609 N. Lake St. (Phi Gamma Delta at least Ca. 1910)
Building was also Alpha Sigma Phi
521 N. Henry St. (Phi Gamma Delta ????~1927)
16 Langdon St. (Phi Gamma Delta 1928 - 1988~)
In May of 1987, the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity (AKA Fijis) staged a “Fiji Island” party in
which they, amongst other things, paraded in blackface and tropical garb with a
fifteen-foot-tall plywood caricature of a black man with a bone in his nose. When word about
the party spread, a number of black students picketed the house, and the fraternity took
down the plywood caricature. However, it was put back up the next day. This led to further
protests against the fraternity. Asian students joined the protests when the fraternity
president clumsily tried to apologize to blacks by saying the caricature was meant to be a
Fijian, not a black. The demonstrations continued until the university suspended the
fraternity and ordered all its members to undergo “sensitivity training.” University
authorities originally intended only to write a condemnation of the display, but were
pressured in a closed-door meeting with leaders of the student protest to take this
stronger response.
The next fall, Zeta Beta Tau, a predominantly Jewish fraternity, held a closed party.
A number of Phi Gamma Delta members, which had only had its suspension lifted the week before,
crashed the party and started a fight by making racial and ethnic slurs. Although Phi Gamma
Delta officers denied any racial bias and described the incident as “just another after-bars
fight,” the university suspended the fraternity once again and the fraternity suspended the
five members involved in the fight. However, an independent investigator recommended reversal
since the university had not made a determination of whether the fight was conducted in an
individual or representative capacity, and thus violated student due process rights. In
January of 1988 the university lifted Phi Gamma delta’s suspension, and in February of 1988,
concluded that although the racist remarks of the fraternity members was “reprehensible,” it
did not violate any student rules and was protected by the First Amendment.
Outraged black and Jewish students were soon calmed when Chancellor Donna Shalala announced
the “Madison Plan,” a comprehensive university program designed to improve the condition of
minorities on campus. For example, the plan sought to recruit and retain minority students
and faculty, and even set targets: double the number of minority students in five years and
add over two hundred minority faculty within three years. The plan also created a new ethnic
studies course requirement, a multicultural center, and an outreach program to local schools.
