After a Freshman’s Death, Cornell U. Fraternities Ban Some of Their Own Events. But Is the Move Merely Symbolic?

Since Tsialas’s death, Cornell’s administration has not suspended the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity or any other chapters. In fact, its students are the ones sounding alarms and trying to take campus safety into their own hands. Cornell’s Interfraternity Council has banned fraternity social events for the rest of the semester, but questions remain: What about the unregulated events that preempted each of the deaths? Will the ban really make frat parties safer? And whose responsibility is that?