NEW HAVEN — Yale University will not discipline any students or student groups after concluding an investigation into charges of misconduct and discrimination at two recent events.
Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway announced the findings in a campus-wide email on Wednesday.
The controversy started at a Halloween party hosted by Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity when a student alleged she was turned away from the event after being told by a member that he was looking for “white girls only”.
Holloway said the investigation showed no evidence of systematic discrimination against people of color.
Students inside the party said guests were admitted on a first-come, first-serve basis until it became crowded. The findings did show that SAE created a chaotic environment and at times behaved disrespectfully and aggressively falling short of the community standards that the school expects.
You may recall thousands of students took to the streets in a March of Resilience following the racially charged incident and even marched to Yale President Peter Salovey’s house demanding a change in the culture at the school.
Salovey listened and said last month that the school plans to launch a center devoted to race, ethnicity and other aspects of social identity.
The other event investigated surrounds the William F. Buckley Jr. conference where there were allegations that student protesters spit on visitors at the free speech forum. The findings said while a student interrupted a speech, there was no direct evidence of anyone spitting on attendees. The student was found to have violated the university’s policy on free expression and faces consequences regarding the incident.
In February, Yale University banned the fraternity from campus for two years over a violation of the school’s sexual misconduct policy.
The university’s chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon was punished for what the fraternity describes as a presentation made at a February 2014 initiation ceremony.
Dean Jonathan Holloway said in a message to students that the fraternity took steps to respond to the violation and “improve the general climate that led to it.”
Holloway also shared a letter from SAE fraternity brothers, who apologized for the harm they caused but did not provide details of the offense. The letter says the sanctions imposed through August 2016 include a fraternity ban on communication via Yale email systems.
In March, the University of Oklahoma chapter was shut down after a video of members performing a racist chant went viral.
