“The chapter appealed the university’s decision earlier this year, and the university has upheld the expulsion.” “Kappa Sigma was suspended from SDSU in 2020 and expelled in 2022,” SDSU said in a statement. Four years later, the fraternity was given an immediate interim suspension while San Diego State investigated alcohol and health and safety violations. San Diego State put Kappa Sigma on probation in 2015 because of violations of the school’s alcohol policy. The Brennan incident also occurred on Big Bro night.īrennan was attempting to join a fraternity that had experienced a lot of run-ins with the university. The Hernandez incident occurred on “Big Bro” night - the night when pledges learn who their big brother will be. Prior to the accident, Hernandez had been heavily drinking at a party thrown by Phi Gamma Delta, which he was in the process of joining.Įducation One year after a pledge died, SDSU still struggles to control its fraternitiesĭocuments show that nearly 40 percent of the university’s Greek system came under investigation from 2014 through 2019 The investigation was published one year after Dylan Hernandez, a freshman from Florida, fell out of the top of a bunk bed at a campus dorm, hit his head, and later died. There were at least 18 instances in which students were taken to hospitals after drinking too much or suffering some sort of injury. Campus documents showed that the problems ranged from raucous parties where kegs of beer, hard alcohol and drugs were on hand to property damage. Some fraternities and sororities have been associated with trouble and injury for years at San Diego State and in the surrounding College Area neighborhood.Ī Union-Tribune investigation published in November 2020 found that 19 fraternities and sororities got in various levels of trouble with the university from 2014 through 2019. He has been unable to continue in school and is trying to focus on the medical care that he will need well into the future, if not the rest of his life, to get back to some semblance of normality,” they wrote. “He has had to drop out of SDSU leaving him with enormous student debt and nothing to show for it. Instead, this life-altering event left him physically and mentally injured and has sent him into a tailspin. “If this had not happened, Ben would be a junior at SDSU pursuing his business degree. This lawsuit is the only way we can send a message to Kappa Sigma and its members as well as other fraternities that allow this type of behavior,” the couple, who live in Pittsburgh, told the Union-Tribune in an email. “We want to see the bad behavior of this fraternity and its members stopped. The incident has caused anger and pain for Brennan’s stepfather, Kirk Gibson, and his wife, Lindsay. One former student, when reached, declined comment. The Union-Tribune is not identifying the nine people named in the lawsuit at this point because it did not have adequate time to contact all of them to request a comment. “As an organization, we continue to adamantly oppose hazing, the misuse of alcohol and placing the health and safety of any person at risk.” “What happened to Benjamin Brennan is unacceptable under any circumstances, and the Kappa Sigma Fraternity has taken action against the individuals who were involved,” he wrote. Wilson, executive director of Kappa Sigma’s national office, said in an email Friday: “We are aware of the pending lawsuit and once we receive it, we will review it closely. The lawsuit also names Water Wheel Properties and 5505 Lindo Paseo Development. The plaintiffs named in Brennan’s lawsuit include the national office of Kappa Sigma in Charlottesville, Va., the fraternity’s San Diego State chapter, and nine people associated with the local chapter at the time.
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