Much Ado About Hazing

Hazing 101: Welcome to Greek Life
by Brittany Roberts



Hardly ever does a person not think of hazing when they think of a fraternity or sorority. These terms seem synonymous to most people when they enter college.

“Thank you sir, may I have another!” and “Toga! Toga!” are popular quotes from National Lampoon’s Animal House, a movie that embodies the quintessential stereotypes of Greek life in college. This movie popularized the idea of hazing within fraternities and sororities, and brought it to light to the general public.

Once you get to college, you generally become familiar with seeing Greek letters across campus, whether it is on shirts, buildings, houses, or banners. Most colleges and universities across the United States have Greek life on their campus. So how big is the problem of hazing within fraternities and sororities?

Hazing is illegal in 44 states of the U.S. It is also against most colleges’ Greek life codes, and most importantly, it is banned by the national levels of each fraternity and sorority within the United States.

The North American Interfraternity Conference (also known as IFC) has mandated that each sorority and fraternity include a no-hazing education during the time between when a member joins and when a member is initiated—commonly known as the pledging period.

"Whenever we hear that there is any kind of hazing, we get to the bottom of it—if it doesn’t stop, we report it to the chapter in question’s national headquarters,” said Meredith McCrea, head of Greek Life at High Point University.

This doesn’t mean that hazing doesn’t occur, though. Chapters of these national Greek organizations are still being shut down, with one occurrence happening as recent as April 16, 2009 with a chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

“In my brother’s fraternity at UNC Chapel Hill, the new members have to sit on a bench in front of their chapter house, not talking the entire time. But he’s told me about rumors of the other fraternities making their pledges stay in closets and be urinated on,” says Amy Will, a sister of Phi Mu Fraternity at High Point University.

Hazing ranges from emotional to physical abuse. One of the main types of hazing includes the consumption of a lot of alcohol, often accompanied by drinking songs to make the brother or sister drink.

Most people who endure hazing are afraid to admit that they have suffered from it. It is a humiliating process and people are not proud of what they have to do when being hazed.

“I heard a rumor about one of the fraternities on campus that they make their pledges do push-ups with your elbows on bottle caps, and also that they have some kind of physical pain inflicted upon them when listening to a specific song. When they hear that song from now on, they always want it to be changed,” says a member of one of the fraternities on High Point University’s campus.

According to anonymous survey statistics from Inside Hazing, 54% of the respondents say that extreme consumption is an important part of initiation rites. Out of fraternity and sorority members, this drops to 29%--but the fact remains that the 54% of the anonymous survey could have included members of Greek life afraid to admit to hazing.

On college campuses since 1970, there has been at least one hazing-related death per year. Although not all hazing deaths are related to alcohol, 82% of them were. The National Headquarters of most fraternities and sororities have a strict anti-hazing policy, and all of them include no forced consumption of alcoholic beverages. Along the same lines, most colleges have implemented anti-hazing policies within their conduct codes.

Anonymous Survey of Fraternity and Sorority Members

Hazing at High Point University

The “H” word is a taboo word within the sororities and fraternities on the campus of High Point University. Rarely do you hear Greeks talking about hazing with Greeks from other organizations—unless it is about how they don’t haze.

The High Point University Conduct Code says this about hazing: “Organizations found guilty of hazing should expect to have their charters withdrawn, and members of the organization, individually or collectively, should expect suspension or expulsion.”

Rumors of groups hazing run rampant on this campus, though. At the beginning of freshman year, all of the potential rushees—people who are thinking of joining (or rushing) a sorority or fraternity—hear all of the rumors.

“Within my first few weeks here, I knew which sororities hazed and which didn’t. I knew that one group made their girls sit by the spirit rock during their Initiation week—to make sure it stayed ‘theirs’—and that another group stripped you to your underwear and circled your fat,” says Courtney Adamo, a junior at High Point University and a member of a social sorority.

Other fraternities on campus are known for either hazing with drugs, extensive alcohol consumption, physical abuse, or emotional abuse.

“During [one fraternity’s] Hell Week, they used to shave their members’ heads,” says Derek Forrester, a senior member of one of the fraternities on campus. “Another fraternity used to make their members wear these hideous green jackets all week—in all weather—without showering.”

However, most of these rumors have been debunked within the past few years. They still circulate, though, and will probably continue to circulate among every new class of freshman that enters the hallowed halls of High Point University.

Facts on Hazing

A Weekend of Possible Hazing

The beach is crowded with young men and women, most of them holding some kind of beverage; and as the day goes on, there are chants, singing, and the usual beach sports, like ultimate Frisbee and volleyball.

Most of the people there have been drinking since before they got to the beach that morning—and some of them since they woke up. It’s a tradition for this weekend.

That weekend is a short vacation that one of the fraternities on campus has annually at Cherry Grove Beach, S.C.; it is a weekend of camaraderie, long days at the beach, and—to put it bluntly—alcoholism.

The brothers of this fraternity are close. It is almost as if they were true brothers rather than just fraternity brothers. It’s not hard to see that they have had “bonding” experiences.

“We don’t make them do anything that we haven’t done, and none of it is humiliating. We don’t call them pledges, and we don’t make them do anything they don’t want to do,” says one of the brothers, putting a positive light on the way his fraternity works.

The Friday night of the beach trip involves arrivals and many drunken people on the beach. It also involves a broken window when one of the alumni brothers thinks he can fit through a window open maybe eight inches.

Saturday starts early, with brothers encouraging other brothers to drink beer—in the name of fun. The beach has people who are in various states of public drunkenness all day. The night has a dinner and awards ceremony for the brothers.

Everyone leaves on Sunday, but not without an experience to remember—or an experience that others help them relive.

Related Links

Hazing Statistics

StopHazing

MSNBC Statistics on Hazing

Human Sources

Meredith McCrea -- High Point University Faculty/Staff
Courtney Adamo -- High Point University student
Derek Forrester -- High Point University student
Amy Will -- High Point University Student

(images are linked to their source)