Last week, several subfreshmen were removed from the Siebel building adjacent to Uni. The following Wednesday, Assistant Director Karl Radnitzer sent an e-mail to the school notifying students and faculty that no Uni students would be allowed in Siebel or DCL for the day and that no subfreshmen would be allowed in either building until further notice.

According to Dr. Radnitzer, several subfreshmen were abusing the elevator in Siebel, going up and down between the 2nd and 4th floors repeatedly. Upon seeing this, a manager at Siebel spoke to the subfreshmen. Radnitzer says that one subfreshman in particular was impolite to the manager, causing him to remove them and other students from the building.

Radnitzer says incidents like these are very rare and happen “once or twice a year”.

This ban is another in a string of such incidents involving the current subfreshmen class. Subfreshmen are not allowed on the third floor during fifth period and have previously been banned from the upper floors of Siebel.

The ban has altered the atmosphere within the subfreshman class. Radnitzer’s e-mail said that the ban would remain at least until the perpetrators came forward, which resulted in some resentment towards the perpetrators..

“People are mad at them,” says subfreshman Aniket Gargya.

Maher Adoni says that the incident “has really divided [their] class, like never before.”

Subbie Buddy Yamini Yedetore also says that there has been hostility between some of the subfreshmen.

“After the DCL [and Siebel] thing, a lot of subbies were e-mailing each other mean things because […] until the people in charge of this come to him [Radnitzer], they were going to be banned,” she says.

Bans are not the only trouble this class has had. Towards the beginning of the year, there were reports of bullying between the students, which led to an intervention by the Subbie Buddies.

“A lot of the subbies haven’t been talking about small things, they only come to the counselors or the Subbie Buddies when it gets really really bad. We don’t really know how long [the bullying] continues for a certain person,” says Subbie Buddy Mallika Luthar

Subbie Buddy leader Ethan Simmons, however, is more confident in the subfreshman class.

“This isn’t the first time that subbies have been banned from a building or [have made] too much noise on the third floor. Sure, maybe it’s more exaggerated than some of the other years but it’s not like there’s no hope for them to coalesce.”

Simmons also points out that there is more Subbie Buddy involvement than in previous years. They are required to have monthly meetings with their subbies, which allows for greater communication between them and more awareness of subfreshman activity. This, he says, will make it easier for any incidents to be put to rest.

Dr. Radnitzer has since said that the subfreshmen are no longer banned from Siebel, provided that they maintain good behavior.