Consequences
At the November Student Community Liaison Committee meeting, there was a discussion about the consequences of student misconduct. A spokesperson of the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities (OSRR), Matthew Armas, introduced himself to the group and mentioned that student misconduct cases are sent to his office and dealt with accordingly.
Sent to Cal Poly
During the meeting, SLO Police Chief Rick Scott also mentioned that citations issued to student offenders in the neighborhoods are sent to the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities at Cal Poly. They, in turn, look into the situation and decide on appropriate sanctions against the student.
How it started
The reason this topic came up was that, during the previous SCLC meeting in October, the Greographic Neighborhoods representative, Mila Vujovich-La Barre, representing San Luis Obispo Residents, brought out a document with screenshots of various SLOPD noise citations taken from the public records log online, and she distributed it to the committee. The noise citations were given to Cal Poly students at illegal fraternity houses in the neighborhood. However, the citations say that they are not affiliated with any college, both colleges or refused to give their school affiliation. Why? Why were fraternity members misleading SLOPD? When Mila Vujovich-La Barre queried the committee on this, she faced a lot of pushback from the Interfraternity Council President, Anders Ruud, who scolded her for “outing” those people. Never mind that these are publicly available documents that anyone can access on the SLOPD website or that these people mislead the police. The meeting ended with Mila being the “bad guy” for outing dishonesty, and of course, the “taboo” subject of illegal fraternity houses in R1 and R2 neighborhoods was swept under the rug.
Interesting…
Here’s where it gets interesting: Anders Ruud, the IFC President who chastised Mila, was the President of the Delta Upsilon fraternity before becoming President of the IFC and is still actively involved with Delta Upsilon. On the Cal Poly active sanctions page, it mentions the following:
Delta Upsilon (effective February 15, 2024)
Violation of Health & Safety, Violation of Alcohol, Violation of Policies, Violations of Law, Violation of Student Organization Events
Interim Suspension (completed February 23, 2024)
Social Probation (completed April 26, 2024)
Probation through Fall 2024
Educational and Remedial Sections (due June 7, 2024)
From the above information, the Delta Upsilon fraternity started their probation on February 15th, 2024 and completed it on April 26, 2024. Getting through it with no issues. According to the publicly accessible police citations however, a citation for an Unruly Gathering was issued on 3/16/2024, St. Fratty’s Day, to Delta Upsilon. They had a rager of a party at their illegal fraternity house at 281 Albert Street. Not only did the fraternity receive a citation, the officer also wrote a police report about the gathering, according to the citation. There were 300 people at the party, also indicated on the citation, and the citation was issued to the VP of finance for Delta Upsilon.
According to SLOPD, citations are sent to the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities for adjudication. And the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities does something about it. Right?
The cited party at Delta Upsilon’s illegal fraternity house in an R1 neighborhood was March 16, 2024, right in the middle of their social probation – according to the sanctions page, Delta Epsilon’s probation started in February 2024 and ended in April 2024.
Nothing to see here
So, exactly what happened with this situation? What did the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities do? Based on the documentation, one thing is for certain: absolutely nothing. Nothing to see here. Delta Upsilon’s social probation was lifted in April, and they’ve continued to have noisy parties at their illegal fraternity house at 281 Albert Drive.