This post was updated Nov. 30 at 9:43 p.m. 

Editor’s note: This article contains strong language that The Bruin decided was necessary to demonstrate the severity of comments members made before the fraternity was dissolved.

Former UCLA fraternity Pi Kappa Phi is returning to campus after a several-year-long absence.

Pi Kappa Phi, which previously had a UCLA chapter for 25 years, announced its return to campus in a university-wide email. The fraternity was dissolved after low recruitment, following leaked meeting minutes that revealed misogynistic and racist behavior at chapter meetings.

Paul Kula, a professional staffer for the national fraternity, said he was sent to the UCLA campus to recruit new members for the fraternity and teach them about fraternity management.

“We’re just excited to be on campus,” he said. “We’re excited to make a difference on campus, and we hope that our guys are going to be gentlemen and they’re going to make a difference.”

The fraternity plans on recruiting new members in the winter through one-on-one interviews, during which Pi Kappa Phi candidates will be assessed based on their academic records, ambitions and leadership credentials, Kula said. He added that there are no specific processes in place for ensuring diversity in the fraternity’s recruitment.

Ashmit Bhattacharyya, a second-year business economics student, said he first joined the fraternity after a staffer for the national fraternity reached out to him via text message. He added that joining Pi Kappa Phi appealed to him because it provides a chance to serve in a leadership role faster than would be the case in an already established fraternity.

Joseph Read, a first-year linguistics and computer science student, said he joined Pi Kappa Phi because he wanted to receive a fraternity experience without the time commitment required to join an already established fraternity. The fraternity’s recruitment team intends to recruit potential new members without the use of hazing, he said.

The chance to make new decisions about the fraternity’s membership, social calendar and philanthropic activities from the ground up was also appealing, Bhattacharyya said.

“We want to have a strong membership base of solid guys, respectful guys, (to) be known across campus as a group of guys who are down to do pretty much anything,” he said.

Bhattacharyya also said recruitment is important so that the fraternity can receive enough membership dues to obtain a fraternity house, adding that the lack of a house will be one challenge for their recruitment. Forty members will be needed for the chapter to obtain a house, Read said.

Read also said he views the fraternity as a clean slate, adding that he wants the fraternity to have a good reputation when it comes to women’s safety in the fraternity.

“There’s a stigma about Greek life, and there’s reputations for fraternities. And the fact that this doesn’t exist here gives me the control to build what our group will be, and what we’re known for, and what we do, and what kind of guys are part of it,” he said. “That’s control you wouldn’t have otherwise.”

Although Kula did not share the exact reasons why the old fraternity was shut down, the closure followed leaked fraternity meeting minutes that contained racist and misogynistic remarks. The minutes, which come from 2013, listed instructions about how to interact with women at a party, directing members of the fraternity to encourage girls to drink and increase physical contact with them.

The leaked minutes were published as part of a 2016 Daily Bruin article.

[Related: Records reveal Pi Kappa Phi members made racist statements in 2013]

As The Bruin reported in 2016, the meeting minutes also included remarks such as, “Why do Mexicans refry their beans? Have you ever seen them do it right the first time?” and, “We’re learning something about Afghanistan. Something something something terrorists.”

Bhattacharyya said the professional staffers sent to recruit founding members of the team did not provide detailed information about the former chapter’s closure. However, he said the current group of founding members does not condone racism or misogyny.

“The background we have is just that the recruitment was bad, and the people that were running the old chapter didn’t really know what they were doing, and they had to shut down,” Bhattacharyya said. “I don’t think they’ve mentioned that (the allegations) explicitly because I think they view this to be a fresh slate of guys.”

Despite concerns about the chapter’s history, Kula also said the national fraternity intends to reach out to alumni from the UCLA chapter to carry on traditions from the old chapter. He added that honoring the alumni of the fraternity was important to Pi Kappa Phi.

In order to ensure incidents similar to the ones in the past do not happen again, Bhattacharyya said the fraternity will elect a standards board to discipline members who break Pi Kappa Phi rules.

“We’re going to take the adequate precautions to make sure everybody involved feels safe, and everyone involved in the recruitment process feels equally included,” he said.

Read added that fraternity members also had to complete online training modules regarding Title IX provisions. The new leadership team will also fly out to Dallas for an off-site training weekend about fraternity regulations, he said.

Read also said he was hoping the re-foundation of the fraternity at UCLA, which will receive its charter from the national fraternity in the spring, would be able to create its own reputation from a blank slate.

“We don’t know what reputation they had when they left,” he said. “It’s been long enough that we’re just trying to start fresh.”

Contributing reports by Catherine Hamilton, News editor.