Wall Street pipeline fraternity snubbed by JPMorgan for excessive hazing rituals

SAE fraternity announced their no-pledging directive on the same day JP Morgan decided to stop doing business with them.

The bank, which has said it would pay more than $23 billion to resolve regulatory and criminal investigations, has cut ties since last year with about 2,000 clients that could attract scrutiny.  In February, JPMorgan said that it was reconsidering the relationship with SAE to avoid tarnishing its reputation.

A cynic would say "It's all about the Benjamins". A more charitable person might conclude the build-up of unsavory news stories caused misgivings both internal and external. Read the article and decide for yourself.

Wall Street pipeline fraternity snubbed by JPMorgan for excessive hazing rituals | Financial Post:

Early this month, JPMorgan Chase & Co. stopped managing an investment account for a prominent client: the charitable foundation of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, one of the nation’s largest fraternities.

The bank was concerned about SAE’s bad publicity, according to Anthony Alberico, a JPMorgan vice president who dealt with the foundation. SAE has had 10 deaths linked to drinking, drugs and hazing since 2006, more than any other fraternity.

“If JPMorgan is going to turn us down, who’s next?” said Bradley Cohen, SAE’s national president. “What if universities start saying SAE’s not welcome?”

The snub by the largest U.S. bank validated a startling decision that Cohen, seeking to protect future members, had already reached. On March 7, the same day JPMorgan formally cut ties with the fraternity, the 51-year-old Cohen announced an end to one of SAE’s defining traditions: pledging, the months-long initiation where recruits sometimes fall prey to brutal hazing. The move catapulted Cohen into national prominence and drew criticism from alumni such as Texas oilman-turned-investor T. Boone Pickens. SAE became one of only a handful of 75 national fraternities to eliminate pledging.

“How much longer can we sustain these losses — loss of life, loss of credibility to those who join and drop out because they were lied to, loss of valuable resources and loss of our reputation as leaders and as true gentlemen,” Cohen told SAE brothers this month at the University of La Verne in California during his first public address since the announcement.