Delta Tau Delta Fraternity's national governing body has gone from indefinitely suspending the organization's West Virginia University colony over a student's video to now seeking to halt recognition of it altogether, but its members plan to appeal.
WVU Greek Life Director Roy Baker said the 66-member Delta Tau Delta colony - the term used for a prospective local chapter of a national fraternity that's composed of unofficial members who are seeking an official charter - is still recognized pending the appeal's outcome. It is has 30 days to file the appeal.
"We're here to support this group," Baker said. "We don't think they're bad students at all. They're good guys, but they just didn't get the level of support from a number of areas."
He said the colony recently exceeded university requirements by bringing 96 percent of its members to sexual-assault prevention training.
Angus Compton, colony president, said in an email Friday the colony was confident it would win its appeal, but did not offer further comment.
Tony Hylton, president of the corporation that oversees the operation of Delta Tau Delta's colony house, said the video, which he called "despicable," was posted by the member over spring break.
He said a consensus of the other members agreed to kick the student out of the colony "very quickly" after they returned from spring break.
When asked why the colony hadn't achieved full chapter status since returning to WVU in 2013, he said colony members had academic problems but the colony also kicked out 10 members when mid-semester grades came out this spring.
When a reporter pressed about hazing issues, Hylton said some members were previously kicked out over that, as well.
"It's not like the colony has just stood by and watched this stuff happen," he said. "It took action."
Baker was hired to the new Greek life director position as part of WVU's efforts to fix issues with its fraternities and sororities following the November 2014 death of Nolan Burch, 18. Morgantown police said they found Burch unresponsive after fellow students, who claimed to be members of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity, gave him alcohol as part of an initiation function.
The national Kappa Sigma fraternity said the WVU chapter was suspended at the time, and the chapter is no longer on campus.
Baker said that when he took his position in November of last year, the Delta Tau Delta colony was nearing the expiration of a deadline set for the end of this semester to meet requirements to achieve full chapter status again.
"It didn't make a lot of sense to me that, in two years, a colony couldn't get their charter," he said.
He requested, and the national fraternity granted, an extension of the time to this fall.
"But then when this video with MTV got posted, I think that's when the national headquarters said, 'We're done,' " Baker said.
Last week's indefinite suspension - a designation Baker said means a colony's activities are on hold while "an investigation takes place or while a plan is created for the future" - came in response to an MTV "Real World" reality show audition video that the student posted online to YouTube. The show had open casting calls on campus last month.
WVU's Interfraternity Council, which Baker said consists of the presidents and one additional representative from each of the school's fraternities, issued a statement saying that, in the video, made while he toured the colony's house, the student made inappropriate comments about women and described social functions that violated the council's conduct code. Baker said he expects that the Interfraternity Council will take action against the colony if it survives the move by the national body.
Baker, who said he spoke with national Delta Tau Delta official Jim Russell about the national body's decision to withdraw recognition, said the video showed alcohol, which the colony had told the national fraternity it wouldn't have at the house.
In a statement from the national body, Russell said the decision to withdraw recognition "was made after careful review and with the appreciation of the significant effort made by the student members and alumni volunteers to establish a new, values-based chapter for Delta Tau Delta at WVU.
"Unfortunately, some members of the group chose to ignore the opportunity to forge a new identity in alignment with the direction WVU is taking in strengthening its Greek community."
Russell and other national body officials didn't return the Gazette-Mail's requests for comment.
The national body's statement said it was founded in 1858 at Bethany College, in what is now West Virginia, and it established a presence in Morgantown two years later. It said it had a presence at WVU until 2006, and re-established a colony there in 2013. Hylton said the fraternity's WVU chapter left during the Civil War and that he thinks it returned in 1900.
A previous Gazette-Mail report, which said the chapter had most recently reorganized in 1996 after being expelled from WVU around 1992 because of hazing and violation of a suspension agreement, stated that the national fraternity yanked the WVU chapter's charter in 2006 over what Russell said were problems with academics and other issues that he would not specify.
Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, facebook.com/ryanedwinquinn, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.