Alpha Delta Phi fraternity remains suspended following allegations of sexual assault at an off-campus party in January, confirmed Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations. Durham District Attorney Roger Echols announced July 2 that no charges would be filed after the Durham Police Department investigated the fraternity. Members of the fraternity did not respond to multiple requests for comment:
1. ADPhi was originally chartered on Duke’s campus as Sigma Alpha Epsilon but was expelled from the national fraternity in 2002 for violating rules involving risk management like hazing and illegal alcohol use. The chapter was immediately disaffiliated from Duke and moved off campus, adopting the name Delta Phi Alpha. Four years later, the fraternity was adopted by Alpha Delta Phi as part of the national organization’s effort to expand to more elite institutions.
2. In 2003, Duke student Nora Kantor—a junior at the time—charged senior James Thompson in a civil suit with civil assault, civil battery, infliction of emotional distress and civil seduction. Thompson was a member of the SAE, the group that would later become ADPhi. Kantor claimed that Thompson "wrongfully seduced and debauched her... through persuasion, deception, enticement and artifice" at an SAE Christmas party in 2001.
At the time, Kantor noted several reported incidents of acquaintance rape, alcohol violations and other problems involving Duke's SAE chapter. She also claimed that "it was widely related among female students at Duke that the acronym 'SAE' stood for 'Sexual Assault Expected.'"
3. In 2010, the group—which was known at that time as Alpha Delta Phi but was an off-campus fraternity—sent a crude email inviting women to their Halloween party. The message included that line, “Fear is riding the C1 with Helen Keller at the helm (not because shes [sic] deaf and blind, but because she is a woman).” The email ignited controversy on campus when someone printed out the email and wrote, “Is this why you came to Duke?” on the paper before making copies and distributing them around campus.
4. ADPhi was admitted to the Interfraternity Council in April 2013 after being unaffiliated with Duke for several years. The fraternity was initially denied admittance to the IFC in a private hearing but later signed a one-year probationary agreement and was recognized by the University.
5. From January 2015 until July, the Durham Police Department investigated a female freshman's claim that she was drugged and raped the evening of Jan. 8 after a party at ADPhi's house on West Chapel Hill Street. The student alleged that she woke up the morning of Jan. 9 with little memory of the night before. She said she was in a t-shirt she did not recognize without the bra or underwear she had been wearing the previous night.
On Jan. 9, a rape kit was collected at Duke University Medical Center because the student suspected that she may have been the victim of nonconsensual sex.
Search warrants showed that police obtained the phone records and DNA samples of six male students—three freshmen and three seniors—who were, at the time, affiliated with ADPhi. The phone records indicated that the female student left the Jan. 8 party with a senior in the fraternity around 3:30 a.m. After being taken to his apartment, she was returned to her dorm room approximately an hour later.
On July 2, Echols announced that after "an extensive and thorough investigation" his office had determined it would not seek an indictment charging any subject of the investigation with a criminal offense.
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