Tau Epsilon Phi (), commonly known as TEP or Tep, is an American fraternity with 24 active chapters (including colonies), and 10 official alumni associations chiefly located at universities and colleges on the East Coast. The national headquarters is located in Troy, New York, and the official colors of the organization are lavender and white (although most chapters use purple instead of lavender). Ideals The organization's creed asserts its governing ideals as "friendship, chivalry, service." TEP attracts and accepts brothers of all religions and ethnicities who agree to be bound by these ideals. Chapters uphold these ideals through participation in various social, academic, athletic and charity events. History The organization was founded on October 10, 1910 by ten Jewish men at Columbia University, as a response to the existence of similar organizations which would not admit Jewish members. The first pledge, Maximillian Nemser, was initiated in 1911 and, in 1912, the first new chapter was founded at New York University. Continued expansion led to the adoption of a national constitution in 1916. In 1920, the opening of a chapter at McGill University in Canada's then-largest city, Montreal, made ΤΕΦ an international fraternity. The McGill chapter has since been disbanded. The oldest remaining chapter, as of 2015, is the Nu chapter at University of Georgia. Beginning in 1923, the organization has published a nationally distributed magazine, The Plume. ΤΕΦ began as exclusively Jewish, but began admitting non-Jewish members (predominantly Catholics) in the 1950s. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was inducted as an honorary member during his administration. Washington, D.C. mayor Vincent C. Gray was the first black member of Tau Epsilon Phi and was elected president of his local chapter for two consecutive terms. In 1986, Sidney Suntag, who served as Executive Secretary from 1946 to 1979, published the book The History of Tau Epsilon Phi: 75 Years of Friendship 1910–1985, recounting the national history of the fraternity. In September 2010, a group of fraternity members called “TEPs for Justice” filed a civil lawsuit against the national Tau Epsilon Phi organization. The plaintiffs alleged that the national executive director and board of directors had been operating the fraternity for personal financial gain and that they drove chapters away by making unreasonable financial demands on them (the fraternity had shrunk from 42 active chapters in 1999 to just 13 in 2010). They further argued that the executive director failed to hold elections for