CSUN Settles Suit on Controversial Fraternity Flyers : Rights: The school agrees to reinstate the Zeta Beta Tau chapter. The decision angers a group of Chicano students and professors.

Rather than fight a potentially expensive lawsuit, Cal State Northridge has agreed to reinstate a campus fraternity suspended for distributing flyers considered offensive to Mexican-Americans, school President Blenda J. Wilson said Wednesday.

The decision prompted a group of angry Chicano students and professors to walk out of a meeting called by Wilson on Wednesday evening to discuss settlement of the suit, which was filed by the campus chapter of Zeta Beta Tau.

“You make it seem like we should just settle, just be quiet and it will go away,” CSUN senior Teresa Bautista said to Wilson. “You just want us to forget about it.”

Bautista was among 30 or so angry students who Wilson followed out of the meeting at the school’s University Club after failing to persuade them to listen to her explanation. After a few minutes, they left, marching across campus and shouting, “Chicano Power.”

Wilson said she agreed to the settlement in large part because the lawsuit would have been expensive and difficult for CSUN to win if the court accepted the fraternity’s contention that the suspension violated its First Amendment rights.

“At a time when the university is very, very strapped for funds, we received an estimate that it would cost us at least $30,000 a month for our legal defense,” Wilson said. “And if we lost we would have to pay the legal fees of the opposing side. We figured we were looking at $60,000 a month or more.”

Under the terms of the settlement, which was reached Wednesday, the fraternity will be reinstated on April 1.

For its part, ZBT has agreed to place full-page advertisements in the campus newspaper for four consecutive days, apologizing for the incident. Members will also be required to attend educational workshops on cultural diversity.

ZBT attorney Jeff Berns said the fraternity was apologizing for the hurt feelings of Chicano students rather than for the specific words on the flyers, which he said were protected by fraternity members’ right to free speech. “We were willing to accept a certain punishment, more to help the campus appease the students that are screaming for blood,” said Berns, an alumnus of the Northridge ZBT chapter. “We’re not admitting we were wrong.”

The settlement cuts short a 14-month suspension that was ordered against the organization last November, after members distributed a flyer inviting students to a party honoring “Lupe,” a fictitious Mexican prostitute in a ribald fraternity song.

The flyers outraged members of the campus Chicano community, who said that the song, “Lupe,” insulted both Mexican-American women and the religious figure of the Virgin of Guadalupe, from whom the song’s title character derives her name.

The fraternity will remain on probation and will be barred from participating in intramural sports for the remainder of the school year, according to the settlement terms.

The group of students and professors who stormed out of the meeting with Wilson said they were planning a protest against the decision.

“I don’t see how you can say this is their free speech,” said student Iris Miranda. “It’s demeaning to us.”

Wilson, however, insisted that shortening the suspension to 4 1/2 months does not detract from its effectiveness. It still punished the fraternity, she said, and focused attention on the need for understanding among cultural groups on campus.

Wilson said she accepted the fraternity’s apology as sincere, and at the meeting on campus urged students to try promote understanding by talking with ZBT members.

“They have at least learned that there were people who were hurt, and that there is a consequence to words,” Wilson said.

But Bautista said she had tried to discuss the incident with ZBT members and had been rebuffed.

“They don’t look at or listen to me, because I’m subhuman to them,” she said. “I tried, but they don’t care.”