In another unusual move, the settlement requires Abercrombie to stop focusing on predominantly white fraternities and sororities in its recruitment.

At Illinois, with 52 fraternities, 25 black men belong to predominantly white fraternities.

There was another incident last year in which 300 people were fighting at a hang-out for students in white fraternities.

These two positions are still voted on every fall by the student population, the winners nearly always being members of historically white fraternities and sororities.

Some white fraternity and sorority members said they thought the incident did not deserve national attention.

A black student had come to school upset that a local white fraternity was planning a mock slave auction.

Hazing, in both white and black fraternities, is one of the perennial ills of college life.

"There isn't a lot of crossover between black and white fraternities," he said.

At Middlebury College in Vermont, he became the first black to join a white fraternity.

Members of a white fraternity came and tried to recapture the building.