The 12th national FRATERNAL LAW CONFERENCE will take place November 16-17, 2007, at the Westin Hotel in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. The full day session will begin at 9:00 a.m. on Friday and the half-day session on Saturday ends at noon....

Tim Burke, Manley Burke, tburke@manleyburke.com On December 10, 2005, 18-year old Phanta “Jack” Phoummarath died of alcohol poisoning following a party at the University of Texas’ Lambda Phi Epsilon House.  On December 13, 2006, following a year-long investigation, a Travis...

Dan McCarthy, Manley Burke As previously reported in the November, 2006 issue of Fraternal Law, the Omicron Chapter of Sigma Chi, located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and comprised of students attending Dickinson College, recently filed suit against the College.1  The primary...

Tim Burke, Manley Burke, tburke@manleyburke.com In April of 2003, members of the Lambda Chi Alpha Chapter at the University of Georgia took a potential pledge to several Athens, Georgia area bars to “entice him to become a member.”  One of...

Dan McCarthy, Manley Burke “They tortured my son.”  Army Master Sgt. Mark Jones told the judge, according to the Associated Press.  “He wasn’t hazed.  He was tortured.” The first two fraternity members convicted under the new Florida hazing law each...

Barbara Schwartz Bromberg, Esq., Dinsmore & Shohl LLP INTRODUCTION Because of the unique nature of fraternal foundations and the fact that many of their donors wish to establish named restricted funds that benefit a particular chapter or area of particular...

Tim Burke, Manley Burke, tburke@manleyburke.com Middle Tennessee State University has gone to court to obtain a subpoena which has been sent to the national offices of Sigma Nu Fraternity, Inc.  The subpoena seeks information about alleged hazing at the Theta...

Tim Burke, Manley Burke, tburke@manleyburke.com On February 9, 2007, a jury in Cleveland, Ohio acquitted the former Dean of Notre Dame College on two misdemeanor counts of failure to report a felony.1 As reported in the September 2006 issue of...

Tim Burke, Manley Burke, tburke@manleyburke.com On December 6, 2006, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) issued a scathing report criticizing American colleges and universities for their continued use of “speech codes.”  Their recent report, entitled “Spotlight on Speech...

The 1st issue of Fraternal Law was published in September, 1982.  This is issue Number 100.  The first story in issue Number 1, written by Fraternal Law’s founder, the late Robert E. Manley, described the publication’s purpose in the following...

James Harvey The use of what a court described as “strong-arm tactics” and an illegal recording during university disciplinary proceedings has resulted in an award of more than $140,000 in damages to a fraternity.  As part of the award, punitive...