A Syracuse University student involved in the Theta Tau videos filed a complaint against SU with the Office for Civil Rights soon after the engineering fraternity was expelled in 2018, according to a letter obtained by The Daily Orange under the Freedom of Information Act.

The student’s complaint has not previously been reported on. The D.O. filed a FOIA request for documents related to it last year. The U.S. Department of Education received the complaint on June 7, 2018 and an OCR official closed the case about a month later.

OCR released a letter in the case to The D.O. late Wednesday afternoon. There are few new details about Theta Tau in it.

But the letter does detail an accusation from the student in which he claims SU discriminated against Theta Tau pledges and brothers, disciplining them “more harshly” than members of other SU fraternities who participated in “egregious conduct” such as hazing rituals, sexual violence and “spiking drinks.” The student said spiked drinks had “resulted in students being hospitalized,” according to the letter.

The D.O. on Thursday filed another FOIA request for the student’s full complaint, seeking information specific to the accusation about other fraternities. The document released Wednesday was OCR’s initial evaluation letter, which was sent to the student to explain why OCR would not investigate his complaint further. The fraternities were not named in the letter and the student’s name was redacted.

Office for Civil Rights Cas… by The Daily Orange on Scribd

OCR on July 16, 2018 said it closed the complaint because a lawyer representing the student and other students involved in the Theta Tau videos filed a federal lawsuit against SU containing the same or similar allegations. That case is still pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, although some plaintiffs dropped out of the legal action in 2019.

SU expelled Theta Tau in April 2018 for its involvement in the creation of videos showing behavior Chancellor Kent Syverud has called extremely racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist and hostile to people with disabilities. The fraternity chapter, in a statement at the time, said the videos depicted a “satirical sketch.”

The university later suspended several students for their roles in the incident. The student who filed the complaint with OCR was one of the students initially suspended that April, the letter and court records show. It’s unclear if he ever returned to campus.

The videos sparked protests and days of public forums. SU in response hired third-party consultants to review the university’s Greek life policies, among other things.

Karen Felter, a lawyer for the students still suing SU, according to court records, declined to comment on the complaint Thursday. A university spokesperson also declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

Published on February 20, 2020 at 8:17 pm

Contact Sam: sfogozal@syr.edu | @SamOgozalek