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Carthage Homecoming – Oct. 16 / Suspension Update

Posted – Friday, September 3, 2021

Fellow Turtles and Doves,

Yes, we’re going to host our regular Homecoming get together on Saturday October 16^th at Casa Capri. We’re not going to let Carthage kill the legacy of the Turtles even though they’ve done a great job killing the active chapter. More about what’s happening with the actives later but let’s make sure we’re not forgotten. We’re going to start the gathering at 10am at Casa Capri, 2129 Birch Rd Kenosha, and plan on having some great pizza, wings and beer or Bloody Mary’s. Be sure to wear your Greek letters or a Turtle shirt so you’re visible should you head to campus. By the way, if you thought about checking out the Turtle floor, don’t bother. Carthage wasted no time in removing all pictures and repainting the entire floor.

Now to the Turtles. You’ve probably heard that Carthage passed judgement on the Turtles, issuing a 4-year suspension because of violations to the student code of conduct. The Actives appealed to the Office of Student Affairs but not surprisingly that was denied so they can’t operate or gather for 4 years. This effectively eliminates the Turtles from Carthage.

As an alumni association we decided that our best strategy was to not contest what the Turtles did as that would just give Carthage something to focus on. The Turtles screwed up so there’s no sense in arguing that point. The “trial” and punishment on the other hand is a different story, especially from what we’ve seen them not do to other groups.

We’re doing two things right now. One is to work with the current Turtle president to get those that were interrogated to fill out a survey regarding how they were treated. We were able to create the survey with the help of several Turtle alum lawyers and another that was an investigator before retiring. Our goal is to find out where Carthage and the interrogator violated the interviewees rights and possibly use that later as leverage. We’re not very optimistic however that we’ll get very many responses from the Actives as we’ve heard from several of them that they fear retaliation from Carthage. They don’t want to risk two or three years of education to make a point. One Turtles has already been suspended for the next semester because of this. It’s amazing that the one who is supposed to protect against hazing has become the hazer. Secondly, we’re drafting a letter to the Carthage Board of Trustees, encouraging them to dig into the process and examine how Carthage treated the Turtles during the process. It’s abundantly evident that the Carthage Administration is fully on board with how they treated the Actives and the level of punishment. Our only chance to get anything changed, including any possibility of reinstating the Turtles, is to get the Board to push the Administration. This too may be a heavy lift as a number of the Board are just there for name recognition. All we can do is appeal to their sense of moral right. We’re also fighting an uphill battle because Carthage is a private entity. Unfortunately, that gives Carthage a lot more latitude in stepping on student and personal rights. Both our efforts are still in progress and most likely won’t be done before school starts in a few weeks. That being said we don’t believe that time is critical on this response however we want to do something this fall term. 

I hope everyone had a good summer and you can make plans to join us at Homecoming and share some stories.

Kurt Lehrmann ‘75