“Integrity, scholarship, community, creativity, and excellence are the core values that guide our conduct performance, and decisions.”

The statement above represents the standards that all students are expected to maintain at the University of Central Florida (UCF). This creed can be found throughout the many facets of the UCF community, such as in academics, athletics, and student life. Perhaps few other organizations would exemplify these values and carry the spirit of the UCF Creed more so than the Greek Community in Fraternity and Sorority life. Greeks dedicate themselves to the community and to each other by providing community service through creative fundraisers, striving for higher grade-point averages, and building the skills and abilities needed to become strong leaders in their academic, professional and social life.

If you were to poll any alumnus to have the pleasure of joining a Greek organization, they will all testify to the enrichment that Greek Life afforded to their time at UCF. Being a “brother” or “sister” of a Greek chapter does not make that student any less of a UCF Knight, but rather it furnishes that student with an even stronger bond to our school. These students find great pride and enthusiasm about their University on any given day, including but not limited to University-wide events such as Knight-thon, Homecoming Week, Game Days, and, finally, when it comes to our time to graduate. Our Greek Community is inherently attached to our school, and although we bear different letters, we all remain united as a Greek Community and within the UCF Community.

Greek Life has helped all of us alumni achieve many of the goals we had at our commencement at UCF by building long-lasting friendships and creating opportunities we never thought we could conceive. Most Greeks will tell you that their experience as a Greek and the networking it entailed allowed them to reach the positions they currently hold.

On behalf of all University of Central Florida (UCF) Greek Alumni, we all believe the administration has greatly erred in suspending Greek Life activities for all Greek organizations, especially those that have a record of complying with all the procedures and rules established by the Office of Sorority and Fraternity Life (OSFL). When individual organizations in the past have been involved in a particular incident leading to group-wide sanctions, we complied with those sanctions as dissatisfying as they were. We persevered as a community throughout these regulations, despite having little representation or respect afforded to us, and could only hope for each organization to flourish once again. We have always been in agreement with the University that it is our responsibility to prevent any senseless tragedy from occurring while strengthening the overall quality of Greek Life. And while these new rules were a vast change from tradition, as a testament to our commitment to improving Greek Life, we abided by them.

We remain silent no more.

A basic legal principle of our country is that you are believed to be innocent until proven guilty. Today, on February 20th, 2013, this principle was utterly ignored when every single Greek Organization from all four Greek Councils were essentially put on probation arbitrarily without justification. Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege; this is yet another legal principle trampled on today that is Latin for “no crime, no penalty without a law.” Our organizations have broken neither rule nor crime, and we do not deserve to be punished.

We commend UCF for wanting to stop alcohol abuse and make the college experience a safer, more conducive environment. Again, we are in agreement with these sentiments and objectives. Alcohol abuse and hazing is not a problem that are found solely within the Greek Community, nor is it just a campus-wide issue, but rather it is a national issue rising from a culture in existence long before we were in attendance at UCF. Both are unacceptable and intolerable, but we do not remedy these problems by cutting our bonds to each other. We conquer them by building a community to educate healthier, safer, and more effective alternatives. We want to be a part of a bigger conversation; we want to help find a solution. We will overcome this challenge by the University by remaining steadfast in our principles and values.

Therefore, in order to allow us to fix any problems that need to be addressed, we request that our organization and ourselves as alumni to be a part of the conversation. We want to lead in finding solutions to the problems that plague the student body. We refuse becoming scapegoats for the problems and issues that the administration rightfully wants to address. As Greeks we proudly hold ourselves to a higher standard on campus. We require each other to employ risk management programs, and hold ourselves accountable when a few fail to follow the rules, and we openly invite the administration to the events we hold. Thus, request that the ban be lifted on the innocent, the Greek Community, at the University of Central Florida.