Student Appeals Panel Upholds CSUN Frat’s Suspension

A student appeals panel at Cal State Northridge has upheld most of the one-year suspensions imposed to punish the campus chapter of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity because four of its pledges stole a historic San Fernando Mission bell in January.

The fraternity, CSUN’s largest with about 65 members, is still banned for one year from holding social events or participating in campuswide fraternity activities. But the group will have a chance to reduce a one-year ban on recruitment to apply only to this spring’s semester.

David Osokow, the student president of CSUN’s Interfraternity Council, said the council’s General Assembly, a panel of 10 fraternity leaders, reached its decision on the appeal Monday night after a closed-door session of about two hours.

In a presentation to the appeals panel, fraternity president Mario Menanno maintained the one-year suspension was too long, particularly with regard to recruiting, Osokow said.

Under the decision, Pi Kappa Alpha will be allowed to recruit new members in the fall if it submits a written program detailing its plans for handling its pledges, and that plan is approved by the IFC assembly group at its final meeting of the semester on May 15.

“All the sanctions weren’t made to destroy their house. We’re trying to help their house,” said Osokow, who sat in on the hearing but was not a voting member of the panel. Pi Kappa Alpha officers had insisted that a full year’s ban on recruiting could result in the demise of their group.

Another student panel had recommended the suspensions last month. Officers of Pi Kappa Alpha, which has a history of disciplinary problems, admitted its pledges took the bell on Jan. 4 in what was meant to be a prank. The bell was one of 21 commissioned for presentation to the California missions in 1909. The bell at the San Fernando mission hung before the church on a special stand.

The fraternity can appeal the decision, but Osokow said he did not expect it to do so.