UC San Diego investigating frat party mocking blacks

SAN DIEGO (AP) - Administrators at the University of California, San Diego are investigating a ghetto-themed party organized by fraternity students to mock Black History Month...

TheGrio Staff

Feb 18, 2010

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Administrators at the University of California, San Diego are investigating a ghetto-themed party organized by fraternity students to mock Black History Month, and will determine if the students involved should be disciplined in the next few weeks.

Monday’s “Compton Cookout” held off-campus was offensive and a “blatant disregard of our campus values,” Marye Anne Fox said in a statement e-mailed this week to staff and 29,000 students on Wednesday.

“We reject acts of discrimination … and we will confront and appropriately respond to such acts,” Fox said.

UCSD’s vice chancellor for student affairs Penny Rue said it’s too early to say whether student conduct codes have been violated, but many policies don’t apply to an off-campus event that was not sanctioned or organized by a specific student organization.

Administrators have identified nine partygoers, Rue said.

A party invitation posted on Facebook told students to wear large T-shirts, rapper-style urban clothing by makers such as FUBU, and gold chains, according to a copy posted on the Web site for San Diego TV station 10News. Women were urged to go as “ghetto chicks.” The post said such items as watermelon and cheap beer would be served.

The party theme disgusted some students on campus, where blacks comprise less than 2 percent of the undergraduate class.

“These are the people I go to school with, and knowing that they’re mocking my culture and the history of black people is really offensive,” sophomore Elize Diop said.

The party was organized by members of several UCSD fraternities, according to an e-mail from Gary Ratcliff, assistant vice chancellor for student life, that was obtained by the San Diego Union-Tribune.