Open Letter to UCSB Chancellor Yang and Members of the UCSB Panhellenic Council,

As a non-UC affiliated resident of Isla Vista with a respiratory condition and the parent of a child with asthma, during the pandemic my family relies heavily on the safety measures your University puts in place to control the spread of COVID-19 within our population. Since the pandemic has started, I’ve read about the recent alarming spike of COVID in Isla Vista over the last few weeks and have seen emails sent out from your office in the past warning strongly against COVID parties.

This morning after monitoring the news for COVID in our area, I found an Edhat article regarding two recent parties thrown by the Delta Gamma Sorority. I’m deeply disappointed at your institution and so worried for the safety of my family, that I’m moving in with relatives outside of Isla Vista until I feel your University is doing more to control the spread and severely punishing the sorority for putting the lives of local residents at risk. It’s clear these students have no self control or empathy for the people whom they share the community and need adults to intervene.

I demand your office close this chapter from operating and teach students that people’s lives are at stake and this is serious. If you can’t do everything to maintain the safety of the local population, then you leave residents without a choice but to take action of their own. Next, I will be contacting Santa Barbara County Health Director Van Do-Reynoso’s office and the County Board of Supervisors to make a complaint and demand action. With the 255 percent increase in cases over a two-week period and recent death, I’m sure they’ll agree your office is failing at keeping residents of the community safe and something needs to be done immediately.

I’m extremely alarmed at UCSB’s lack of care for residents in the surrounding community by allowing one of your sororities to throw parties that could be potential super-spreader events for the local population. How reckless, selfish, and inhuman. I expected better from your institution and demand Delta Gamma be shut down indefinitely along with punishments for those involved, including expulsion. The warnings were sent out by your office and they ignored them at the risk of other’s lives. If that isn’t grounds for expulsion, what is?

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