CARMEL, Ind. (AP) — An attorney representing the family of a freshman at an Indiana college who died of alcohol poisoning released e-mails Wednesday which he said paint a picture of an out-of-control fraternity house.

The family of 18-year-old Johnny D. Smith of Tucson wants to know whether hazing played a role in his death last month at Wabash College.

“There is no conduct policy at Wabash, there is no alcohol policy. There is a gentlemen’s rule that is no rule,” attorney Stephen Wagner said during a news conference at his suburban Indianapolis office.

Smith was found unconscious at the Delta Tau Delta chapter house on Oct. 5 and paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene. The college later disbanded the chapter following an investigation.

A spokesman for Wabash College, an all-male liberal arts school of some 900 students, declined comment Wednesday. The Associated Press also left a phone message seeking comment from Delta Tau Delta’s national headquarters, which had suspended the chapter following Smith’s death.

Smith’s death was the second in about a year at Wabash in which alcohol may have played a part. A 19-year-old Wabash freshman died in October 2007 when he slipped and fell from a roof at the campus in Crawfordsville, about 40 miles northwest of Indianapolis. Tests showed he had been drinking.

Wagner said the profanity-laced e-mails and others Smith’s family had uncovered showed “an out-of-control fraternity house where hazing and alcohol abuse were rampant.” While officials with the fraternity’s national office have declined to say whether a party had been held at the house the night before Smith’s death, one of the e-mails indicates a party had been planned for that weekend.

“There will be an abundance of alcohol,” including four beer kegs, the e-mail states.

One e-mail warns members to deny hazing occurs during a visit from a national fraternity representative, while another urges members to haze others if they fail to do kitchen chores.

Wagner urged anyone who knows anything about what happened the night Smith died to come forward “to put some pressure on Wabash to do the right thing and give these 18-year-olds some instruction before sending them into a fraternity house with no supervision other than the upperclassmen who are encouraging the drinking.”

Smith lived at the Delta Tau Delta house and had pledged to the fraternity, but had not yet been initiated. Alcohol is allowed in the Wabash fraternity houses, but only for students who are 21 years or older.

Was hazing and alcohol abuse rampant?
Family uncovers evidence at Wabash

By Bill Fouts

Thursday, November 27, 2008        Top of  page                      Article   

Through their attorneys, the parents of Johnny Smith, the Wabash freshman who died last October of alcohol poisoning, are speaking out about their son's death.

At a press conference in his Carmel, Ind. office Wednesday morning, Stephen Wagner, attorney for Stacy and Robert Smith of Tucson, Ariz., released a statement and a series of e-mails recovered from Johnny Smith's computer that were sent by fraternity members just days before his death.

"Although the details surrounding his death remain largely unknown, the family has uncovered a disturbing series of emails which describe an out-of-control fraternity house where hazing and alcohol abuse were rampant," the statement read.

Smith, 18, was a pledge in the Delta Tau Delta fraternity. He was found dead in his room the morning of Oct. 5. A toxicology report indicated Smith's blood-alcohol content was over five times Indiana's legal limit of .08.

Three crude and highly profane e-mails sent to pledges appear to condone behavior counter to the fraternity's Pledge of Social Responsibility which states in part that members refuse to participate in hazing, showing "utmost respect for women, refusing to tolerate mental abuse, intimidation and mean-spirited personal criticism and taking alcohol abuse seriously.

An e-mail dated Sept. 7 instructed pledges "not to say ANYTHING about ANYTHING" to a representative from the fraternity's national headquarters who was visiting that week. Specifically, the e-mail instructed the pledges to deny that a party occurred following "closing ceremonies" and any hazing "during chapel sing practices". In addition, the pledges were instructed to the tell the representative they were getting plenty of sleep, that they didn't mind doing house chores,

One e-mail dated Sept. 30 indicated the fraternity would hold a party the weekend of Smith's death. According to the e-mail, four kegs of beer and five gallons of "jungle juice" and another five gallons of "pink elephant" had been arranged.

A third e-mail sent three days before Smith's death appears to single Smith out for at least name calling during a late-night house cleaning detail.

Delta Tau Delta's national headquarters in Fishers, Ind. suspended all fraternity operations at Wabash in October. Wabash College terminated the fraternity's lease and has converted the house to supervised campus housing.

Wagner said lawsuits against Delta Tau Delta and/or Wabash may be forthcoming. However, the family is awaiting the outcome of the Crawfordsville Police Department's investigation and whether any criminal charges will be filed.

"At this point, the family just wants to know what happened to their son- how he died," Wagner said. "Down the line, they would consider filing a lawsuit."

Crawfordsville Police Chief Kurt Knecht said the investigation remains open and detectives are continuing to interview witnesses.

"To date, we've interviewed 21 witnesses," Knecht said.

James Russell, executive vice president for Delta Tau Delta's national headquarters in Fishers, Ind. said he could not comment on the status of the fraternity's independent investigation nor on material released by the Smith's attorneys. However, he said he did question the ethics the Smith's attorneys for releasing the e-mails while other investigations are ongoing. He did add that his thoughts and prayers were with the Smith family.

"That remains paramount in my thinking, that we've lost a special young man," Russell said.

Calls to Wabash College for comment were not returned.

Rift on Indiana Campus After Student Dies

By DIRK JOHNSON

Published: November 27, 2008           Top of  page                  Article         

CRAWFORDSVILLE, Ind. — A sort of philosophy class in a frat house, the students at Wabash College milled around a pool table in the Phi Gamma Delta house, exploring the dimensions of choice and consequence through the prism of tragedy.

Wabash College has closed the Delta Tau Delta fraternity, where an 18-year-old freshman died last month while drunk.

“When something terrible happens, people want answers,” said John Bogucki, a lanky freshman with arms folded across his chest. “But I’m a big believer in personal responsibility.”

This was no theoretical discussion. An 18-year-old freshman, Johnny Smith, died last month while drunk at another fraternity on campus, Delta Tau Delta. In the aftermath, the college ordered Delta Tau Delta disbanded and took over the lease on its house.

Since then, Wabash, an all-male school of about 900 students known for academic rigor and a pugnacious libertarian streak (“Wabash Always Fights” is its motto), has had some contentious meetings between school officials and students over the fairness of punishing the entire fraternity. The police have filed no charges in the case, but they say the investigation continues.

“Some of the students are very upset with me,” said the college’s president, Patrick E. White, who has been holding meetings with students, alumni and parents.

Both sides in the dispute draw heavily on the college’s chief governing principle, known here as the Gentleman’s Rule. Wabash students are expected to act as gentlemen on and off campus at all times. No other rules are said to be necessary.

In Dr. White’s view, the presence of a severely intoxicated minor in a fraternity house clearly qualifies as illegal conduct that violates the behavior code. But the closing of the fraternity, he acknowledged, has been regarded by some students “as an attack on the Gentleman’s Rule.”

As some students see it, the closing of an entire fraternity before the police have even completed an investigation punishes innocent students.

To Mr. Bogucki and many others at Wabash, who say the college has always prized treating students like men, not boys, the fraternity’s disbanding without discussion with student groups “left students in the dark” and came off as patronizing.

Founded in 1832, Wabash has long enjoyed a reputation as a place where students can speak their mind, though in a respectful manner. But on this woodsy campus, set in a charming little Main Street town that could pass for the setting of a Frank Capra tale, students lately are skittish about talking about the frat house drinking episode.

Kevin Andrews, the president of Phi Gamma Delta, spoke up for his friends at the shuttered Delta Tau Delta house, saying they had been put through torment as they tried to cope with the death of a fraternity member. While younger students were allowed to stay in the house, the college evicted those 21 and older.

“They had to drop everything they were doing to find another place to live,” said Mr. Andrews, 21, who intends to go to law school or divinity school after graduation. “They had papers to write, tests to prepare for. But they were left almost unable to function academically.”

Some fraternity members, staggered by Mr. Smith’s death, complained that closing the fraternity deprived them of solace. “When they took that away it stopped us from healing,” one member, Stevan Stankovich, told the college newspaper, The Bachelor. “Instead of losing one brother, I’ve now lost 20 brothers.”

The death also provoked talk here about heavy drinking among young people.

Rick Warner, an associate dean of students, who stopped to hang out briefly with the fraternity brothers at Phi Gamma Delta the other day, said there could be little dispute that “binge drinking has increased all over the country” and that even Wabash, known for its studious, earnest student body, was not immune.

The problems of binge drinking prompted 130 college presidents this year to sign the Amethyst Initiative, calling for a discussion about whether to lower the drinking age to 18, since, they said, “21 is not working.” As it is now, said the initiative’s leader, John M. McCardell Jr., a former president of Middlebury College in Vermont, “students lock themselves in dorm rooms and do shots.”

But Dr. White, who did not sign the Amethyst petition, said events like the death of Mr. Smith showed that 18-year-olds were not old enough to handle alcohol. Lowering the drinking age, he said, “isn’t going to fix the problem.”

Since last year, alcohol has been prohibited at fraternity houses at Wabash, even for students 21 or over. But inside the Phi Gamma Delta house, many made clear that rules, laws and lectures were unlikely to stop young people from drinking.

“Teaching us that alcohol is bad,” said one student, Brian Casey, “is clearly not going to change our behavior.”

Dr. White, meanwhile, welcomes the discussion, even among detractors of school policy. He said it reflected the Gentleman’s Rule.

“The Wabash man,” he said, “values the ability to think critically,” as well as act responsibly.

In all the talk about policies and laws, however, many students said they wanted to make sure one thing did not get lost: His friends miss Johnny Smith.

 A version of this article appeared in print on November 28, 2008, on page A33 of the New York edition.

Gentleman's Rule doesn't stop the drinking
December 5, 2008  Top of  page                          Article

Patrick E. White has a problem. White has been president of Wabash College for only two years, and each autumn Wabash has lost a freshman to an alcohol-related death on his campus.

Last year, five students climbed to the roof of a Wabash building. One slipped and fell four stories. One minute he was drunk, the next he was dead. This year a freshman fraternity pledge was found face down, dead in a pool of his own vomit. Tests revealed he had consumed a lethal dose of alcohol, five times the legal limit.

An all-male school, Wabash has no alcohol policy, only a "Gentleman's Rule" by which students are expected to act as gentlemen at all times. This includes obeying the laws that preclude underage drinking. It is clear that the Gentleman's Rule is not working. But what is?

Down the road at DePauw, a school picked by the Princeton Review as the top beer-drinking school in the country, administrators have grappled for 15 years to find an effective alcohol policy. Already there have been 10 alcohol-related hospital runs in the first semester. DePauw's new president, Brian Casey, recently told students, "I don't know a lot about alcohol abuse on college campuses. I don't want you to die because of alcohol."

A recent survey of students at 14 Indiana campuses found that 63 percent of students younger than 21 reported drinking illegally in the last month. Forty-four percent engaged in drinking purposely to get hammered, "binge drinking." Indiana University's alcohol and drug counselor Dee Collins says, "Students drink to black out or do reality TV stunts (like the roof at Wabash) and the binge habit picked up in college lasts into their 30s."

Many colleges have included alcohol education in their orientation programs. Not Wabash, however, where administrators question whether they should teach students about the hazards of alcohol when they are too young to drink legally. Wabash may want to rethink that notion.

But the truth is that nothing really is working, and the alcohol culture on America's campuses is a national scourge. The New York Times reported a recent government study that estimated 1,700 college students die each year in alcohol-related incidents, more that 599,000 are injured and more than 97,000 are victims of an alcohol-fueled sexual assault or date rape. IU's Dee Collins says that in 70 to 80 percent of the cases of sexual assault either the perpetrator or the victim has alcohol.

So, what is to be done? John McCardell, the former president of Middlebury College, thinks the answer is to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18. Then college students could be properly educated about alcohol. They could drink in public, at bars, fraternities and tailgates. They wouldn't have to hide out in their dorm rooms "pre-gaming," doing shots of tequila or vodka before venturing out to a ball game or a party, and sometimes on to the hospital emergency room.

McCardell's effort to make drinking legal on campuses is called the Amethyst Initiative, a petition now signed by 134 college presidents (including those from Butler, DePauw and Hanover) to encourage a national discussion on lowering the drinking age. America's universities are a huge profit center for the purveyors of booze and beer, and the presidents on board with this initiative should understand this: McCardell intends for this discussion to end exactly where the alcohol industry wants it to, with the drinking age dropped to 18.

As this discussion goes forward, the university presidents will find that Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the American Medical Association and the National Transportation Safety Board oppose lowering the drinking age. They believe the science about the brain and alcohol is on their side, along with traffic statistics on highway deaths.

If they can't drink responsibly at 21, critics ask, what makes you think it will be better at 18?