Would You Ever Go Through Hazing to Be Part of a Group?

Alright, you read the title. You clicked on the article. You know what is about to go down.

Every year, college students are injured or killed during events associated with hazing. Often, violence, heavy drinking, and humiliation are part of the rituals students endure to gain acceptance into a popular group on campus. At times, sleep deprivation, nudity, and sex acts also are involved.

While college hazing is most commonly associated with fraternities and sororities, other organizations participate as well, including sports teams and marching bands. While many states have made hazing a crime, only some have made it a felony. In 2012, Congresswoman Frederica Wilson introduced legislation that would have made the activity a federal offense. But the effort was unsuccessful.

Hazing is an issue that journalists on education and crime beats over quite often, especially if they work near large universities. So the question is: Would I Ever Go Through Hazing to Be Part of a Group?

The short answer is ‘No, absolutely not’. I feel like hazing is a bad idea all around, but knowing that you’re all smart and capable individuals, you want my reasonings.

Possible Expulsion

Hazing in public schools is a significant problem that may result in serious physical or emotional harm to students who are victims. According to experts in the field, each year more than 1,500,000 American students become new hazing victims.

Hazing also results in legal challenges for school personnel. The courts consider public schools to be safe places where teaching and learning occur in a peaceful environment. Thus, school personnel has a leading responsibility to protect the safety of students under the functional custody of their schools. Hazing activities, if not checked, pose a threat to the health and safety of students.

Consequently, a significant number of hazing acts go unreported. Hazing has become so prevalent that it has prompted 44 states to pass legislation banning it. Despite anti-hazing laws, hazing continues to occur among athletes, peer groups, gangs, and other school clubs and organizations. 

Individuals involved with hazing may be expelled from school, suspended from enrollment for a definite or indefinite period of time, and/or face additional sanctions which may include the college or university referring the case to outside law enforcement agencies.

Possible Death

“Thank you, Sir! May I have another?” This line, immortalized in 1978’s quintessential fraternity/hazing movie Animal House, essentially summarizes how young male college students – pledges – respond to extreme obstacles in order to join a fraternity. Men desperate for the status of an elite brotherhood go to such great lengths to show loyalty that many have ended up sick, injured, terribly hungover, or even worse: dead.

There has been at least one university hazing death each year. According to Franklin College journalism professor Hank Nuwer, at least one U.S. school, club or organization hazing death has been reported every year from 1959 to 2019, according to his latest research effective August 2019.

A reporter could be writing about a single hazing incident for a year or longer because death or serious injury often prompts multiple investigations, lawsuits, and new anti-hazing initiatives.

Breaking news about hazing happens year-round. In December 2017, a sorority at the College of William & Mary and a fraternity at the University of Southern Indiana were suspended for hazing. Meanwhile, the Pi Kappa Alpha International Fraternity was indicted on a hazing charge after a pledge at the University of Houston was body-slammed and suffered a lacerated spleen. A total of four fraternity pledges died in 2017.

You May Bring Up (or Cause) A Traumatic Experience In The Victim

Hazing creates stress, anxiety, intimidation, and often results in physical and emotional harm to victims. Well-defined policies prohibiting hazing and proper procedures for reporting hazing, coupled with vigilance by school personnel, in monitoring student activities may greatly reduce hazing incidents and minimize potential liability claims for school personnel.

Negative psychological effects of hazing can be both long-lasting and just as traumatic to the victim and their families. These can include depression, suicide, poor grades, withdrawal from activities and shame. This harm can persist into adulthood and can undermine the well-being of a person.

A study by psychology majors at Ramapo College of New Jersey shows that hazing not only physically scars people, but it also has a long-lasting impact on a student’s self-esteem, mental health and school life.

Many cognitive processes could be negatively impacted due to hazing, such as self-esteem, moral and identity development. Though many students who decide to go through with the recruitment process perceive Greek organizations as beneficial, rarely do they consider the negative implications of hazing.

The effects of hazing include psychological trauma, sleeping problems, flashbacks, eating disorders, anxiety, avoidance, depression, and intense feelings. Hazing has physical and emotional effects on a person, and members of college sports teams and fraternities and sororities are the most likely students to be hazed, according to the study by Allen and Madden. They found that 55 percent of college students involved in clubs, teams, and organizations experience hazing.

Members of Greek Life do not even realize they are being abused, studies show. Incoming members receive the most abuse from the older members, which they believe teaches them hierarchy and discipline, according to the University of Maryland.

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Your Relationships With Friends and Family May Suffer

Whether mental, physical, social or emotional, hazing is harmful and is incongruent with the purpose of fraternity/sorority. Research shows that often individuals may not recognize what they are experiencing as “hazing”, rather they will chalk it up as a rite of passage or “earning” their place in an organization.

With 11,482 undergraduate students at 53 colleges and universities in different regions of the U.S. and interviews with more than 3,000 students and staff at 18 of those campuses, results from the National Study on Student Hazing revealed that 90% of the students who report experiencing hazing behaviors do not believe they have been “hazed”.

The frequency with which serious injuries and deaths result from hazing activities has increased tremendously in the last ten years. From 1990-2002, more hazing-related deaths occurred than all previous college and university deaths of that nature on record.

Hazing can affect individuals differently depending on their background and upbringing. In fact, in some instances, the more long-term effects of hazing are often unseen and referred to as the “hidden harm” of hazing. When subjected to hazing experiences, new members react differently based on the experiences that they bring into this new environment. The following are examples of how hazing can negatively impact those involved:

• Mental hazing can affect people in many different ways including anger, confusion, betrayal, fear, resentment, embarrassment, humiliation, hopelessness, helplessness, anxiety and depression are all normal reactions to being hazed. Some individuals, both hazers and those who have been hazed have become suicidal.

• Physical hazing can result in exhaustion, headaches, hangovers, illnesses, injuries, and scars and can also lead to death.

• Long-term psychological effects can result from unknown factors associated with the hazing experiences that individuals have from their past; i.e., a victim of sexual assault/abuse, former military service in a combat zone, physical abuse from within their family, alcoholism, etc.

Often, when individuals are being hazed it feels like the experience could not get any worse; however, in many instances, the hazing becomes more severe over the course of the new member process.

Research shows that as the hazing is happening, individuals may want it to stop, but they fail to ask for help for fear their organization may get in trouble. Other factors influencing an individual’s decision whether to leave the situation is the fear of being shunned or feeling as though they have already endured too much to simply walk away. Finally, a sense of self-blame can overcome those who are being hazed. Sometimes, individuals will indicate that a new member who wants things to stop will let others down if they leave or tell anyone what is going on.

People that haze often attempts to isolate their new members from communicating with friends and family because they understand what they are doing is wrong and they fear the consequences of being caught. We invite you to learn more by reviewing the additional information provided.

Again, I don’t condone hazing by any stretch of the imagination. I think it’s absolutely terrible. I, myself, wouldn’t participate in hazing to get into any form of group and would recommend you stay away from it as much as humanly possible. Have you experienced hazing? Do you know someone that has? Please share your stories, if you’re comfortable, down below.

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