The University of Texas Interfraternity Council will not be penalizing its Phi Gamma Delta (Fiji) member fraternity for a Feb. 7 party at which guests reportedly wore hard hats with “Jefe" and “Pablo Sanchez" written on them, stating that there is currently no IFC rule disallowing such behavior.

IFC President Lee Lueder said while it is well-documented that inappropriate behavior occurred at the party, he -- along with the IFC's Judicial Board and Executive Board -- combed through the organization's rules and found no violations. He said the IFC is working to create a rule that would disallow such behavior in the future. The university made the same determination regarding the fraternity last month, saying that it does not have an institutional rule that Fiji broke with the party.

“It was a marshals party where some kids dressed up in the stereotypical Mexican garb, which is well-documented," Lueder said. “Right now we don't have any rules that say you can't have a party in which people dress up like that, so we can't punish a fraternity when they don't break a rule; but we are in the process of making a rule that we're all going to vote on, all the fraternities will vote on, at the next General Assembly on March 25."

Fiji President Andrew Campbell did not return multiple requests for comment.

UT spokesperson Sara LeStrange said the UT institutional rules strongly protect freedom of speech. “There wasn't any evidence or proposal that there had been a violation of the institutional rules of the university," LeStrange said.

LeStrange said the Office of the Dean of Students is providing diversity training to Fiji and that the fraternity has been working with the Latino Community Affairs organization at UT, which led a march from campus to the Fiji house following the party calling on the UT administration to take action against the fraternity. Veronica Rivera, co-director of operations for Latino Community Affairs, said the organization is happy that the IFC is working on a new rule for the future but that the university should be doing more to prevent incidents like this from happening again.

“Particular events shouldn't be allowed, especially when they're insensitive to different communities and they go against the core values [of UT]," Rivera said.

Bryan Davis, a member and co-founder of the UT Society for Cultural Unity, said the IFC and UT should already have rules to address incidents like this. “In my opinion, I think it's very telling of how engaged they are with a lot of the issues that are unique to the Greek community," Davis said. “Why they don't have a rule against cultural marginalization or cultural appropriation in 2015 is beyond me."

Davis is helping to lead an effort that would require all cultural diversity flag courses at UT to distribute pamphlets to students chronicling incidents of sexual assault and racism at the university, in an effort to spread awareness and prevent future issues. A resolution regarding the effort is currently before the Student Affairs Committee of Student Government and is scheduled to come up again at its Sunday meeting.