‘Operation Ivy League’ Shuts Down Columbia Fraternities
A massive undercover drug bust on Columbia University’s uptown Manhattan campus – dubbed “Operation Ivy League” by police investigators – shut down three fraternities last week, including a chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi, the national Jewish fraternity.
Investigators claim the bulk of drug traffic occurred in bedrooms and common areas of the three frat houses. Police arrested five undergraduates accused of peddling nearly $11,000 in cocaine, LSD, ecstasy and other drugs to undercover cops since July. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the accused included some of this Ivy League school’s elite students: a cancer researcher, a member of the fencing team, a Gates Millennium scholar and a high school salutatorian.
One 20-year-old AEPi frat member, Harrison David, accused of selling cocaine, lamented his father hung up after he called from the Manhattan Detention Center. Already refusing to pay $41,000 in annual tuition, David’s father wouldn’t drop $75,000 in bail money, the New York Daily News reported.
Kevin Shollenberger, Columbia’s dean of student affairs, laid down interim suspensions for the fraternities, meaning recruitment, initiation and social events must stop. AEPi’s national chapter has been notified.
The 97-year-old fraternity has yet to release a statement.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
