Members and alumni of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity at Wesleyan University have filed a discrimination lawsuit against the Connecticut school over a recent decision that requires all residential fraternities to become coed within three years.
Wesleyan announced the policy in September after several highly publicized issues at fraternity houses, including allegations of sexual assault.
Delta Kappa Epsilon said in a statement Thursday that it is seeking a temporary injunction in Superior Court after learning that students would not be given the option of housing at on-campus single-sex fraternities during the 2015-16 school year.
Wesleyan requires that all undergraduates live on campus.
A spokesman for the fraternity's alumni chapter calls the school's decision "political correctness gone wrong."
Wesleyan released the following statement on Friday morning:
In September 2014 Wesleyan announced a three year requirement for the co-education of its residential fraternities, including Delta Kappa Epsilon. Over the following months, representatives of DKE expressly disavowed any commitment to co-educate. Despite repeated requests from the University and several months in which to formulate its approach, the plan eventually submitted by DKE and subsequent communication from the organization did not include any timeline or detail for its proposed approach to partner with a sorority; nor did it adequately assure the university that female residents would have full and equal access to common areas of the house.
DKE’s annual program housing agreement was terminated for the next academic year only after the organization repeatedly failed to take any meaningful steps or make any reasonable commitments toward residential co-education before the date on which the housing selection process began. The DKE house has historically operated very differently than other special interest program houses at Wesleyan in many ways, but notably that it explicitly prohibits residence by females. This must change.
Wesleyan has offered DKE the opportunity to work regularly with the administration so that the DKE house might be ready for co-educated program housing in 2016. The Kent Literary Club and the Gamma Phi Chapter of DKE have instead chosen to commence a lawsuit against the University. The University is confident that this lawsuit has no merit.
