UCLA Fraternity Suspended in Crude Depiction of Abortion

The Sigma Chi fraternity chapter at UCLA was suspended Monday and ordered to do community service after members painted slogans and a crude depiction of abortion on a motor home bound for a football game.

The Interfraternity Council, the governing body of the university’s fraternities, prohibited Sigma Chi from social activities, including Homecoming, for the remainder of the fall quarter, which ends in mid-December.

Sigma Chi members were also ordered to serve 250 hours of community service for the Oct. 12 incident.

Fraternity members intent on seeing the UCLA-Stanford football game in Palo Alto had painted a woman’s bloody sexual organs, a hanger and the slogans: “Don’t laugh, your daughter’s inside,” “Daughters trained inside” and “Abortion-Yes!”

The decorated motor home was driven from the Westwood campus to Palo Alto. One Sigma Chi member offered little criticism of the penalty.

“(The suspension) will give us some time to look at our representation on campus,” said Richard Sherwood. “But it’s weird that a philanthropic thing is part of our punishment, when it should be done for its own sake.”

University administrators, after hearing of the slogans, wrote a letter to the Interfraternity Council and suggested the suspension, Assistant Dean Peter Weiler said.

The fraternity responded with a full-page advertisement published in the Oct. 30 Daily Bruin apologizing for the incident and stating in part:

“We at Sigma Chi understand that a college football game should be enjoyable for all involved and recognize that the boundaries of ‘good clean fun’ have been overstepped.”