Hazing, the sad truth about Greek life.
Jaryd Brady
Hazing, An issue that has spread across college campuses and is quickly becoming worse. By definition, hazing is the imposition of strenuous, often humiliating, tasks as part of a program of rigorous physical training and initiation. That being said, fraternities have implemented this into their culture and firmly believe that students aspiring to be a part of their “brotherhood” must go through their pledging process prior to initiation. On bigger campuses across the nation, hazing has grown into disgracing acts of violence, forced participation and even death.
Phi Delta Theta at Louisiana State University is the most recent case involving a pledge being killed due to hazing. Maxwell Gruver, a fraternity pledge, was taken to the hospital after becoming incoherent due to forced alcohol consumption and drug use. Max, 18, was pronounced dead that same day. Police officials say an overwhelming amount of alcohol and THC was found in his blood.
Preying on young students longing for a sense of brotherhood is not only morally unacceptable, but sick. These kids died trying to be a part of these so called “brotherhoods,” and for what? Is the fraternity really going to be put in jeopardy because a pledge didn’t drink this much, or take this drug, or do what another brother said? Hazing is now a competition to find out “how much can we do to someone until they crack,” constantly getting worse to feed into the facade that hazing is building brotherhood. But it’s OK, because “we don’t haze,” a fraternity representative said to me right before he winked, signaling to me that what he said was a lie.
Ask any fraternity member about hazing, and they will say that they don’t do that. Get into their fraternity and you’ll be told that they were hazed, so you have to do it too. My older brother pledged Sigma Alpha Epsilon at Florida State University, and as that semester went on, the older brother that I looked up to for so long, became someone else. The necklace that symbolized our bond as a family was ripped off of his neck and thrown away because a brother felt the need to, he scrubbed floors with a toothbrush while brothers spat their dip in front of him, and was dropped off in Georgia and had to find his way back without a cell phone, food or water. That was only some of the cases that he told me about. My brother had been crippled by insecurities instilled in him by his fraternity.
I asked students across campus, “What do you think of when you hear the word ‘fraternity’,” and terms like brotherhood and respect are never said. Instead you hear terms like “disrespectful,” and “douche bags.” The stereotype behind fraternities in 2017 is that of ignorant assholes with no aspirations in life, and that is sad considering the amount of good a fraternity can do on a college campus. According to the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Every U.S. President and Vice President, since the first fraternity was founded in 1825, have been members of a fraternity, select chapters across the nation have been able to raise more than $1 million dollars in charitable contributions to their philanthropy, and 85% of the Fortune 500 executives belong to a fraternity. That is all overshadowed by the reckless acts of a few.
People say that hazing works, that it builds character and brotherhood. That it’s OK because “I was hazed in high school and it was completely fine,” but by the exhaustive list of deaths caused by hazing, I would firmly disagree. According to Hank Newer, an Associate Professor of Journalism at Franklin College and the author of multiple books and articles about hazing, There have been 17 deaths caused by hazing since 2010, and 41 since 2000. 41 young men have died because of these so called traditions set forth by naive kids who believe they can control how much someone can take. Hazing gets in the way of great accomplishments that can, and should, be done. I believe it’s best to build people up, and raw facts back my opinion. Fraternities have the potential to do great things, but the actions of cruel students have jeopardized that bright future.
