The national president of one of the US's largest fraternities is concerned about the potential snub Sigma Alpha Epsilon might face in other universities after JPMorgan Chase & Co decided stop managing an investment account owned by the fraternity's charitable foundation.
SAE's national president Bradley Cohen was quoted as saying, "If JPMorgan is going to turn us down, who's next? What if universities start saying SAE's not welcome? How much longer can we sustain these losses -- loss of life, loss of credibility to those who join and drop out because they were lied to, loss of valuable resources and loss of our reputation as leaders and as true gentlemen."
The Wall Street bank earlier this month dropped SAE's charitable foundation as a client, Bloomberg said. According to JPMorgan vice president Anthony Alberico, it was concerned about the fraternity's recent publicity. The news agency said SAE has been linked to 10 deaths due to drinking, drugs and hazing beginning 2006, which was noted to be higher than any other fraternity.
On the same day JPMorgan cut its official ties with SAE, Cohen announced that the fraternity will no longer conduct one of its defining traditions. Pledging, is defined as a months-long initiation by a fraternity, which historically has recruits exposed to opportunities wherein they would be subject to brutal hazing. Because of Cohen's decision, Bloomberg said fraternity alumni had called him out, including Texas oilman-turned-investor T. Boone Pickens. Bloomberg said SAE is only one of the few national fraternities who have dropped pledging as one of its traditions.
The news agency said that the cancellation of pledging might have been more personal as what recent events perceived it as a business decision. Cohen, who has an older son named Devon, is concerned about his son's exposure to hazing as the latter has already expressed his desire to join the fraternity.
Telling Bloomberg at his Los Angeles home, Cohen said, "I don't want him to be scarred mentally from hazing. I don't want him to want to join SAE so badly that he'll do anything he's told."
According to a list that was released publicly on SAE's website due to a lawsuit settlement, universities have disciplined over a hundred of the fraternity's chapters beginning 2007, some of it were spurred from outcomes of deaths or injuries sustained during hazing. Although several US states recognize brutal hazing as a msidemeanor, there are some, like California, considers violent acts resulting from hazing as a felony offense.
