CSUN Teachers Vote to Boycott Fraternity

Eager to show solidarity with campus minorities, the Cal State Northridge Faculty Senate on Thursday called for a boycott of a fraternity whose suspension over a controversial party flyer will soon end under the terms of an unpopular legal agreement.

The faculty members adopted the resolution after university officials this week announced plans to settle a lawsuit brought by the campus chapter of Zeta Beta Tau, whose invitation to a party last fall offended Mexican-Americans with a reference to what critics said was a song about a “Mexican whore.”

“If the courts can’t do it, we can do it as a moral thing,” said Kenyon Chan, chairman of the Asian-American Studies Department who suggested the boycott.

Later, fraternity lawyer Jeff Berns called the proposed boycott “out of line” and said in a phone interview that “ZBT would like to put this behind them, would like to get together with the campus and start building bridges and we’ll see who the most mature members of the campus are.”

University President Blenda J. Wilson also opposed the boycott, telling the gathering of faculty representatives their mission was to educate students, not punish them with a measure she considered isolating.

“They’re young people. They come here to learn, to grow and develop, and they can’t do that if your view is to punish,” Wilson said. “You can condemn, but don’t punish.”

But in a heated discussion that often mirrored the national debate over free speech versus sensitivity to minority concerns, Chan and other professors said most CSUN students were legally adults and that punishment is a form of teaching.

“As a mother of a 10-year-old, I know you can’t forgive all the time,” said political science professor Jane Bayes. “You have to make a statement on how to live and stick by it.”

“I don’t want a motion that’s just fluff,” said Chan. “A boycott sends a message to minority students that we’re tired of ignoring those who trample them.”

The 84 Senate members are elected to represent the campus’ 630 full-time instructors. Their resolution condemns ZBT’s behavior as “an affront to the entire campus community, in particular, Chicano/Latinos and female members.”

It urges a boycott of all ZBT activities for one year, although several professors conceded they never attend fraternity functions anyway.

The Faculty Senate took the action after Chicano studies professor Rudy Acuna criticized the advisory group for failing to speak out against the controversial ZBT flyer, which outraged Mexican-American students with its invitation to honor “Lupe,” who critics identified with the fictitious Mexican prostitute in book of ribald fraternity songs.

Noting that ZBT is a predominantly Jewish fraternity, Acuna also criticized the Anti-Defamation League, campus women and Jews, and other minority groups for failing to rally behind their Mexican-American colleagues.

“I don’t think we have acted as a community,” Acuna said.

Wilson said she, too, had been troubled by the lack of a campus-wide outcry. But she defended the decision to settle ZBT’s lawsuit out of court and reinstate the fraternity on April 1, ending a 14-month suspension after only 4 1/2 months.

CSU lawyers advised that the university probably would have lost the case if it went to trial, especially if a judge had accepted ZBT’s contention that the suspension violated its First Amendment rights, Wilson said. She added that she and other university officials decided that the cost of the legal battle--an estimated $30,000 a month for the school’s fees alone--could be better spent, particularly during a budget crisis threatening instructor layoffs.

“While in court, we are not educating anybody and that’s our role,” Wilson said Thursday. “And why give dear money to a cause that serves no purpose?”

Under the terms of the settlement, ZBT has agreed to publish a full-page apology in the campus newspaper, the Sundial, for four consecutive days. Members will also have to attend workshops on cultural diversity.

But student leader Jose Luis Vela, president of the campus chapter of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, said campus Mexican-Americans are bitter and plan a demonstration and vigil on Monday to protest what they consider lenient treatment of a group affluent enough to wage a costly legal fight.

“We see it as the university giving in to a group that has money,” said Vela.