Sigma Chi Sobers Up

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Stearns, an Ann Arbor financial planner and 1981 U-M grad, is secretary of the alumni group that owns the Sigma Chi fraternity house next to the Michigan Union. He is speaking of the student members who brought down the harshest punishment ever inflicted on a U-M fraternity.

In 2003, a Sigma Chi pledge suffered renal failure after he and other prospective members were forced to do calisthenics while deprived of sleep, food, and water. The semester before, Sigma Chi had sent two pledges to the hospital with alcohol poisoning, so the house was already on probation. After the second incident, every member living in the house was evicted, never to return. Then, after 125 years on campus, the chapter was disbanded by the national Sigma Chi organization.

Though Stearns says the pledge who suffered renal failure "was drinking in the bars with his buddies three weeks later," the incident led to a lawsuit and an out-of-court settlement. Sigma Chi was suspended for five years, until the case was settled and the last members of the old chapter had left school. It was allowed to resume pledging in 2008, and this past fall, a new generation of Sigma Chis finally returned to their house--which now is officially alcohol-free.