t we hearing about the girls that were hazing and are only hearing about zbt? and PS, its not like the rest of of us don’t do anything with our time. so sorry that you think our activities/internships/clubs/jobs are somehow less important than your practice.
@those minorities oh, yeah, we totally got in without doing any work man. All we were doing was selling cocaine off the block when Columbia was like, yo dawg, we need some minorities bitches, get in here. Congrats, if you’re an athlete, you just won one more person who hates you. I don’t dislike athletes for whatever gpas they have with a minor in spanish and business magic ( lol. real majors). I detest athletes when they act like whiny, entitled brats, i.e. you. Otherwise, I don’t give a shit. I wish athletes would shut up though,before embarrassing us more.
@Anonymous this is just ridiculous. athletes are not smarter than any other group of columbia students. they are not even AS SMART as most other students, with only a few exceptions that are mainly walk ons, or, on the flip side, dumb kids of really rich people. even if they do have a higher average gpa, which i find hard to believe. at columbia, gpa isn’t a measure of intelligence, it’s a measure of playing the system (if you’re like most student athletes): picking an easy major, taking classes your older teammates have already taken and for which they can provide copies of old exams or essays, learning to cheat, and doing a lot of grunt work to keep up (intellectually) with everyone else. ask most athletes, and they won’t deny it. and seriously, anyone who has ever had a baseball player or football player, or volleyball player–it’s the women’s teams as much as the men’s teams–in his or her lit hum class, can vouch for this.
@Ivy League I always laugh when people say their degrees are diluted by the athletes when the exact opposite is true. Without the association with the other Ivy League schools the degree is immediately worth significantly less. So stop hating on the football team and start thanking them for hitching all our wagons together with the rest of the Ancient Eight.
@non greek yeah, if you want to talk about students getting away with stuff, don’t look at greek life — look at the athletes. their hazing, scandals, etc are all kept hush hush. they even have employees in the athletics office who deal with this stuff as a liaison to the administration. perhaps they are punished in some way by their coaches in the end, but its never public.
funny how we don’t hear about the team that was actually doing the hazing….
@Robert Come to think about it…
Athletes are behind Nutella Gate
They are the reason for global warming
And I’m sure they had to do something with Benghazi.
Not that I’m a fan of them, but god, why so much hate….
@The Dark Band They’re covering for the athletics team that was involved, which is currently suspended. The university will never release a statement defaming a varsity team, hence the awkward lack of transparency in a community that, historically, has been more than happy to publicly scrutinize Greek life at every turn. ZBT hazes the shit out of their pledges (and still takes pledges, out of line with their national standards), but the incident in question had nothing to do with their recent pledge class. The let a Columbia University Varsity Athletics team haze their freshmen class inside of their house and probably got reported while doing so.
Was this post bad for the “community”? Yes. Is it important to uncover the university’s selective protection and scrutiny of some groups over others? Also yes.
@Anonymous “Zeta Beta Tau, founded as the world’s first Jewish fraternity, is grateful for the trust and support of Columbia University in our ability to create a model chapter on campus and in the community,” the statement said.
ZBT is about as Jewish as present-day Poland.
@Robert Out of all the follow ups to “As Jewish as…” You picked the best one.
@Anonymous Good lord. Sometimes I can’t believe this school.
@Anonymous No one fucking gives a shit anymore
@Anonymous Sorry, didn’t mean about this comment in particular.. just meant about this article i’m drunk