Hazing — tradition or torture?
CONTENT WARNING: Mentions of abuse, death, drugging, and rape
It seems to happen every year. A male winds up dead from alcohol poisoning during a fraternity “initiation” event. A female gets drugged and sexually assaulted after drinking at a fraternity social event while unconscious. And the institutions that are supposed to protect them — the university, police officials and local hospitals — turn a blind eye-claiming they only have themselves to blame.
Hazing has been a common tradition in fraternities since the early 1900s. While there is no concrete definition for the term, many deem hazing to be a ceremonial act that welcomes individuals into a closed society — a tactic that is ingrained within high-status, tradition bound fraternities across the United States. However, others believe that torturous acts of hazing symbolize dominance.
A common symbol of these traditions are the paddle boards that are passed down to each brother. You know, those “trophies” from your dad’s “fun days in college.” Though given as a trophy, they symbolize the dominant nature and violence of hazing. Fraternities have historically used these paddles to torture the pledgers when they did not participate in initiation rituals (Lehman 3). However, things have changed. Instead of using the paddles as torture devices, they started gifting them to members of the fraternity once they graduated to symbolize one’s “token to brotherhood”.
Because of this change, fraternities’ across the United States saw an increase of pledgers and new, deathly, hazing techniques were adopted including forced alcohol / drug consumption, physical abuse, sexual performances, and more unruly acts. Since then, hazing related deaths and incidents have increased.
In a 2008 national study of hazing, professors Elizabeth Allan and Mary Madden discovered that over half of university students experienced some form of hazing (Appleby 10). You may be a part of this statistic and not even know it because of how destructive hazing can be.
At the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee in 2014, Tau Kappa Epsilon marked X’s on the hands of the people attending the party — red X’s for girls, black X’s for guys (Kutner 2). These marks granted the females access to different drinks, ones that were laced with Rohypol– a “date rape” drug. That night alone, campus safety received several calls of girls blacking out and being so intoxicated that they were unable to stand (Kutner 3).
What were the consequences of these barbaric actions? Absolutely nothing. The fraternity still exists today and none of the students received punishment. Instead, the fraternity held a party the next weekend and they were again reported to campus police. But nothing happened because according to students, “this is what usually happens, girls always get wasted there” (Kutner 6).
When is something going to change? When will victims stop being blamed for actions inflicted by their perpetrator? These girls were not clueless, yet they were stripped of their individual rights and freedom. Girls need to stop living in constant fear that the reason for what happened was because “they were not self aware,” when really it had nothing to do with their actions.
According to an NBC report in 2021, there have been 50 deaths relating to fraternity hazing since 2000 (Appleby 2). One of those deaths was Sam Martinez, a 19 year old rushing at Alpha Tau Omega at the University of Washington in 2019. During initiation, the fraternity members forced him and another boy to participate in a “family drink” where they had to drink a half gallon of rum, which is equivalent to 20 shots each (Cooper 16). Sam ended up passing out on the couch where he soon died due to acute alcohol poisoning (Cooper 20).
Instead of calling the police to help the boys when they were too intoxicated to even stand, they “put a backpack on someone, so they wouldn’t be able to stay on their back and potentially inhale their own vomit while they were unconscious” (Cooper 17). These boys knew the severity of the situation and yet, they still did not take the proper actions.
From this tragic event, Washington state created “Sam’s Law”, a law that changed the definition of hazing and enforced that all reports and investigations of hazing at fraternities become public (Cabahug 9). Though this change helped create progress surrounding hazing, it should have never happened in the first place.
Thousands of these incidents are still never reported, thousands of people are still left to face the repercussions perpetrators inflicted upon them, and thousands of individuals are still not receiving the justice they deserve.
Victims do not deserve to live in a society where their rapists walk free because their university does not want to face the media. Victims should not be forced to perform deadly acts to fit into a society. Victims of rape should not be at blame for their perpetrators actions. People need to experience social events at college without living in fear that they will be harmed.
In the United States, male superiority has ruled our society for so long and we need to collectively address it and change it. This starts by holding fraternities accountable for their actions by making them address their actions. It starts by protesting against universities when they do nothing to protect their students over these reports.
What happens in college extends to the actions we see in the real world, so when we allow these actions to occur without consequences, it enforces the same idea in real world situations. Speak up, speak out, and provide a voice for the voiceless.
Works Cited
Anonymous. “The Roofie Reality.” Tufts Observer, Tufts University, 13 Dec. 2012, tuftsobserver.org/the-roofie-reality/. Accessed 4 Oct. 2023.
Appleby, Chloe. “What Is Hazing in College? Facts, Statistics, and Prevention Efforts.” Edited by Lyss Welding and Marley Rose. BestColleges, 17 Aug. 2023, www.bestcolleges.com/research/college-hazing-statistics/#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20NBC%20reported%20that,be%20as%20high%20as%20105. Accessed 27 Sept. 2023.
Bennet, Jessica. “The Problem With Frats Isn’t Just Rape. It’s Power.” TIME, 3 Dec. 2014, time.com/3616158/fraternity-rape-uva-rolling-stone-sexual-assault/. Accessed 27 Sept. 2023.
Cabahug, Jadenne Radoc. “‘Sam’s Law’ parents push for harsher penalties for hazing for a second year.” The Seattle Times [Seattle], 28 Jan. 2023, www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/sams-law-parents-push-for-harsher-penalties-for-hazing-for-a-second-year/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CSam%27s%20Law%2C%E2%80%9D%20named%20after,make%20hazing%20investigation%20records%20public. Accessed 27 Sept. 2023.
Cooper, Anderson. “How hazing led to the death of fraternity pledge Sam Martinez.” CBS News, 28 Nov. 2021, www.cbsnews.com/news/ sam-martinez-hazing-washington-state-university-death-60-minutes-2021–11–28/. Accessed 27 Sept. 2023.
Kutner, Jenny. “College fraternity allegedly used color-coded system to roofie girls at parties.” Salon, 19 Sept. 2014, www.salon.com/2014/09/19/college_fraternity_allegedly_used_color_coded_system_to_roofie_girls_at_parties/. Accessed 27 Sept. 2023.
Lehman, Alexandra. “A Brief History of Fraternity/Sorority Paddles and Recommendations.” Fraternal Law Partners, A Division of Manley Burke, LPA, July 2014, fraternallaw.com/newsletter2/a-brief-history-of-fraternity-sorority-paddles-and-recommendations#:~:text=The%20 practice%20of%20hazing%2C%20subjecting,the%20military%20in%20ancient%20Greece.&te xt=European%20universities%20in%20the%20middle,students%20to%20act%20as%20servants. Accessed 27 Sept. 2023.
