hmmmm - damn -
“Some of the players in the lawsuit said their pubic hair was removed with a blowtorch. Others said their penis was tied to a helmet or five-gallon bucket, which older players filled with hockey pucks.”
Former hockey players sue Michigan over alleged sexualized hazing - ESPN
HazingInfo.org is the nation’s first comprehensive database of college hazing incidents. Lots of good info!
I just discarded my planned original post because I realized the profanities would probably get me banned from the site. What on earth is wrong with humans???
Agree.
Note that the hazing allegations occurred several decades ago, in the 1980s and 1990s. I don’t think hazing is getting worse than in the past. I think it’s more that hazing is getting publicly reported more often… including to campus officials, lawsuits, and among news media.
Sigh
I’m not a Greek alum but seems crazy that a school wouldn’t recognize the organization but that the national organization would.
Sad, scary - I would hope the pledges aren’t signing up for this.
I didn’t see it but maybe I just missed it - did it say who called the police ?
It is not that unusual for fraternities or sororities to be unrecognized by the campus while still being part of a national organization. The following include lists of unrecognized-by-the-campus chapters that students are recommended not to join.
Don’t know it to be hazing but…
Wrong with humans? When was the last time that you heard about a girls’ team doing this sort of thing? Or come to think of it, of men being drugged and raped by women at sorority houses? Or of any co-ed organization doing this kind of hazing? It’s not humans - it’s just the subset with Y chromosomes, in groups, behaving like animals, except that it’s an insult to animals to say such a thing.
The study at https://stophazing.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/hazing_in_view_study.pdf found that among students who have been involved in a campus team, club, or organization; 52% of female students experienced hazing compared to 61% of male students. This study defined hazing as,
“Hazing is any activity expected of someone joining or participating in a group that humiliates, degrades, abuses, or endangers them regardless of a person’s willingness to participate.”
There are occasional news stories about female hazing, but no doubt less common than male hazing. For example, a few years ago there was a story about the parents of a Northwestern student suing a sorority with allegations that their daughter’s suicide related to hazing (“physical abuse including paddling, verbal abuse, mental abuse, financial exploitation, sleep deprivation, items being thrown and dumped on her, and other forms of hazing intended to humiliate and demean her”) at her sorority. The lawsuit is at https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-dis-crt-n-d-ill-eas-div/2055047.html .
There is also a big difference in what is considered hazing by sororities and fraterities. Back in the day…we would wake up pledges at 3 am and take them to the dining room to (gasp) eat ice cream. Now that is considered hazing. I asked my niece if she knew certain songs but no, ‘forcing’ them to learn songs = hazing.
Anyone living in a dorm could do these same things and no one would think twice about it.
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The events listed in this thread are also not the norm. Typical hazing rarely gets printed in news stories, nor does it generate lawsuits. Instead media and lawsuits emphasize the most extreme and outrageous events that are discussed publicly, and those are more likely to involve fraternities than sororities.
Sorority hazing has a reputation for placing a greater emphasis on psychological/emotional and social aspects, such as social exclusion or body shaming. While fraternity hazing has a reputation for placing a greater emphasis on physical aspects, such as excessive drinking. I can’t speak on how accurate these reputations are.
I am not sure how “outside norm” some of these terrible things are, honestly. It certainly ins’t rare in my mind. I rarely find them THAT surprising truth be told. I am not saying they are going on at every house all the time… of course not, but does truly terrible things happen at one house at a large school each year? I think quite possibly and always have… Google Jon Hamm’s incident from UT back in day. awful. I guess it depends on what you consider “norm” Maybe I guess think it is not all that “rare” maybe..
The latter point was certainly what I heard from my school. I heard terrible things about body shaming from women I knew in sororities and the rumors from fraternities - ugh.
This is not accurate. Part of every RA’s training now falls under the risk management category-- and RA’s are taught “it’s not about whether YOU think the activity is a problem, it’s whether the university’s lawyers would think it’s a problem”. Whether it’s someone’s emotional support dog barking and growling at other students in the dorm elevator (neither illegal or generally regarded as hazing) or someone keeping bright lights and music on “to help me study” at 2 am when your roommate needs to get to her job in the dining hall at 6 am for breakfast prep- lots of inconsiderate/rude/obnoxious behaviors would NOT be tolerated in a dormitory. And the RA’s get trained on how to mediate and then escalate.