Hamilton Gazetteer / Entities / Delta Kappa Epsilon

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organization

Overview

Delta Kappa Epsilon (ΔΚΕ), commonly known as “DKE” or “the Dekes,” is a Greek-letter social fraternity founded at Yale University in 1844. The Hamilton College chapter was established in 1856, making it the sixth oldest Greek organization at Hamilton. DKE’s Hamilton chapter encountered some of the most significant disciplinary actions in the college’s modern history: the house was closed for four years starting in 1985, and the chapter was on suspension when the sorority KDO was provisionally housed in its wing in 1988. Despite these difficulties, DKE remained an active fraternity through the 1990s. Under the 1995 Board of Trustees residential life decision, the DKE house became the subject of extended purchase negotiations, and first-year students were placed in the house while those negotiations continued. The college was still negotiating purchase of the DKE house as late as fall 1995.

History at Hamilton

DKE’s Hamilton chapter was founded in 1856, placing it sixth among the nine fraternities listed in the 1946–47 catalog. The 1903 Hamilton Life records an 1892-era infrastructure survey connecting “Psi Upsilon and Delta Kappa Epsilon with a modern cesspool on the Lathrop property,” documenting early campus infrastructure around the chapter houses.

In 1985 (described in the May 1992 Spectator as “a 1985 decision”), the Delta Kappa Epsilon house was closed for four years — the longest documented disciplinary closure of any Hamilton fraternity in the modern era. The reasons for this four-year closure are not specified in the surviving source material. By 1985, the concurrent closures of both DKE and Psi Upsilon were cited as a primary cause of the campus housing crunch, leading students to be placed in converted dormitory spaces and in the DKE house itself. A February 1985 Spectator article notes students in what had been “the DKE” and references the combined closures as “more important factors” in the housing shortage than class size.

In spring 1988, with DKE still on suspension and its return not yet authorized, the college provisionally housed the newly formed sorority Kappa Delta Omega (KDO) in a wing of the DKE house — the first time women’s private society housing was provided at Hamilton. Acting Dean Rob Kolb called the arrangement a “compromise.” The DKE corporation had proposed building a dedicated wing for KDO on its house, but the Board deferred action and asked for a more detailed proposal. DKE and KDO were simultaneously negotiating possible agreements about the shared space. The suspension and its conditions continued to shape the chapter’s situation through the late 1980s.

The May 8, 1992 Spectator — in its summary of fraternity disciplinary history — confirmed the “1985 decision [that] closed the Delta Kappa Epsilon house for four years,” placing DKE alongside Psi Upsilon (suspended 1984), Delta Upsilon (closed 1986), and Chi Psi (probation 1990) as fraternities that faced serious sanctions during the 1980s.

When Chairman Kevin Kennedy ‘70 announced the 1995 Trustee decision on March 4, a DKE member identified only as “Murphy” questioned the college’s authority: “how do they have the right to regulate what I do off-campus? The trustees are kind of out of touch.” DKE pledge Rob Gieser ‘97 expressed a more conflicted view: “The houses are a major part of our identity and losing them will hurt, since…they have come to embody the spirit of fraternities here.” A clarification note in a fall 1995 Spectator issue confirmed that while the DKE house was housing first-year students, the property was still owned by the DKE fraternity and the college was “actively seeking to purchase the house.” Purchase negotiations were ongoing as late as September 1995.

An independent congressional dimension surfaced in 1995: Congressman Bob Livingston, identified in the Spectator as “Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and a Delta Kappa Epsilon alumnus,” sent a letter to Hamilton charging the college with being insensitive “to the bedrock principles of freedom of association and the liberal arts tradition,” though he did not explicitly threaten to withhold federal funds. Hamilton’s ban on residential fraternities was simultaneously being challenged in federal court, while a similar challenge at Middlebury (also involving DKE) had been denied in the Vermont courts.

Notable Members

Notes