USC Suspends 2 Organizations for Anti-Semitic Acts

A fraternity and a sorority have been suspended by USC officials after members of both houses, angered by their loss in a Greek Week competition to a predominantly Jewish fraternity, chanted anti-Semitic remarks and painted “Jew Week” on the sidewalk outside the winners’ house, school officials said Friday.

USC President James H. Zumberge ordered Kappa Sigma fraternity and Pi Beta Phi sorority temporarily banned from participating in campus activities and from pledging new members pending an investigation by a disciplinary panel composed of USC administrators, faculty and students.

Zumberge, in a letter to all Greek houses on campus, said he was “outraged and saddened by this expression of bigotry.” He said the approximately 25 students involved “have disgraced the university, their fraternity and sorority, their families and friends.”

The incidents occurred March 13, when members of Kappa Sigma and Pi Beta Phi began drinking after their loss to members of Sigma Alpha Mu in Greek Week activities--a round of contests featuring relay races, dance marathons and the like designed to raise money for charity, according to Jim Dennis, USC vice president for student affairs.

The students marched to the Sigma Alpha Mu house, chanted anti-Semitic slogans, painted the “Jew Week” slogan and uprooted some plants while littering the fraternity house with debris, Dennis said. A member of Sigma Alpha Mu was reportedly burned in effigy, and later that night, members of Pi Beta Phi placed a sign that also said “Jew Week” outside their sorority house, he said.

Dennis said Sigma Alpha Mu members and other students who happened to be in the area protested the incident to university officials. Some members of the suspended houses admitted their involvement, and Zumberge ordered the suspension in “an attempt by the university to show that some things can’t be tolerated,” Dennis said.

Dennis said other Greek houses have voiced “universal condemnation” of the incident.

“I think that’s a very positive sign,” he added. “They’re basically saying they will not accept in the Greek community acts that are discriminatory and racist.”

Officials of Kappa Sigma and Pi Beta Phi could not be reached for comment Friday, and the president of Pi Beta Phi earlier told the Daily Trojan newspaper she would not comment on the incident.

However, Zumberge in his letter to Greek houses Wednesday noted that Pi Beta Phi had suspended the members involved and ordered them to do volunteer work at a Jewish community service agency.

Also, both Kappa Sigma and Pi Beta Phi officials have apologized to Sigma Alpha Mu, campus officials said.

Don Dadesky, president of USC’s Sigma Alpha Mu chapter, said school officials “dealt with the situation as promptly and as swiftly as they could. . . .”

“Personally, I’m disappointed in the actions of a few individuals (in the other houses), but I’m confident the matter will be resolved soon,” he said.

Dennis said last week’s occurrences were the first major anti-Semitic incident in his nearly 20 years on the USC campus.

Nine Years

Rabbi Laura Geller, director of USC’s Hillel Jewish Center, said: “There’s been no incident involving so many people in the nine years I’ve been here.”

She said it was significant that the university administration’s “attitude has not been that boys will be boys” and praised Zumberge for responding “quickly and strongly” to the events of last week.

“USC, like other universities, attracts students from very different backgrounds . . . and there’s racism and anti-Semitism just under the surface,” she said. “It doesn’t reflect on USC as much as it does on a whole generation of college students who have never learned sensitivity for the feelings of people different from themselves.”

Times staff writer Don Rosen contributed to this article.