Hazing students in order to cement their place in sororities and fraternities is deeply cemented in American college culture. Immortalized in popular culture and through eyewitness accounts, these bizarre rites of passage are often tolerated no matter how severe they are. This process is perpetuated by members who endured the pledge process and consequently want to experience being on the other side of proceedings.
However, this tradition has recently featured in numerous judicial cases, the most recent taking place at Youngstown State University in Ohio. Nine men have been formally accused of beating two pledges in an off-campus event, which left them severely injured and in need of medical attention. These pledges were allegedly attacked with wire hangers and paddles. According to an article published in TIME on Friday, the fraternity has consequently been suspended for 15 years, which will be followed by a 10-year probation.
Unfortunately, this account isn’t the worst incident to occur. Other incidents include pledges being forced to swim in vomit, or engage in other activities that have led to fatalities. Yet, these practices are preserved and often justified in the name of tradition. Of course, one has to remember these extreme cases should not hinder the other contingent that understands where the lines should be drawn. Rituals that aren’t life threatening or psychologically harmful can still preserve a fraternity’s exclusivity and reputation.
Hopefully, social condemnation of members who abuse the pledge process will prevent innocent students from enduring extreme hazing. If universities begin to exercise a low tolerance for these cases, the rules for hazing pledges will change. Conversely, if these cases are never publicized, or completely ignored, this vicious cycle will only continue to spiral out of control. Fraternities claim to promote a sense of community and bonds between its members; maintaining such drastic hazing practices seems to be a contradiction. Perhaps a review of hazing by those select chapters that promote such abusive behavior will bring with it a general reconstruction of what being in a fraternity should actually be about.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
