Sorority girls have it all – elevated campus social status, snazzy Greek-lettered tote bags, and those neon pink hats that say “FRAT” on them. Man, those hats are cool.

Yet it appears that wasn’t enough for the Cornell girls of Triangle Triangle Triangle. Here’s a recent email that IvyGate received from an anonymous tipster:

The Royal Palm Tavern (a bar frequented by Cornell students) is known for its painted ceiling tiles, some of which date back to the 50s.  The bar auctions off ceiling tiles for charity every year, but throughout this year people have been stealing tiles (yes – stealing tiles that were auctioned off for CHARITY).  The night before graduation, several members of Cornell’s Tri-Delt chapter came into the bar with their parents and tried to hang a tile they had stolen and painted over.  They were confronted by an employee … It was a big scene.

Prominent Collegetown socialites know that The Palms is a crap-hole that is basically falling apart, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that students could easily pluck tiles from the ceiling and walk out. Perhaps before I left Cornell I should have ripped out one of the picnic tables from The Palms’ wooden floor and taken it home as a souvenir.

Anyway, stay tuned for continuing coverage of Tilegate 2011 throughout the summer, and if you have any gossip that you’d like to share, hit us up at IvyGateSummer2011@gmail.com.

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UPDATE: We’ve received the following email from a member of Tri-Delt:

First, I would like to clarify what actually occurred.  This past year (I am not sure whether it has happened in years before) many students were taking The Palms’ tiles from the ceiling.  It was not well known among the students that the tiles were for charity — I don’t know of anyone who knew that until we tried to return ours and were informed by an employee.  It had become a “thing” to do during the year, and many seniors we knew had done it.  The impression that I had was that The Palms knew students did this and went along with it (which is why the tiles were painted and displayed).  What we had heard was that if you could get a tile out of the ceiling, you could then paint it and return it.  We were apparently wrong, and so were several other groups that never returned their tiles after we were confronted because they were afraid to.

Once we learned that the tiles were for charity, we immediately felt horrible.  To rectify our mistake, the first business day after the event, we took an apology note and a check for a charitable donation to pay for the tile to the owner of The Palms.  It was an innocent mistake with no malicious intent on our part (we had even signed the tile and were returning it in person — we clearly were not trying to hide anything), and a mistake that we rectified as soon as we knew the real purpose behind the painted tiles.  I hope you will understand that this is something we did not intend and will help us in not continuing to spread the story.