What is Hazing in College

College Student Safety: Hazing and Alcohol

According to some research, about half of all students experience or participate in hazing at some point in their college career. Sometimes people think of hazing as a “fun” ritual that all new members of a club, sports team, sorority, or fraternity experience before being welcomed into the group. The truth is far darker and more complicated. Every year, for more than 50 years – from 1970 – 2021 in the United States a college student has died as a result of hazing. More than 80% of these deaths involved alcohol in some way.

What is Hazing?

One thing that makes hazing so insidious is that it can be hard to pinpoint what it is exactly. In fact, some experts believe that out of all students who experience hazing, only about 10% of them realize what’s happening. For example, hazing can look like being required to greet senior members of an organization in a specific way. Students being forced (mentally, emotionally, or physically) to change their bodies through hair removal, temporary or permanent tattoos, and branding is hazing. Anything that is purposefully done so that someone experiences discomfort, risks injury, or is humiliated for the sake of being welcomed into a club, group, or organization is hazing. The definition of hazing includes purposeful acts that risk or cause injury, mental harm, humiliation, degradation, or compromising an individual’s sense of ethics or moral values. Forcing someone to drink alcohol or consume mind-altering substances is hazing. Currently, hazing is illegal in Ohio as well as 43 other states in America.

What Does Alcohol Hazing Mean?

One of the most popular forms of hazing in colleges is forcing someone to drink alcohol or consume mind-altering substances. This could include things like keg stands, doing shots, bar crawls, and much more. Whenever an act of hazing includes drinking large quantities of alcohol, it would be considered alcohol hazing. Alcohol hazing is particularly dangerous due to the risk of overdose and alcohol poisoning, which occurs when you have drank large quantities of alcohol in a short amount of time leading to an excess of alcohol in your bloodstream which negatively affecting your body’s ability to perform life-supporting functions, like your breathing, heart rate and consciousness. A person experiencing alcohol poisoning requires immediate medical attention, and in a hazing situation this is often neglected, leaving the person to succumb to the poisoning. Other risks that can occur with alcohol hazing include passing out and then choking on vomit while intoxicated, driving while intoxicated leading to a serious accident, or other impairments in judgement that can lead to serious injuries or fatalities such as swimming while drunk, climbing trees or other elevated spaces and falling, etc. Because many students in college are under the age of 21 alcohol hazing is not only dangerous but also illegal, and this is besides the established anti-hazing laws in Ohio.

More Articles About What Is Hazing

• Alcohol and Hazing
• Alcohol, Hazing, and College Drinking
• College Hazing: What It Is and How to Stop It
• Examples of Hazing
• Hazing and Binge Drinking: A Lethal Combination
• Hazing Prevention Education
• Hazing Statistics, Data, and Facts
• The Most Brutal College Hazing Rituals
• Types of Hazing
• What is Hazing?

Fraternity & Sorority Hazing

One of the most popular types of college hazing is frat hazing or sorority hazing. Having to perform embarrassing and dangerous acts to become part of a Greek house on a college campus. One professor who studies hazing states that there were more than thirty deaths between 2007-2017 related to Greek Life hazing. Although with each death students hold vigils and authorities in charge of the schools and organizations promise reform nothing ever seems to happen to make students safer.

Why do colleges allow hazing in fraternities and sororities? One reason is alumni, who regularly donate money to the Greek organizations they belonged to in college and now many of whom hold positions of great power and responsibility in the outside world, look back fondly on their college days. These fond memories include hazing younger members of their fraternities or sororities. They push back against calls for reform that include enforcing anti-hazing rules and laws and making sure fraternities and sororities who break the rules are punished.

The main punishment for fraternities or sororities that get caught hazing college students is losing their charter to operate a Greek organization on campus. Even when the rules broken include serving alcohol to minors, powerful alumni typically fight any consequences. That doesn’t mean that schools won’t revoke charters and ban some fraternities and sororities from campus. It also doesn’t mean that individual students won’t face sanctions from the school and, especially in cases of great physical harm or underage drinking, consequences from local law enforcement agencies. It’s never okay to serve underage students. It’s also important to recognize the link between alcohol and hazing. The more people drink, the more likely they are to drop inhibitions and make terrible decisions that can have life-altering consequences for them and others.

More Articles on Fraternity and Sorority Hazing

• College Students Keep Dying Because of Fraternity Hazing. Why Is It So Hard to Stop?
• Greek Life Nightmares: The Worst Frat & Sorority Hazing Stories
• Hazing | The Deadly Ritual at Fraternities and Sororities
• Hazing in Fraternities and Sororities
• If Student Deaths Won’t Stop Fraternity Hazing, What Will?
• Sorority and Fraternity Attitudes Towards Initiation and Hazing (PDF)
• They Pledge. Get Hazed. The Cycle Continues
• Will Hazing and Misconduct End Greek Life on Campus?
• Women Hazing Women

Report Hazing

One factor that makes it very difficult for colleges and society as a whole to deal with hazing and stop the practice is that the people who experience it or witnesses are hesitant to report it. Only 5% of students who know they were hazed report the hazing to their schools or the police. Perhaps an even more concerning issue is that 25% of professors, advisors, coaches, and school administrators who know about specific hazing incidents do not report it either. Most colleges now have formalized procedures for students and employees to report issues of hazing. Some schools have even designed forms so students can report hazing anonymously from their smartphones anytime.

• Anti-Hazing Policy and Reports
• Anti-Hazing Resources
• Hazing Law Violations & Reporting
• Hazing Reporting Form
• How to Report a Hazing Incident
• Identifying and Reporting Hazing
• The ‘How,’ ‘What,’ and ‘Why’ of Reporting Hazing
• Recognizing & Reporting Hazing

Hazing is just one of the issues that college students face. It’s important to understand your rights as a college student, and make sure you know what to do if you are wrongfully accused of misbehavior at your college. If you live in Ohio and are in legal trouble and looking at being expelled from your college or university, contact The Joslyn Law Firm online or call (614) 444-1900. We can meet with you for a free case evaluation.