The Duke Chronicle provide the following update this afternoon: The operations of the Eta Prime chapter of Kappa Sigma fraternity have been suspended, Mitch Wilson, executive director of the Kappa Sigma national organization confirmed. The fraternity will undergo an investigation to determine the status of its charter, but all activities and events are now prohibited.
Here we go again. But instead of Mexicans and sorority sisters, it is now Asians and a fraternity at Duke University.
CREDIT: The Chronicle
This is what Duke’s Chronicle is reporting:
A Kappa Sigma theme party held Friday has drawn major backlash from the Asian community and others at the University.
At 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday several students including seniors Ashley Tsai, Tong Xiang and Ting-Ting Zhou posted flyers across Duke’s campus protesting a Kappa Sigma party that took place Feb. 1. The flyers included emails sent out to party invitees as well as photographs of students at the party, which were taken from Facebook.
Here is a copy of the original email invitation with the protest comments added:
According to The Chronicle, “the party was originally called ‘Kappa Sigma Asia Prime’ before a report was filed with the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life, after which a second email was then sent to invitees. The message said Asia Prime was canceled and a new party ‘International Relations’ would instead take place.”
The story said that after the protest flyers were posted on Tuesday morning, “members of Kappa Sigma were seen removing them.”
The story continues:
“This is not just about Asians, one party or one frat,” Tsai said. “This is a consistent thing happening. We want serious things to be done by the student body and the University so that this never happens again.”
Although Zhou is the sitting president of the Asian Students Association, she made it clear that the distribution of flyers was not affiliated with any particular organization. She said that undergraduate students of all races participated in the flyering.
Later in the day, the Chronicle reported that Kappa Sigma’s president Luke Koehane issued an apology:
“Upon learning of the deeply damaging effects of our email to our fellow students, we should have completely canceled the aforementioned party. The Duke Community in which we exist is one that we see too often as divided, and while our actions have brought attention to and widened that divide, it is our sincere intention to work to contribute to a United Duke.”
The Chronicle also wrote the following:
Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta said he met with Kappa Sigma leadership on Tuesday morning, expressing his disappointment that the party occurred despite encouragement from the University administration to cancel it.
A protest against the party is scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday at the West Campus bus stop, and more than 560 people had responded on Facebook as “Going” by the time of publication.
