NIU’s Interfraternity Council defended its hazing, drug and alcohol policies after concerns about those policies were raised at Wednesday’s University Council meeting.

The controversy stemmed from the IFC’s rejection at its April 7 meeting of policies established by its own national office’s Fraternity Insurance Purchasing Group’s (FIPG) Risk Management Policy.

Jim Murphy, IFC vice president of External Activities, said the whole controversy is nothing more than a misunderstanding.

“We implemented a new alcohol policy this year and we wanted to wait until it was running smoothly, before we started to go forward with the new (FIPG) one,” he said.

Murphy said the FIPG policy was voted down because “there were a couple changes that people didn’t see the need for at the time.”

He said there was minimal difference between the FIPG policy and the IFC’s present alcohol policy.

However, Michelle Emmett, director of University Programming and Activities, said the IFC policy was lacking and there are substantial differences in the two policies.

She said the FIPG alcohol policy prohibits kegs, while the IFC makes no mention of kegs.

She also said the FIPG policy limits parties to members of the fraternity or those specifically invited. Emmett criticized the IFC policy that allows tickets for parties to be handed out without restricting the number of tickets a fraternity can make available.

However, because of the UC meeting, a motion was made at Wednesday night’s IFC meeting to vote in FIPG policies, Murphy said. The motion was tabled to the IFC’s next meeting.

“Each house follows their own national policies as far as hazing goes, so IFC never really had to step into it but we are definitely against hazing,” Murphy said.

He said the FIPG hazing policy was not implemented because “everyone just looked at FIPG as an alcohol policy and not as hazing.

“Every house has their own hazing policy, and they’re absolutely the same. Every house’s policy is the same as FIPG,” he said.

Emmett, however, criticized the IFC for not approving the hazing policy saying, “the hesitation was that people want to be able to perform acts that really aren’t allowed any longer by state law, and hazing does not just mean for pledges.”

Murphy said the IFC will address the matter at the end of the semester and whether the FIPG policies will be implemented will be decided at the next IFC meeting.

“This was just a big misunderstanding between us and the university. In the future we hope they would come talk to us as far as what’s going on, before we find out about it in the paper the next day,” Murphy said.

He said IFC policies are in full compliance with city, state and county laws and with university policies.

However, the UC has asked Barbara Henley, vice president for Student Affairs, to look into the matter. “We do need to know what the rationale was for the rejection and if it violates any current documents (like the Student Association or university constitutions) on campus,” Henley said.

After the UC meeting Wednesday, SA Vice President Anastasia Criscione said if fraternities permit hazing or violate university policy, their recognition would be pulled.