On the 12th of November 1974 a group of students at momouth College in New Jersey left their fraternity house and walked to a nearby Beach there five of the students were given shovels and instructed to dig their own Graves this unreal was the beginning of a hazing ritual that would ultimately end in
Disaster fraternities and sororities are student groups found on many University campuses in the United States the benefits of joining one are numerous members enjoy being part of a supportive Community extra social events a sense of belonging and the academic support of their peers often these organizations
Have a dedicated house or dorm on campus where active members live and study together new students who wish to join a fraternity or sorority are known as pledges pledges generally have to see out a trial period before they can become full members this trial period may be as simple as getting to know
Existing members or helping out by doing chores or other menial tasks however some fraternities have a history of putting new members through violent or humiliating experiences before allowing them to join a practice known as hazing the ostensible purpose of hazing is to help members Bond as all members will
Have at some point gone through the same difficult experience for the same unifying reason typical hazing activities include being made to drink to excess take part in humiliating games eat unpleasant Foods or undertake unpleasant rituals or dares in the case of the Zeta B L to fraternity at Monmouth College in New
Jersey the form that hazing took was rather different Monmouth College today known as Monmouth University is a relatively small institution in 1974 it had only just received full College accreditation in the 1970s it was home to only around 4,000 students among these 19-year-old William flowers was a bright and popular new arrival
He was wellknown friendly to all and did well both in terms of academics and extracurricular activities he played both football and basketball and was also a member of the chess club his popularity made him an ideal candidate for Zeta beta to this small but energetic fraternity had only around
15 members at the time but nonetheless took a very active role in campus life for the last few years the fraternity had organized popular charity dance marathons at the college raising tens of thousands of dollars for charity as an organization they were well known and generally liked to have the chance to
Join the fraternity was considered an honor William was indeed offered the chance to join and was Keen to accept before he could become a full member however he would have to endure a midnight hazing ritual this year year William and four other hopeful pledges would be marched out to a beach not far
From the fraternity house and ordered to dig their own Graves there was of course no intention to bury the pledges alive after the exhausting work of digging the graves was complete the pledges were made to Lion them while existing fraternity members sprinkled sand on them from
Above this would have been the extent of The Hazing had the grave in which William flowers lay not collapsed on top of him burying him under 1.5 M or 5 ft of wet sand instantly everyone present began trying to dig William out their effort combined with William desperately
Kicking from under the sand allowed them to free his feet but his upper body remained buried after around 15 minutes of frantic digging William was freed but it was too late he had died as a result of inhaling sand and the pressure of the sand on his chest though seven members of the
Fraternity were arrested they were ultimately cleared of manslaughter as the death was ruled to be accidental on the 28th of August 2005 student Kenny luong attended an unofficial football game at the University of California in Irvin this game was the final step in the pledging process for the Lambda F
Epsilon fraternity Lambda F Epsilon is a nationally recognized fraternity Chapters at different universities are all overseen by a national Lambda F Epsilon organization the chapter at the University of California was not considered an official fraternity by the University Administration but was recognized and allowed as part of Campus Life
Kenny wasn’t actually a student at the University of California he and his fellow pledges attended California state poly Technic University in Pomona about an hour away Kenny was an enthusiastic and ambitious young man who enjoyed cooking and video games he wanted more opportunities to socialize and build a
Network of peers and so had decided to work together with his friends to start a chapter of Lambda 5 Epsilon at their school Kenny in particular was so dedicated to this goal that he had quit a part-time job he held at a department store to have more time to pursue
It to get permission to form a new chapter from the national Lambda F Epsilon organization they would first have to successfully become members of the nearby Irvine chapter even though they were not students at that University for that reason Kenny and several other students from California state Polytechnic had endured weeks of
Torment at a campus around an hour away from their own activities they had been required to undertake included eating raw onions driving to Mexico to buy alcohol at their own expense drinking excessive amounts of water and deliberately falling face first onto the ground with their hands behind their
Backs this last activity had already resulted in in one hospitalization the culmination of nine weeks of hazing was to be a game of American football pitting the approximately 10 pledges from California state poly Technic against around 40 existing fraternity members unlike official games in this match players would wear no protective
Equipment and would not be permitted water to drink the game would carry on for at least 3 hours during which time the pledges from California state Polytechnic were repeatedly tackled by more than one opposing player at a time after one such tackle Kenny luong didn’t get back up he was at first
Ignored until another player noticed that he appeared to be having a seizure he was rushed to hospital where doctors discovered that he was badly bruised and there was swelling on his brain his parents were called and came straight to the the hospital from their workplaces shortly thereafter Kenny passed away from his
Injuries the fraternity was ultimately not prosecuted for the death the University of California chapter did not have insurance and so to obtain a civil settlement members of the fraternity were pursued individually a complex and timec consuming process the fraternity continued to operate in the years that
Followed on the night of the 2nd of February 2005 several fraternities at California State University in Chico were carrying out hazing activities indeed this particular week was often considered the peak of hazing activities for new pledges hoping to join fraternities at the University and as such was sometimes referred to as
Hell week 21-year-old Matthew Carrington was hoping to join join Kai too a popular fraternity that operated at California state though tolerated by the university the fraternity had no official ties with the institution as these had been severed in 2002 after a series of incidents involving loud parties and antisocial Behavior the fraternity nonetheless
Retained its frat house on the edge of Campus here Matthew along with two other pledges was taken into the basement for the final part of his initiation to the fraternity this would be an hours long ordeal during which Matthew and the other pledges would be forced to do
Exercises in a part of the basement that had become contaminated by raw sewage following a leak earlier that year they were also repeatedly sprayed with cold water and had powerful fans pointed at them to maximize their discomfort in between bouts of intense exercise they were made to to
Participate in trivia games and drink huge amounts of water from large plastic bottles the pledges were encouraged to drink even after vomiting and even when displaying signs of being unwell this forced exercise and forced water consumption had been part of hazings at Kau by some accounts for the last 20
Years on this particular night Junior fraternity members have been placed in charge and instruct Ed not to go easy on the new pledges at a certain point at least an hour into The Hazing Matthew collapsed and began to have a seizure the fraternity members in charge delayed calling an ambulance either unaware how
Seriously unwell Matthew was or hoping that he would recover by the time they did almost an hour after his collapse it was too late Matthew was taken to a nearby Medical Center where it was found that his brain and lungs had swollen up due to the excessive amount of water he
Had been forced to drink at around 5:00 a.m. he passed away from water intoxication hazing injuries were at the time normally treated as misdemeanors or accidents unusually in this case the four fraternity members most directly responsible for The Hazing did receive prison sentences of up to a year one of them Gabriel my
Said I did what I did out of a misguided sense of building Brotherhood and instead I lost a brother I will live with the consequences of hazing for the rest of my life my actions killed a good person and I will be a felon for the
Rest of my life and I’ll have to live with that disability but I’m alive and Matt’s not further advocacy work by Matthew’s mother in the months and years after his death has led to the passing of Matt’s law in California a piece of legislation that makes it easier to pursue felony
Charges in the case of a hazing related death she continues to work to raise awareness of how dangerous hazing can be to be able to prosecute in the aftermath of a death is progress but her goal remains to prevent hazings from happening in the first place He
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