Every time a chapter in Greek Life commits an action that breaks the MU standards of conduct, two things are typically created: a violation report and a sanction. These sanctions and violations are then reported on the community conduct history page on the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life website, with the exception of violations handled by the Office of Inclusion, DIversity and Equity. Compiling this information paints a picture of a chapter’s disciplinary history and potential future.
The data on the OFSL website currently ranges from 2018-22, but at time of data collection, 2017 data was available and can still be accessed via the Wayback Machine. The data covers every chapter in MU Greek Life no matter what council it is a part of. There are no violations that fall under the jurisdiction of the Office of Institutional Equity within the data collected from the OFSL website.
“No organizations have yet been found responsible for an equity process violation,” Uriah Orland, the associate director of the MU News Bureau, said. “In other words, there are individuals who may do something that belong to a student org but that haven’t found the evidence to say it is a broader organization issue.”
On an average year, one can expect 29 violations to occur among all fraternities and 1.67 violations to occur among all sororities. For those violations, one can expect 42.5 sanctions to be received among all fraternities and 0.62 sanctions to be received among all sororities, according to the compiled averages of the yearly violations and sanctions.
According to Orland, sanctions are determined after responsibility has been decided. The responsibility may fall on individuals or an organization involved.
“Sanctions are in response to specific violations that have occurred,” Orland said. “Our goal is to educate students in the effort to prevent further violations.”
Since 2017, the 26 fraternities who have committed a violation have an average of 6.62 violations per chapter overall. In the same time span, the average sorority has committed 0.38 violations per chapter overall per. Of the three sororities which have violations, the average number of violations committed by those sororities is 3.33.
In the data set, fraternities committed the most violations and received the most sanctions in 2018, with 80 violations and 53 sanctions received in that year alone. Sororities committed the most violations in 2021, with 6 total violations and 6 sanctions.
Fraternities committed the least number of offenses in 2019, with 15 violations and 16 sanctions. Sororities committed the least number of offenses in 2019, with no violations or sanctions.
The fraternity with the most total violations from 2017-22 is Alpha Epsilon Pi, with 16 total violations committed. It also has the most total sanctions received in that same time period, at 24. In that same time frame, the sorority with the most violations is Gamma Phi Beta with 4 violations. Gamma Phi Beta also has the highest number of sanctions: 5.
There are 11 fraternities and 18 sororities who have not committed a violation or received a sanction since 2017.
There are 37 total fraternities, and each is connected to a council. Thirty-two fraternities are connected to the Interfraternity Council, two are in the Multicultural Greek Council, and three are in the National Pan-Hellenic Council.
For the 26 fraternities that have committed violations, 21 IFC fraternities have committed 172 violations and received 247 sanctions. One NPHC fraternity has committed 3 violations and received 1 sanction. No MGC fraternities have committed a policy violation or received a sanction.
There are a total of 22 sororities at MU, each of which are a part of a council. Zeta Phi Beta is excluded from the data on the website. Fifteen sororities belong to the Panhellenic Association, four belong to NPHC, and three belong to MGC.
There are 18 sororities from the data that do not have a record of violations or sanctions. Thirteen PHA sororities, two NPHC sororities and all three MGC sororities have not committed a violation or received a sanction.
Of the three sororities with violations, two PHA sororities have committed a total of 7 violations and received 9 sanctions. One NPHC sorority has committed 3 violations and received 4 sanctions. No MGC sororities have committed a violation or received a sanction.
For more information on Greek Life violations and sanctions, you can find the data used for this story at: https://fsl.missouri.edu/community-history/.
Edited by Emma Flannery | eflannery@themaneater.com
Copy edited by Amelia Hurley and Jacob Richey | jrichey@themaneater.com
