Staff Editorial: A punishment fitting the crime

This past March, when six different Greek houses were under investigation for various violations, we implored the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs to show some teeth and hand out stern punishments to those convicted of wrongdoing. After years of creating regulations that were consistently ignored, OFSA needed to ensure that fraternities and sororities thought twice before breaking the rules again.

Yesterday, OFSA did just that, and now the University is down a fraternity and a sorority. The national offices have suspended the charters of both ZBT and SDT -- one of only seven sororities on campus -- and expelled numerous members of each chapter. In addition, OFSA placed two more Greek houses -- the TEP fraternity and the Tri-Delt sorority -- on probation.

While the punishments handed down are shocking to some, they do not come without reason. Both ZBT and SDT were already on probation when they committed their most recent violations. Undoubtedly, members of both houses knew beforehand that hosting an off-campus mixer would be shirking the rules yet again.

But rather than deal with another slap in the face from the students who pledge to abide by these rules, OFSA and the national chapters have handed out a punishment that will hopefully discourage other houses from blatantly ignoring these policies as many have done in the past.

There is no question that Greek life is an important part of this campus. Fraternities and sororities have existed at Penn for decades, and they make an extremely positive contribution to the campus.

Parties and mixers involving Greek houses are not going away, nor should they based on these actions. But OFSA's efforts to regulate these events must be enforced by punishments for those houses that choose to violate agreements they make with the University and with their national offices.

Both ZBT and SDT will likely return to campus in the near future. Hopefully, new members will show more respect for their governing bodies than their predecessors did.

We applaud OFSA for staying true to its word and enforcing stiff penalties for these probation violations. We can only hope that TEP and Tri-Delt are more careful and abide by the terms of their probations. If they don't, it seems there will be a hefty price to pay.

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