‘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.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
