On May 8, 2012, two members of our fraternity participated in an offensive act involving
a hurtful ethnic stereotype. This act was not in any way sanctioned by our organization,
nor did it involve our pledges or our official pledge process as some reports have implied.
However, since the two individuals involved are members of our organization and
because the act took place on our property, we accept full responsibility for their actions.
We sincerely apologize to anyone who had to witness this event or who was offended by
hearing about it. Our organization has arranged to take steps internally to educate and
train our members to ensure that no incident of this kind happens again.
Our chapter of Alpha Delta Phi is an ethnically and culturally diverse group that is
composed of members of the Caucasian, Latino, African American, Asian, Jewish and
LGBT communities. We proudly maintain a strong record of tolerance and
inclusiveness. We were one of the first fraternities in the country to welcome African
American and Latino members in the 1950s. More recently, we were recognized in
national media for organizing a counter protest against the bigoted Westboro Baptist
Church when they marched on campus in 2009. Given this history, the incident on May
8th is exceptionally embarrassing to us and contradictory to our values. We are
committed to restoring our reputation as an inclusive organization that opposes any kind
of racial, ethnic, or cultural insensitivity.
Roger Deschner
Class of 1977
President, Chicago Society of Alpha Delta Phi
While fully appreciating Alpha Delt’s decision to apologize, I still don’t understand what prevented the active members of the chapter from apologizing much sooner, thereby preventing a hurtful prank from becoming a saga.
I appreciate the apology, but like Adam, I also don’t get why an alum had to do this instead of current students.
At DU, the VP of Public Relations quickly made an apology, and I think Alpha Delt should have done the same thing.
Thanks for an apology that represents to a T the lack of accountability among the individuals in Alpha Delt that partook in the bias incident. GROW UP BOYS!
Maybe they didn’t apologize because they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong. You can scream and argue about it all you want, but from what I’ve heard, they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong.
All this incident has managed to do is increase tension and make a mockery of this “Bias Response Team.”
And this entire event only became a saga because of OMSA and other organizations that wouldn’t let it go. It really should have died down ages ago. It’s just awesome how our colleagues are being discriminated against by the police, women are being sexually harassed/raped, and many other racial/sexist/otherwise discriminatory crimes are occurring in this community, but what the organizations that vow to protect minorities choose to focus on are two frat kids wearing sombreros.
Just awesome.
I kind off agree and disagree with the previous comments.
DU rushed to apologize and their apology was seen as insincere… they end up apologizing like 3 times according to the original Marron article.
You know how you can tell your life is in shambles? When a bunch of racist 20-year-olds you’re nominally in charge of ask you to write a farcical and probably dishonest pseudo-apology to a college newspaper for them.
And then you do it.
Haha, thank you Tom!! So very true :)
Tom is right! This shouldn’t count.
You are a fool. It’s comments and opinions like this that have made a mountain out of this molehill – “they apologized too early”, “they apologized too late”, “This shouldn’t count”… What do you want from these kids? This entire incident has been a series of rants from oversensitive, attention seeking cry babies who speak up and call for radical consequences for the fraternities involved, all while being extremely insensitive and offensive towards the very individuals they are calling out for being insensitive and offensive.
This ordeal has gone on long enough and people need to suck it up and move on – nothing more can come from this other than more embarrassment for the University, OMSA, the Bias Response Team, the RSOs who attacked the fraternities, and cry babies everywhere.
Wake up and show this much passion for something that actually matters in the world, not two events that a few latino extremists found offensive.
Idiot racist.
waking up and moving on = condoning irresponsible people to hide behind the backs of frat brothers 40 years their senior???
Something that was omitted from the original maroon article and most subsequent discussion was the acknowledgment that these two incidents, while they may have been isolated to a few individuals, are indicative of a campus CLIMATE that is unacceptable. It’s a shame that we closed off this discussion to pointing fingers and analyzing apologies when we could have opened it up into a larger discussion about insensitivity, ignorance, and injustice on our campus that INCLUDES discrimination, sexual assault and harassment,and neighborhood relations. To cite this as a few frat bros in sombreros and then say that there are more important things to be worrying about just completely ignores the intricacies of the issues at hand. There’s a reason AD didn’t respond immediately and didn’t think there was even a problem just as there’s a reason that many people have called OMSA, etc. over reacting cry babies for daring to talk about these issues. And those reasons are one in the same, it all goes back to the climate on campus and climate/culture is something we all have a hand and a stake in whether we choose to act on that or not. DU stepped up and recognized these finer issues after their initial apologies and engaged in productive dialogue with members of the administration, OMSA, RSOs, other fraternities, and Student Government. I hope that now AD and private individuals in their own minds will begin to do the same.