To be clear, this is not a new student death, but following up on this story from last year.
Dean Mona Hicks issued a decision on March 22, 2021 expelling Theta Delta Chi for six years (and thus reallocating the house, though whether to a different Greek house, a row house, or a new theme dorm is yet to be decided), finding that the fraternity violated three policies:
1. possession of marijuana (though it was found only in the deceased student's room)
2. possession of percocet (also only found in his room--these were the pills the deceased apparently ordered from the internet, were delivered to him, and which led to his death--
i.e., no other students had any pills)
3. the failure by the deceased student and his suitemates to report the presence of the pill bottle
https://news.stanford.edu/today/2021/03/...-decision/
I've gotten a version of the events that led to the student's death from current members of Theta Delt (I was in Theta Delt back in the day), and it paints the picture of a personal tragedy, but not an organizational failure, though I'm hesitant to put too much stock in one side's version of events. It feels a bit morbid to post the details here, so I won't, but I thought you would all be interested in the aftermath of the story from last year.
But as a lawyer, the
procedure here interests me. A university investigator interviewed witnesses and then presented that testimony to a 5-member Organization Conduct Board (OCB) made up of three students and two faculty members, who found the above violations but recommended a sanction of community service, education, and random searches (indicating that they likely believed the violations to be technically true, but not warranting significant organizational punishment). The Dean of Students then accepted the findings but imposed a more severe sanction. The findings of violation are now apparently set in stone, but Theta Delt can appeal the sanction to Vice Provost Susie Brubaker-Cole, and has done so. They note perceived irregularities and failure to follow rules in the university's process, and they also note that if the failures by Theta Delt members here were so severe as to warrant expulsion of the fraternity, that at least some individual members would have been charged with violations of university policies, but none have (at least yet).
I'm not close enough to the situation to offer an informed take on what has happened or what should happen next. (And even if Theta Delt remains housed, they have to know they're on the very thinnest of ice with the university, after past attempts to remove the house were beaten back--not for alcohol, if memory serves, but for effectively being lazy and not doing much of anything to justify preferential housing.) I keep coming back to the obvious--that a promising young man died from overdose and that is a devastating tragedy. And with opioid abuse being a national epidemic, I hope Stanford adopts (or has adopted) better training policies on recognizing signs of abuse and providing for intervention prior to something like this happening again. This will not be the last overdose death Stanford sees.