The only chapter not in good standing is the Delta Tau Delta fraternity, which was found in violation of a number of SCampus rules — including endangering the health or safety of others and using unauthorized alcohol or tobacco — on July 11. The chapter is on disciplinary probation until the end of Spring 2024 and is required to complete two educational workshops — one on risk prevention and another on ethics. 

As part of the statewide law, the University will also publish a list of approved chapter-held events for each fraternity and sorority that were held over the preceding academic year. Chapters held a combined total of 172 events in 2022-23, ranging from invites and themed parties to fundraisers and rush informationals. 

Devin Walker, director of the Fraternity & Sorority Leadership Development team, is involved in collecting data for the annual report. Before the bill was sworn into law, USC required affiliated chapters to submit information on their activities for the year, Walker said. Failure to do so put the organizations’ affiliation and recognition by Student Life at risk.

USC did not publish comprehensive statistics on Greek life before this year’s mandate. Associate Vice Provost for Student Affairs and Student Engagement Emily Sandoval said the University kept that data for internal use because it wasn’t “readily accessible and there wasn’t a high interest” from the USC community to see it.

“A good standard across university processes was only publishing information of organizations who lost recognition on a campus,” Sandoval said. “The push to start sharing all the information of any potential violations that are held by fraternities and sororities in a given year is fairly new.”

Publishing annual data on Greek organizations will promote transparency, Sandoval said. 

“We get to really show off the work that [chapters] are doing with philanthropy, their fundraising, how many members they have and their academics,” she said.

The bill, authored by Assembly member Freddie Rodriguez, was born of student activism and concern for increased Greek life accountability and transparency. It was co-sponsored by the University of California Student Association and Students Against Sexual Assault — a student-run nonprofit with chapters at UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara Community College and UC Santa Cruz.

One of the students instrumental to the bill’s launch was Alia Sky, the UCSA’s state government relations director, SASA’s history, education & research director, and a UCSB graduate. 

After hearing that USC already had data on Greek life chapters but never published it prior to the implementation of the Campus-Recognized Sorority and Fraternity Transparency Act, Sky said USC’s lack of transparency may have been due to underlying concerns of Greek life data negatively impacting its reputation. 

“While institutions may think that this data makes them look bad, it’s really just being transparent or showing the reality of what’s going on on college campuses,” Sky said. “For the most part, survivors and students know that this is the reality.”

Sky had seen that, anecdotally, events organized by Greek organizations tended to result in more sexual assault reports than non-Greek events. In an effort to substantiate their suspicions, Sky and other SASA members agreed they needed universities to publish data about conduct violations and chapter standing.

“The initial conception of the bill came out of knowing that there are there are extra high rates of sexual violence in Greek life, unfortunately,” Sky said. “The university administration, they don’t want to do much about issues until they have the data to back it up.”

The final bill wasn’t exactly what Sky and her colleagues envisioned. The student leaders wanted the bill to mandate all Greek organizations, both affiliated and disaffiliated, to release annual reports, but they ran into an enforcement challenge.

“Because they’re disaffiliated, there is no real way for the university to make them report because the way that they’re able to make them report is by either taking away their affiliation or not,” Sky said.

Despite its limited scope, the mandate is a step in the right direction, Sky said, that will help incoming students understand chapters and their reputations beyond what they might hear from older students and friends. 

“It’s just been by word of mouth, from survivor to survivor, from friends of friends: ‘Hey, watch out for that fraternity. Hey, watch out for that party,’” Sky said. “Now, this [published data] really gives students the ability to know that [a chapter or an event] is a threat, which I think is super helpful.”