It’s all fun and games until you post a photo on your fraternity’s Facebook page and said fraternity is suspended. And that’s exactly what happened to the University of Pennsylvania’s chapter of Phi Delta Theta.
According to the Daily Pennsylvanian, the fraternity, as a prank, posted a holiday card with its fraternity members, who are mostly white, posing with a Beyoncé sex doll. The fraternity stated that the doll was bought as a “gag gift” for Secret Santa and was not meant to be offensive.
After the photo was posted to Facebook, organizations, including the campus NAACP chapter, became outraged. “Given the larger conversations and actions taking place in the country, there’s never been a worse time to do what they did,” said Keishawn Johnson, president of Penn’s chapter of the NAACP.
The photo, which has been removed, was criticized as being racist and misogynistic. Since the removal, all activities have been suspended while Phi Delta Theta is under investigation.
The chapter did issue an apology, citing its poor display of judgment, and said that its intentions were not racist. The chapter failed to mention that it got duped out of money by the sex-doll shop, because the doll looks nothing like Beyoncé.