The Interfraternity Council unanimously passed its constitutional judicial board changes, which gives the IFC responsibility of sanctioning fraternities, but a case still can be tried on four different levels.

Tom Kermagard, IFC administrative vice president, said the IFC’s judicial board will have the supreme power to sanction fraternities.

NIU still will be able to sanction fraternities and individual house members, said Jeff Cufaude, activities adviser for University Programming and Activities.

IFC President Tom Zur said NIU will treat fraternity members as students and will not be looking at the image of fraternities. Cufaude said, “The university will be looking at students through NIU’s judicial code.

“IFC will be looking at organizations (and not individual students),” Cufaude said. Zur said the the IFC will try a case on the basis of how members represent their fraternity.

One representative from the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house expressed a concern that a particular incident can be tried twice and that fraternities will be in “double jeopardy.”

A possibility exists that an incident can be tried twice through the university and the IFC, Zur said. The IFC’s judicial board has an option to sanction a fraternity if it thinks NIU’s sanctions are not strong enough, he said.

Legally, NIU, the IFC and a chapter can impose their own sanctions on a fraternity, Cufaude said. The same incident also can be tried as a criminal offense if certain national, state or county laws are broken, he said.

Zur said if members of a chapter do something to hurt their fraternity’s image, “it is in the best interest of the greek system that they do get hit hard.”

Six members will serve on the revised judicial board, including four fraternity members and two faculty advisers, Kermagard said. “The faculty advisers’ term will be staggered. A new one will be elected every year … (so) that at least one of the two will have experience,” he said.

Two new members will be elected every two years to stagger the board members’ terms as well and to ensure that at least two of the four members will have experience, Kermagard said.

“The board members will be elected by the Interfraternity Council Executive Board,” Kermagard said. Members running for a judicial position should have at least one year of experience in the greek system and must attend two IFC meetings, he said.

Six members from the same house cannot be on the board, Kermagard said. However, the same members of a house can sit on the judicial board and on the executive board.