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Group reinstates SAE as organization

Campus fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon regained its status as a registered student organization Wednesday.

The Associated Students of Madison Student Judiciary ruled the Committee for Student Organizations operated outside of its own bylaws in revoking the fraternity's student organization status in February.

SAE representatives said they were relieved with the final result.

"We are really excited about this decision," Adam Ostrum, president of SAE's University of Wisconsin chapter, said. "We just want to move forward."

The initial revocation came after SAE was fined more than $95,000 by the Madison Police Department following a Halloween party last year.

Student Judiciary, having appellate jurisdiction over CSO, has the ability to interpret whether or not CSO abides by its own bylaws.

One CSO bylaw states complaints must be filed four weeks after an event or incident happened.

But according to Student Justice Tim Leonard, CSO Chair Nick Fox — who also, coincidentally, serves as the Student Judiciary Chief Justice — interpreted the due process bylaw as allowing a complaint to be filed four weeks after the police report was released, which would allow a later time frame for a complaint to be filed.

Leonard said Fox probably did so because there was no way to get credible evidence on the incident until a police report was filed.

SAE appealed because it felt the CSO filed its complaint after the allotted due process time of four weeks had passed.

However, the Student Judiciary disagreed with Fox's argument, saying that there were plenty of ways to gather evidence, citing the over-capacity crowd of 600 people at the party as a primary example.

Ostrum recognized the significance of this decision and said he is hopeful that SAE will get back on its feet.

"I am very confident we will continue to move in this direction," he said.