All right um well welcome everyone we are really thrilled to have uh you here with us today uh my name is Mary Beth gasman and I am a professor at Ruckers University I also serve as the executive director of both the Samuel dwit Proctor Institute for leadership equity and
Justice and the recer center for minority serving institutions and we are the proud sponsor of today’s event uh we are really really thrilled to have Walter Kimbro with us who is our president in Residence this year and he’s just been doing amazing things with us and we have a lot more planned for
The rest of the year um as you may know uh I’m very excited uh to have um Walter here he’s been a friend for years and years and years uh some of you may know him as the past president of phander Smith college or Dillard College he’s got amazing expertise in uh higher
Education but he also has expertise in hazing in terms of uh being able to really help us to understand hazing and uh Trends in hazing and so today’s uh webinar is called current trends in hazing and using his experience as an expert witness in hazing cases he is
Going to cover recent Trends including the differences between culturally based groups and um we’ll also provide a a history of hazing at higher education institutions he’s going to discuss how hazing manifests today and he’s also going to discuss the legal challenges facing individuals and organizations due
To hazing and he’s going to give us a presentation and then he’s going to take questions so as we’re going along please put your questions in the Q&A and we will be answering those at the end of this session uh Walter I just want to say thank you again for being our
President in Residence I cannot imagine a better person to be president and residence with us and thank you for doing this session today on hazing I you know of course I’ve read your book related to the topic and know that this is a topic that you care immensely about
We’re thrilled to have you here with us today and take it away all right so good afternoon to everyone I am coming to you live from Ruckers here in New Jersey so I’m glad to be here and sharing with the team and so I want to jump right in and and go
Through a number of things so that you can get an idea of what’s going on with this issue of hazing uh and so let me give you the context first of all um Tom Nichols wrote a book he started off with this article that you see that was
Wasn’t a federalist but wrote a book about this idea of expertise um and one of the things he says is that you know for certain things and his expertise is around you know War military those kind of geopolitical issues uh he says in this article you know he’s an expert not
On everything but a particular area so when he says something he expects that that opinion would hold more weight than that of most other people and the courts sometimes come up with something that they call an expert witness and so they Define it a little bit differently is
Someone with a special knowledge or skill or experience that goes beyond the ordinary experience uh of members of the general public so I’m presenting this today not as someone who’s been a president or worked in student affairs my first job was in Greek life at IM University but as an expert witness okay
So I was first asked to be an expert witness in 1998 uh and as you can see since that time uh I’ve been asked 34 times and you can see a range of different types of organizations both Nic nphc and band organizations um and then some University related cases as well so lots
Of experience um reading lots of depositions seeing a lot of crazy things but it really gives you an insight as what I hope to do today in terms of what’s really going on so when we talk about this idea of hazing what what are we talking about and this comes from stop hazing
And I like this it’s a very basic definition that’s very plain and I always encourage people take definitions like this but look at your state definitions as well because sometimes there are some Nuance differences between what the state says and some of these definitions even for your campus
But this definition I think is really good you know in terms of humiliating degrading abusing and danger and I think the key phrase here is regardless of a person’s willingness to participate because there have been cases in the past where an organization or group was charged with hazing they say well they
They volunteered to do it and it’s really sort of hard to say someone has volunteered to do something that the other members don’t have to do as well so that’s an important part of it this is where we what we’re dealing with though about half of all college
Students experience Haz okay it’s a large number so a lot of times we focus heavily on fraternities and sororities but we’re talking about half of students uh and this is the part I think that we’re missing that I think we’ve got to do more work and out reach to middle and
High school students about their experiences with hazing about half of students come to college having experienced at least some level of hazing and it could be very benign my son is in the ninth grade he plays junior varsity basketball they practice with the varsity and one day The Varsity people took the practice
Uniforms and hit them okay very benign but technically that’s hazing so he would have had an experience with that as well and so those are the kind of issues that we we see so I’m seeing it in my own household in terms of where those Beginnings hap happen and as you
Can see it happens over a wide range but the top two are Athletics and Greek life and of course Greek life is the one that gets most of the attention nationally that’s driven a lot of change that we see because normally with those cases you see death okay but you can see you
Can have a range of of hazing and I want to talk about some of that today um before we go this is our challenge though as uh folks who work on campuses students don’t want to report it because it it it’s counterintuitive why would you report a group that’s
Hazing and you’re really trying to join the group that defeats the purpose because if you report it if the group gets shut down then you don’t become a member if you become a member but the people that you were trying to be a member with all get suspended you don’t
Have a relationship with them so it’s hard for someone to say report you’re being hazed when you’re really trying to be a part of that group and you think about the organization more local than you know nationally you would for a fraternity and sorority so they understand a national entity exists but
It’s sort of nebulous they don’t really understand what that means they know what that local chapter looks like and that is their experience with that organization so those are the kinds of things that um we see that people just don’t report and that becomes our Challenge and it continues to be our
Challenge okay so let’s talk about who’s hazing well the first hazers and this is the history and I think this makes it a challenge for us because hazing is something we can Trac back to the 1400s in German universities The Freshman had to carry around Pen Cases they called
Them penals um and they performed a lot of performed a lot of menal personal servitude um in Great Britain in the 1700s they had a different kind of process that was a little bit more physical and violent and so in the mid 1800s in the United States we called it
Hazing and it was for freshman and just like in Great Britain and in Germany the new students weren’t viewed as being good enough to be there so they had to sort of earn their way or prove themselves and so pictures from a yearbook might show scenes like this you
Know the the historical beanie that uh the young man is wearing is a part of it but if you look at some of the smaller pictures um you know behind him it looks like that the The Freshman is being kicked in behind or the top left you
Know thrown over an open flame those are the kinds of issues this was at uh Stanford and this was about a hundred years ago and it they called it a freshman death notice so the sophomore put this up and there you see the mighty sophomores and it basically says you
Guys aren’t good enough your day is coming um each paragraph the first letter of that paragraph is highlighted and if you read that it says wash thy sin away so that was the kind of message that was giving the Freshman that you’re not good enough to be here and we’re
Going to do something to you so we had these kind of activities at Indiana University they called it FES freshman and sophomore class rushes and this is what rush looked like and basically during rush the sophomores chased the freshman and beat him down that’s that’s
All it was and you can see the person’s with hats on I think it looks like there are some administrative type folks that are there so this was University sanction activity um at Indiana they even had it where sophomores would literally scalp freshman take a knife
And literally cut the hair off the top of their heads so if you were a freshman and were talking about men in higher education after rush you would look like this okay I mean it was it was a Beatdown it was very violent this was a part of hazing uh in early American
Higher education okay it’s ironic too because you know particularly in the 70s and 80s when people were joining fraternities and sororities we called it Rush well this is the original rush so you want to that’s the history of the word where it comes from so then next when we start thinking
About hazing and even today we think about our IFC fraternities predominant white fraternities and really it takes on a different meaning with the release of the 1977 film Animal House and that really was popular culture trying to tell us this is what fraternity life is like and it was the partying the
Drinking and The Hazing and those kinds of things but unfortunately over the years we’ve seen more and more hazing cases I always tell people when I was a director of Student Activities at at Old Dominion that fall was always scary for me because you knew something could just
Happen and I remember one fall when I was at old and it must have been about 1997 there were several high-profile cases a hazing death at MIT hazing death at LSU uh it was just a horrible fall to to be in that field well we saw that 20
Years later in 2017 where we had four high-profile deaths most notably at Penn State um with Tim pza but you also had it at Florida State at Texas State and at LSU again okay um and so you can just see these are the kinds of headlines these are Big National stories but there
Have been a range of these stories over years and here’s just a sample of some of the things that people are seeing about fraternity hazing and the range of things that we’ve seen so pleasure swimming and vomit um racism involved in making pledges act like they’re slaves
As a part of it where I went to grad school at Miami University uh 2016 they had 21 different complaints so just all kinds of things that are happening at Ivy League institutions uh pledge initiations they’re chanting they’re talking about being necrophiliacs uh having sex with dead
Women I mean these are the kinds of things that we’re dealing with hot sauce and eyes body slams underage drinking uh Force feeding a dog beer all I mean you can see so you’re now having this kind of um image reinforced that Animal House brought to public light is it it
Constantly be is reinforced uh 2018 I found out about this photo uh uh essay if you will or picture book that really looked at U fraternities in a different kind of way and these are some of the pictures that they were able to use in the book in terms of what was happening
With pledging and hazing and people you know halfway past sty those kinds of of issues so with all the the backlash particularly in the fall of 2017 the CEO of the North American in fraternity conference is being grilled on CBS This Morning he also did an interview with
Anderson Cooper on CNN and it’s just hard to you know defend the indefensible which is what he was trying to do so those groups really get a lot of attention when people think about hazing they mostly think of predominant white fraternities we don’t think about panol linic organizations the predominant
White sororities as much um because there hasn’t it’s not the same kind of hazing and it’s been sort of undercover there was a book written by Esther Wright called Toren toogas and she from her experience in Southern California talked about hazing that sort of gave people an impression that no there are
Some hazing that’s going on it might look differently but some of it could be just as bad in different ways so date rape drugs date rape happening as a part of sority initiations um some that becomes you know a little bit more physical um eating mud those kind and
Trash as a part of um hazing ritual alcohol can be a part of it as well um hazing a male students so some some crosswork with organizations in terms of the kinds of things that they’re doing um so you don’t see these as often they’re they’re rare maybe once a year
Twice a year this once again at LSU um in the state of Louisiana we’ve had a number of hazing issues um so you can see those kinds of cases as well um and even in terms of bigger picture when people look at hazing and then how organizations decide who becomes in
Based on their physical appear appearance that has also been a part of The Hazing that people brought to bear as well okay so not as much we haven’t had any major loss suits with those groups um as of yet but it’s just sort of Teeters on the brink of that we also
Then talk about historically black fraternities and sororities okay um and really the idea of hazing was something that really wasn’t always um sort of hidden this is a picture from a 1940 yearbook at Clark Atlanta or Clark College back then um and this is one of the yearbook dividers and I always tell
Students you see this picture and then after this you see all the fraternity men in their txas smiling and so it’s like this dichotomy to say wait a minute the section header shows someone with the being paddled okay and then everybody’s dressed up uh looking like
Angels those are the kinds of things but a decade after Animal House uh Spike Lee had school days 1988 I was uh junior at the University of Georgia I remember going to the theater to watch the movie because we heard the alphas from morous were in the movie stepping uh and it
Showed a lot of things and it was really interesting because at that time a lot of members were saying oh [ __ ] Ley was just mad because he couldn’t make it he didn’t join that stuff Doesn’t Really Happen um but people miss some some key facts about that movie the young man in
The middle wearing the Omega scii jacket um was a part of a line at morouse College I think there were 22 of them that started pledging and he was the only one that was initiated so back in the language of the 1980s 21 people dropped line that means they quit he was
The only one that made it and he was uh [ __ ] Ley um expert to to talk about you know uh Greek life and pledging and those kinds of things so he had a member of a fraternity who was sort of his expert about what Greek life was like
The person to his left if you’re looking at the screen on your right um uh play Ron in a different world okay he is a member of alpha F Alpha players at Syracuse so now you have two people with fraternity experiences that are part of this group and then finally there was a
Relative of one of the guys who was playing one of the pledges the gammites in the movie was actually pledging a fraternity in Atlanta University Center when they were making the movie and he would hide out in their hotel room so now they have a a living example of what
Pledging looks like and that sort of entered into the movie as well so you got your expert you got someone else who has a fraternity experience and then you’re watching somebody pledge as you make this mve okay the real crazy thing about that is that the very next year at
Mous College Joel haris died pledging my fraternity Alpha F Alpha I was leaving our national board as the the college brother uh that represented the southeastern region and at our convention that summer the national president the general Council said we have no uh hazing cases everybody’s
Excited fall of 1989 the quarter that I graduated Joel Harris died at morous he had a pre-existing heart condition the members knew that so when they were off campus hazing no one touched Joel he’s at one side of the apartment the other side of the apartment they’re just
Beating the hell out of the pledges he passed out and died he was not touched the coroner said no bruises nothing on him but he still died as a part of that and that really became something because that immediately several months later the National panal litic Council the the
Umbrella body for the black GRE Le organizations presidents got together and they’re like that’s it I tell people it’s almost like the alphas are killing people and they’re supposed to be the Smart Ones okay so we saw this move then to go from pledging the membership
Intake and it was going to be a hard cultural change to say we’re going to just stop pledging and people are just going to come in and that didn’t work and we saw evidence of that within just a couple of years this case in Southeast Missouri this is four years later um
This young man the coroner said it looked like his body had been in a rapid deceleration car accident he had a torn liver lung kidney spleen brain and his heart was bleeding um Deborah Roberts did a 20 minute segment um for um ABC and She interviewed some of the men who
Were arrested as a part of that um it was gave people a lot of insight into what was happening um that night that February in 1994 and so we’ve continued to see more people be arrested this case at Southern Methodist University um the fraternity had been suspended they had just come
Back on campus they went to a mandatory anti-hazing program that night they went out and hazed okay uh you start to see then people sharing their stories more openly this young man who went to Emory it was a year after he had been hazed he sent out a letter with pictures of
Everything that happened to him so this is 2004 and so these are the kinds of pictures that he sent out to the Press uh to experts his mom called me looking for a lawyer and I don’t know how she found me because I wasn’t working at Emy
At the time when all of this happened okay um this was a case once again people don’t understand what can happen to a person based on their biology this young man has the CLE cell disease trait I also have the trait which if you can have maximum exertion or overe exertion
Sometimes your blood cells can sickle making it difficult for you to breathe and so they’re out prayview is north of Houston is really sort of in the middle of nowhere they’re out you know running he passes out of dies um this is a big case because they were going to sue $400
Million uh this this 2011 you see a case they’re beating with canes they’re shooting down them with BB guns as a part of this okay uh I shared this I met with students at at record and shared this even on this campus uh this is almost 15 years ago 14 years ago
Sorority Hazen case and once again with sororities you don’t see as much we did have a high-profile death though u in California where they were creating an opportunity for people to sort of cross the Sands if you’ve worked with black fraternities and sororities before you’ve heard that terminology when
People are about to be initiated but West Coast people went out to the ocean and went out to the the beach to sort of cross the Sands um but they were out there and got caught up in a rip tide and these two young ladies died one was
A mother one was married uh it it garnered a lot of national attention Dr fileld did a segment those kinds of things so there’s a range of ways where people are feeling the impacts this was a case I was an expert witness on this case they were about to be initiated
Sleep deprivation um going to get their hair done driver fell asleep at the wheel and two young ladies died as a part of that so we’re still seeing these kinds of cases things that are happening um this is just a couple of years ago a colleague of mine uh told me about it
That they were basically saying that women in the chapter were beating the other the pledges like they were men I mean using fish it was very violent forcing them to go you know get alcohol and marijuana those kinds of things were happening as well so we we continue to
See lots of these kinds of cases as well and even more with sororities recently okay there’s been a lot of growth of the Latino fraternal organizations they’re older than most people think um f Alpha was founded in 1931 there were actually secret Latino societies even in States
Like Louisiana in the late 1800s but the Latino fraternal movement really starts in in the 1930s and you see um some other growth in the 60s and 70s particularly here in New Jersey King College a foundational place in 1975 for Lambda Theta Alpha and Lambda Theta 5 um
So you start to see this development then by the 1980s you have uh back then it was Blackish higher education now known as diverse people say we have Latino fraternities and sororities um particularly in the 80s and 90s fraternities and sororities said no more pledging where people would
Walk in line on campus and dress alike in the early 90s Latino groups were doing that openly on campuses and it created some challenges so if you had um a group um like this one you know at Cornell University in the 90s people would see those kinds
Of things same kind of thing here um this was normal you don’t see that as much now but this was a part of the challenges that we would have seen with the Lao fraternal organizations so still some of that not as much which has been really good that
We haven’t with the Latino fraternal organizations okay but we still seen some of that the really interesting one for me that I think require more um research and conversation are the Asian interest organizations now this is the thing that always blows people’s minds because Asian fraternal organizations have been around in the
United States as early as 1916 this is Rosa at Cornell University by 1920 they even had a house on campus okay so people don’t really even know a lot about these groups um and so you had that growth you had some groups in the 20s and
30s more really in this in the uh 60s and then even more in the 80s and 90s and even today okay but the challenge with them is that they have been Brandon this article from The Daily Beast in 2009 called them the new animal houses because based on the number of groups
And the size you have a disproportionate number of severe hazing cases and even hazing deaths associated with the Asian interest fraternal organizations um it it’s just been it’s a disproportionate impact and those are the kinds of conversations that we need to have to figure out what is going on with these
Groups this is one of the groups 2015 37 members were arrested five facing murder charges and you can sort of see them I mean you know Shackled those kinds of things that are happening with these groups that people don’t know a lot about I mean this is a more recent one
For Michigan State University um there’s an article from New York Times magazine that really starts to ask questions like what is going on with these groups it was from several years ago the people are trying to figure out what’s happening with the Asian interest organization so if you have those groups
On your campus is something to really pay attention to because it’s sort of flowing underneath the radar but I have a lot of concerns about what’s really going on but there really isn’t any good research so it might be a good research topic for someone okay so like I said most people
Think about hazing we think about fraternities and sororities but it’s much more than that um ban hazing particularly um HBCU bands there is a really strong culture you have ban fraternities and sororities which do the same kinds of things as the NC groups and it’s really interesting because
You’ll have people who are will pledge the npac group then pledge the band fraternity as well so there is a lot of co-mingling of ideas and how fraternalism is expressed um but it’s not just people who are pledging those ban related organizations which do have some hazing cases you have people who
Are pledging sections in band so you might pledge the drum section or the clarinet section those are the kinds of things that were happening that was happening um young man I was an expert for Southern University when this happened um young man ended up in a hospital based on some
Of the things but this was the the big story because the average person didn’t really understand there was such a thing as ban hazing not for real until the FAMU death happened and this was huge as you see this is George anopolis on ABC News so you know it’s really this is
Mainstream media spending a lot of time covering this case uh and they were just sharing that you know this is a case where they had this process that uh to get respect the young man who died was already a drum major which is interesting non-traditional student 25
Years old but the drum section really didn’t respect him and so he had to do this thing called Crossing bus sea and this is during their Thanksgiving football game against Bon cookman where you sort of to run the gauntlet on the bus after hours they’re on the bus and
They’re beating them and kicking and hitting them with drumsticks and all those kinds of things um and so the autopsy the coroner basically says the muscle damage that he had from that process is is comparable to what people would see in car accidents or prolonged seizures or child abuse and
Torture those are the kinds of things so actually it was 26 when he died those are the kinds of thing the damage that was still seeing cases after that at buy State and then we started to see other cases as well so even places like University of California Berkeley um had
An issue I mean Cal Davis had a a situation with their student run marching band okay so when I started thinking about it and working different cases and I I actually worked the the FAMU case which is interesting because I had to go to Florida A&M and interview
People affiliated with the ban and people in the judicial office to get an idea what was happening with that case which was really interesting um when you start doing enough of these cases you start to see different things and so I coined this term a number of years ago that I call Extended
Adolescence okay and these are people that for campuses you have to think about and we don’t think about this we think about hazing but here are some people that you need to look out for in general they’re about 24 to 30 years old uh they aren’t really active if they’re
Like an npac organization they aren’t in The Graduate chapter or anything like that you see them on campus some of you might not even know they aren’t students anymore okay they’re I always tell people they’re on campus when I worked on a campus they were on campus more
Than I was um those are some of the challenges but these are the folks who are really behind a lot of the things that happening because they have this notion that you should follow what we’re telling you to do they they own the level of respect that’s greater than the
National Organization that the people on campus um as I said I spoke to undergraduates of the Multicultural groups at here at Ruckers on Monday night and when I talked about this you could see people nodding their heads and smiling I was like oh y’all know who I’m
Talking about they were like yeah I mean that if you haven’t paid attention you should pay attention to those folks that are hanging out here’s a prime example and how they can be costly okay this is a case in South Carolina Francis Marian University hazing that what’s happening
Off campus members of the fraternity um it was at this man’s house okay he’s a high school science teacher 34 years old extended adolescent even a little bit older than what I would say okay but these are the people that are aiding AB betting and actually committing some of
The hazing crimes and you can see that in a lot I’ve looked at cases where no one is an active student that they’ve arrested and they’re 27 28 29 30 years old so that’s a group that you’ve got to pay attention to if you see those folks
Just hanging out I I would really keep an eye on them because that can become a problem and then we have when I’m calling sort of the Gateway Dr I show you ear on student half of students are coming understanding hazing so for all of us in higher red we’ve got
To start doing more with high school High School athletic associations middle schools because they’re predisposed to understanding what hazing looks like before they get to us so we’re already behind the eightball trying to do remedial work because their experience hazing The Hazing is overwhelmingly um with you know young men in high
Schools even though and I haven’t found a video I if you’re old enough you might remember on Oprah she did um a episode about some girls being hazed outside of Chicago and they had the video and it was very violent and brutal so we don’t
Really see a lot of that normally we see it in high school with boys and athletic teams okay and as this says a lot of the incidents involving sodomy which is you know one of the things that you know what’s going on with young men those
Kinds of things okay um but here you go Sodom with a c this is 2016 okay with a pool queue all right um here you go doing situps in the buttcks cancelling football season uh another one this is 2022 hot sauce butt cheeks you can have
A death that happens okay um still rare but I’m I’m seen more and more high school hazing cases and I think because people are more aware of hazing parents are reporting it and young people are reporting it as well uh and so in the end really you name it it’s it’s some of
Everybody’s hazing I mean you talk about it with Marines you talk about it with a dance team I’ve seen dance teams I’ve seen cheerleader hazing uh this a healthc care Sor as hazing so anytime there can be a group you can and there’s you have to join that group
There is a potential for hazing it’s something that we have to start thinking about so giving you this background then what are some of the trends that I’ve noticed I only give three um and then we’ll be able to get into um some questions that you have and I hope you
Will share some questions um the courts are playing an increasingly um active role um I you know I don’t advertise to tell people I do expert hazing work but at least two to three times a year there’s a lawyer that reaches out to say hey I’m working on the case I just
Finished the case uh months ago and so I’m usually working on at least one case a year um that’s that’s how much people want to to to address these issues um let let me give you this example because I think this shows you how laws have changed and how it impacts young people
Um and this is one of the best examples I can think about okay so in the State of Florida they passed the Chad Meredith act um this is about 2004 2005 there was a student at at the University of Miami who was pledging an IFC fraternity he
Was drunk he drowned in the lake you weren’t supposed to swim in this Lake anyway because it has alligators and crocodiles in it so he’s swimming in this lake with these animals in it but he drowns and he passes really hard hazing law couple years later members of cap alaide Florida
A&M hey is a young man this young man’s father is a member of the fraternity uh and so he had been beaten very badly uh he drives from Tallahasse to decada Georgia where he’s from he lost a lot of blood I mean it was just bad so they get
Arrested now under this Chad Meredith act uh and the difference is I try to tell students is that this was the first time we were able to really get a peak inside of a courtroom when a case was happening so they had the photographer in there and they were giving the
Updates as a part of their news stories of the coverage so you got to see the five members of the fraternity who were arrested and charge with hazing this is the young man who was hazed um that’s the uh Kane that he was beaten with he shows you know they’re asking what
Weapon was used that’s his girlfriend and her hands are the pictures because they took pictures of his injuries as most people who are haste do these days um that’s his lion brother and they’re saying well when you were beaten with the cane or paddle what did you do so
That was the position that he had to get into so if you were a member of a black fraternity and sorority particularly in the 70s and 80s people would say you know everything should be done discreet and I tell people now everything that people do has an opportunity to be shown
In public this is an open court and it’s placed online because there’s a photographer in there taking pictures to say this is what it looked like that’s the position okay that’s the doctor he said that the size of the wound was about that size for that young man okay
So after they deliberate two of the five were arrested for hazing the young man in the middle who was the SGA president and the chapter president um and when he was arrested they actually came and took him out of class so he was arrested publicly in front of his peers they
Pulled him out of class to arrest him so now he’s been convicted of hazing this new law to go to jail so they take them into custody immediately in that courtroom you can see the young man he’s kissing his girlfriend who’s pregnant at the time okay so they come back for
Sentencing you got a lot of people coming back to support give their statements these are good students they’re leaders that’s the the girlfriend she’s pregnant she’s like we’re about to have this baby he can’t be in jail the judge you know he he talks he gives his statement to the
Judge she said I’m not trying to hear it y’all both getting two years the the sentence was anywhere from I think two to five years she gave them both two years so then they end up in the Florida Department of Corrections in the system okay so went to the website you
Can pull the information out there publicly available okay so these are the kinds of things that are happening so that set a new standard for people and we saw the same kinds of things happen then once again in the State of Florida same you know Chad meredi act they are you know
Arresting band members after the young man died they have them testify but this was different because they had several of them who flipped and became Witnesses and so they told everything they started arresting people people found it found guilty one person got a year the one that they thought was the rain leader
Got 77 months in jail uh and then another got a couple years so this the aftermath this like I said the family case was big Robert Champion who was a drum major died uh six and a half years a seven s 77 month sentence that young
Man tried to appeal to get out earlier they and that was a couple years ago they were just like no you’re serving the whole time um one served four one served one uh three with 10e supervised probation and then nine cut plea deals and I keep trying to tell students
Somebody is going to tell because their mom is going to say you better tell everything because you’re not going to jail so that’s that’s G to happen but if you recall particularly for those in administration I mean there there’s some limits is as for the amount that you can
Sue the state or a state institution so that was why that’s only $300,000 but the hold inil Insurance the bus company settled the president lost a job as well as the band director police retired they fired some band directors a lot of things this did a lot of damage because
The FAMU Marching 100 was probably the most famous HBCU marching band in the world so this had a lot of reputational damage for years and I think they finally been able to sort of get beyond that but during that time that was really just a stain on the institution
As well but today these kind of arrests and mug shots and per walks all of this is very normal and common that when people people hay you know they’re going to have that I keep trying to tell students you’re trying to do what people
Did in the 80s and when I was a student in the mid 1980s i with people invented the internet and if somebody did some did something that okay you didn’t know today I I set up on on my my Google News a Google news alert and anytime the phrase fraternity uh fraternity hazing
Pops up I get a news alert and I get the news stories okay so I got a news story today that says Penn State just sent out another reminder for students to say you know here’s our hazing policy because they’ve had four hazing cases last semester okay and as I indicated that
Was one of the high-profile hazing deaths from 2017 and they have the pza center there now so those are some of the challenges that we see but as you see 46 people arrested for Hazen University of New Hampshire they’re doing the mug shots all of these kinds
Of things so that’s one of the trends the second Trend are parents as hazing activists now if you’ve been around a long time ago when I first was a grass student and I was a Greek advisor at em University um I started at em 1992 there was one parent activist her
Son Chuck was pledging a local fraternity at Alfred University of New York so Eileen Stevens was the L parent that was at all the AFA meetings the NASPA and wherever speaking on campuses but it was just I for the longest okay now there are lots of parents that have
Come and they’re using a lot of different things they’re out there speaking they’re pushing Governors to say sign new legislation as Governor DeSantis did with Andrews law they already had the Chad Merith act he added it says enacting tougher hazing measures so they’re adding on uh these are the
Parents of uh temp pazza from uh pen state that they’ve been out speaking uh I was actually able to facilitate a conversation with the families of these three students who died out there they’re engaged okay because these are the kinds of things if your son dies and the blood alcohol content is
0495 they want to ask questions about that that LSU case was interesting being in Louisiana because a year within a year after his death Governor Ed Edwards has signed tougher legislation it happened really quickly they did not waste and you know state legislators don’t move fast on
Anything they move super fast on this okay but there’s new legislation now that was U introduced this past October something to pay attention to uh one of the the co-signers Bill Cassidy is is my senator from Louisiana um and it’s a sensitive topic for folks in Louisiana
To really address um hazing on campuses so it’s something to pay attention to they’re looking for more transparency um with hazing so you know go and look this up this uh stop campus hazing act and we’ll see what happens with this okay but bipartisan support um of course Max
Gr’s family they have been really supportive of this kind of new anti-hazing legislation because he’s our student from LSU okay uh but parents are getting more involved I got this email from a parent her son died it was sleep deprivation car accident I’m not far from here near Philadelphia it was a
Student at Delaware State University Hazen case uh so parents are getting more involved they want to be involved um the third Trend which to me is um the most troubling for us in higher education is this Renegade movement um and I’ve seen it before on the campus when I was vice president of
Student affairs at ALB State University we had a chapter that um they just sort of initiated people without the organization norn or anything and they just threatened to just initiate people and operate you know in the shadows um and we were able to crack down on them
And we had to really you know be proactive and you know doing freshman orientation telling parents and students this group is not active or recognized on our campus um tried to make sure we did that because there was a lawsuit U against Iona College um in the 90s that
Really addressed that kind of issue too so we had to look at that very differently but there are people who are saying you know what campuses y’all have too manye rules we’re not doing this anymore um we’re going to do our own thing Netflix so here’s some homework for you fascinating documentary um
Called Frat Boys and it’s really about the former lambai Alpha fraternity chapter that’s now known as the family at you you see very popular and they’re basically we’re a frat with we’re off campus UCF we don’t want we don’t want anything from you we don’t need anything from you
We’re having our you know parties and then they put this up on their Instagram page why choose and an unregistered student organization okay and you can see what they’re selling unlimited socials and date functions unrestricted House Parties forget all those rules about KS and Bob we’re not doing any of
That cheaper dues no six week moratorium uh organizational Freedom governed by the United States law not UCF circus Court I mean this is this is a movement this is a real thing okay um and so now institutions is like what do you do with a group like
This that has a lot of popularity and they’re just like we do our own thing y’all can’t do anything about us and you know the city hasn’t been involved as well but people are concerned that you know there’s going to be some deaths associated with these groups that are
You know Renegade or Rogue organizations um and those are the kinds of things is you know this piece is they’re rejecting the college in California all the the campus activities were canceled because they had a number of rapes that happened in fraternity houses uh and so some of the IFC groups
Said we’re pulling out we’re not doing this anymore we’re going to disaffiliate from the University uh and so the university puts out a statement that they don’t want to have any oversight um they don’t care about trying to prevent sexual assault and drug abuse and deal with the issues but they created their
Own what they’re calling University partk IFC and they saying yes the relationship has deteriorated um because they being told what to do so we’re seeing this as a trend we saw some Breakaway groups at West Virginia University University of Michigan has had this happen and at Duke and this is
Now eight NPC s sororities as well so like I said I call the sorority section sort of the nice nasty this is a good example of that it’s just like yeah we we’re pulling out too okay so the overall lesson is any organization that allows people to join is
Susceptible to hazing it’s just part of what we have to deal with there’s a lot that’s going on um with these groups and I just want to share some of the the challenges of things that are going on and wanted to make sure I left enough
Time for you all to ask questions so we have a lot of time for that and um so mayor Betha you’re going to help us moderate this and we’ll we’ll Jump On In I am I am well first of all thank you so much Walter uh was mentioning earlier to
You that I’ve seen you present so many times related to leadership and black colleges but I’d never seen you present um on this topic and it was really really great and I learned so much and thank you thank you for the history too incredibly important so we have a whole
Bunch of questions lots of different ones lots of different topics and I’m just going to start uh asking them the first one is do anti-hazing initiatives fall under Title Nine it’s a good question that’s you know it’s a good question I I have been encouraging the organizations to look at um them
Separately but to look at them um intentionally as well because you’re seeing um the The Hazing laws really aren’t as broad enough to address title n issues but the organizations aren’t doing enough in terms of education related to title n issues um it’s interesting that you mention that
Because I I just did an expert witness case and so and this a Confluence of things where you had um members who had graduated from a university who fraternity members that sponsored um an a an Afterparty after a university Associated step show it wasn’t a chapter it was members of the
Organization who created a company and they held an event where there was a sexual assault that happened and so then the issue was you know is the the chapter on campus responsible is the national fraternity responsible of course the campus chapter and the national fraternity Like These people
Aren’t even active members but those non-active members created this company they use all of the trappings of the organization the colors all of that so it looked like it was the organization’s event but there isn’t enough conversation about what does this look like in terms of sexual assault and
Title n so I think they’ve got to be looked at separately that hazing is that topic but we I don’t I think we’re wul um uh we’re wul under educating particularly for and sororities about title n issues because when you look at that data sexual assault athletes and Greeks just
Like with Hazen so I think they should be treated separately um but a lot of times they are linked together so you could have a Hazen case that also has title n implications um which we’ve seen as a part of that too but I I think we
Really got to start having much more in-depth conversations and particular in social media um there have been situations particularly with some of the H nphc work I’ve done um where you seen people you know do these long threads about how members of a certain organization are sexually assaulting
People it was something viral several years ago where the hashtag was me to he was a cute where it was all this me too women saying they were you know sexually assaulted about members of Omega sci-fi so we’ve got to do a lot more uh particularly for fraternities all
Fraternities to have those kinds of conversations so I think they’re still separate but there’s a lot of AP because Hazen can and it it could be same gender sexual assault as well and people are asking those kind of questions sexual assault as a part of someone who is a
Pledge so it is possible that as a part of pledging a pledge could be sexually assaulted as well so it’s there’s a lot of different ways to look at it so I think they need to be addressed separately but there could be a Confluence in a case that you could see
Both issues thank you thank you so we we have tons of questions but we have lots of time to answer them yeah so here’s another one um why do people Haze is there a reason for people is there a reason that people use camaraderie to justify um hazing that’s I guess that’s
One reason the person has heard yeah well well I mean a lot of people have tried to intellectualize what haing actually does um as I said from a historical point it really was you’re the new people um you have to prove that you’re worthy um I always joke that
Sometimes it it it leans off of the Protestant work ethic anything that’s worth having is worth working for so people will sort of use that ideology to say um you want to be a part of our organization you have to work for to get
In and I just like I tell people it’s so crazy that they have to do all these things to get in and then when they get in there’s no level of accountability it’s like what in life operates like that you know you can work hard to get a
Job and then it’s like you got a job and you don’t come to work you’re gonna get fired but we tell people you know where you’re you know brother sister for life we so those are part of the challenges but I I think it really stems with you
Know when I go back to German universities in the 1400s you the the new students weren’t viewed as equals you had to prove yourself to be viewed as an equal I think that is the driving force it’s just like in professional sports sometimes you see where they have
Rookies that are being hazed that happens today Major League Baseball is even if it’s just making them dress up that’s is still part of it you’re the rookie carry the the veterans bags dress up those kinds of things so I think that’s the the bottom line to it uh and
I always tell people hazing exists on a gradation it’s on a scale if the groups were only doing things like we’re going to mandate that you go to study you know study hall for five days a week for four hours or you have to do community
Service I don’t think you have the same concerns about hazing but it’s the other stuff when they become creative to say dip your hands in rubbing alcohol we’re going to light matches and throw them and you catch the match how does that what does that do in terms of building camaraderie so you
Really get some of this Power Trip stuff that’s going on where people people have an opportunity to be in a a power dynamic they haven’t had that before and it becomes abused um so I think it it it it’s built on that you you have to earn
Your spot but the problem is now and particularly with a lot of the research on um students there’s a great book by um LaVine and curan or LaVine and um Dian Dean um when hope and fear Collide they talk about college students and just a struggle in terms of developing
Relationships you know I think one of the lines in the book they say today student some more psychologically damaged ande so if you got somebody’s got these challenges and they joined the fraternity sorority now they have all this power and Prestige sometimes that’s a recipe for disaster yeah thank you
Thank you for that thank you so much here’s another one um what advice do you have for college chapter advisers to help them be proactive and eliminate these types of incidents I’m going to give you my real honest answer that people don’t like but it’s true I wouldn’t be College advisor
Today I would not be a chapter advisor because I’ve seen cases where the person left holding the bag is the advisor um one of the cases I just worked I represented The Graduate chapter because they got sued and they did everything right you had people who were unaffiliated with The Graduate
Chapter doing all the but they still had to go through the process to hire an attorney who had to hire an expert to help get them off and we did they were dropped from the case but but it would be the scariest thing because a lot of
These things are happening at times when that advisor who has a family is tired from the day they’re at home sleeping one two o’clock in the morning and they’re out and I’ve seen you know a case I work young ladies they this was maybe about five or six years ago they
Were pledging like it was the 1980s everything is so if there’s anybody who pled in the in the 80s like I did that’s how they pledge and this was 2014 2015 it was scary the advisers just don’t know they you don’t have the ability so I tell people the best way is
That you have to have a team of advis not a single solitary advisor and I mean you almost have to have like people who are popping up different places uh spying to see what’s going on it’s almost that kind of job because they have in their minds that they have to do
This and there’s a lot of pressure there’s pressure from the the extended adolescence sometimes there’s pressure on the campuses because if you have some chapters that are hazers on the the campus if your folks don’t Haze they don’t get the same kind of respect and they’re called paper if they follow the
Rules so there is that pressure so I just don’t know how anyone um does that particularly as a single solitary advisor you have to have a team but I mean it it’s really work to do because they decide what they want to do and and it’s not this the case I just
Mentioned they were using burner phones burner phones so we’re talking about Nino Brown level stuff I mean I’m using all of my my pop culture references but this is Nino Brown this is snowf fall this is burner phones so those are the challenges that you have
So I think being an advisor is scary if somebody ask me today would I be a chapter advisor the answer is not no it’s hell no because I got a wife and two kids my daughter about to go to I’m not sign in my name and I’m being
Completely honest with you and it’s it’s bad that I’m saying that but it’s it’s true you’d have to have and I so I tell undergraduates that with your advisor you need to sit down with them and be honest and you say look this is what we
Do we’re going to Haze so that person can make a decision to say thank you for letting me know I’m not doing this but they need advisor to act to be active so they’re not telling them that but I always tell the students if you’re going
To do that this person is your brother or sister you need to tell them we Haze and you need to protect yourself and that doesn’t happen so I that’s my completely TR transparent answer if I were asked to do it the answer is absolutely no I would not do it and like
I said it’s bad I think the organizations have values but until the the the members value their brother or sister who is the advisor over somebody who wants to be in an organization I just don’t know how a person does it your best bet is to have
A team of people and if a the team does it you better have some some people on the team that are young who are willing to like pop up at one or two o’clock in the morning you you I mean it’s on that level you have to have uh a detective
Type mentality as an advisor because they’re not just going to I just I haven’t seen enough people follow the rules as R thank you for being honest that was a a really enlightening answer too um okay here’s another one why do people allow themselves to be
Hazed well I mean so part of it is um if you think about it I use it from a student development theory and I’m you know I’m old school I don’t know what um the folks here Ruckers are are teaching from I I love Arthur Chickering and when
I think about Arthur chering and people moving through those vectors and it talks about developing social competence one of the easiest ways for somebody to develop social competence is pledging a fraternity sorority I mean you you develop it you know with your peers with
People on campus that see you so it is a way for somebody to you know Join one of these groups have an immediate connection not only on that campus but you know across the country um depending upon the type of group that it is like you know I see this particular with
Black black Greek Le organizations um depending upon the campus that person could be you know as famous if not more famous than the athletes on the campus um you think about it somebody who’s participating in some kind of Step show and you got thousands of people cheering
For you who else gets that opportunity beside an athlete it’s I mean it’s addictive for people so people want that type of you know opportunity to join so they’re willing to um endure that kind of you know pressure to be a part of the group and then sometimes a different
Mindset you know once again I played in 1986 uh my dad’s an alpha my mom’s a Delta and I remember my mom so my mom’s old school so I you know I would talk to her every week you know how’s it going she asked me one week like you know
How’s it going I was like yeah Mom it’s sort of tough pleasure and she basically said those other boys did it you could do it too they on the phone I mean it was like they can do they did I mean that’s that’s how my mom is she’s just
Like look they did it you can do it too no big deal so I mean it’s just you know those are the kinds of things that um we think about but there is um there is still an Allure to you know fraternity sorority life um you know it’s
Interesting I I was asked by student this other other night you know my daughter’s about to graduate from high school and go to college and they said would you let your your children join the fraternity sorority my wife is an AKA but she’s also an attorney she’s
Just like no I don’t want I don’t want particularly for our son she’s more worried about him than our daughter but you know being president of Dillard and going to the the the new member presentations and like watching my kids watch the new members it’s it’s addictive I mean my daughter didn’t
Really talk a lot about sororities but you know she you hear her say a little bit more like yeah yeah I go to college you know my mom’s a Delta but you she probably want to be AKA like my wife but I I could see it you know I saw it in
Her 12 13 14 years old how she looked at them I mean it has a power to it and I think even when you look at freshman on campus look at the Greeks on campus you just watch how they interact with them and how they look particularly when they have some new member
Presentation you can see the people saying yeah I want that you see how people respond it’s it’s powerful but I think that there is I think you can make a student development case and I I’ve written articles suggest that that there’s a very powerful case using student development theory that this
Becomes a way for people to help in terms of their identity development and they develop a level of social competence it’s a very easy way to develop it through that pleasing process wow thank you thank you for that okay here’s another one got lots more coming in um is there a regulated option
For anonymous hazing reports for students is this something that a university or Community would be in charge of as opposed to a federal program yeah universities would there are places that do this um the father of the anonymous reporting is Ron Bender uh Ron was my Greek advisor at University
Of Georgia so we go back a long way uh I think he’s at pit Bradford now I can’t remember exactly where Ron is but if you just look at Ron Bender Ron Bender is the master he he implemented programs like that at Georgia at University of North Carolina um so there are places
That do Anonymous reporting and I’ve seen it places it really isn’t um abused so I I think it can be an option U but then sometimes you’ll just have parents call when I worked at Eman GRE life we had Parents call to say I you know I
Want to get my son in trouble um because they you know the child doesn’t want to tell because if it gets shut down they can’t join but the mom is concerned and say hey I think this group and so it gave us enough to at least be able to um
Do some interviews with the chapter and particularly if you could put people on notice a little bit you might be able to get some of that behavior to be toned down a lot because they know like we know something’s going on and we at least now have a record that we’ve
Investigated so if something else happens later you have some documentation to do that um so anonymous reporting can be done well I don’t know if there’s a federal system in place to be able to handle that we’re having trouble with with fast right now so I don’t want to get a federal government
Any more work to do I think it’s going to be a campus by campus program but if you don’t have that kind of program I think it’s something that you could Implement if you’re a small campus like I said at Dillard we could get Anonymous reports directly from people we didn’t
Need a necessary hotline and we were able to do some investigations because people would just Reach Out anonymously or sometimes they just tell you like don’t tell my name but such and such is doing XY and z um once at Al in state I have a member of a sorority who came and
Told us like I don’t know where they’re going to be tonight but they’re going to be hazing so she tried to turn in her chapter and the police chief and I is great story we’re like driving around ALB Georgia like two o’clock in the morning trying to find them and I was
Like so excited like man I’m GNA catch people in the ACT Haz but we found out they were five counties away and that’s the challenge it’s they they somebody had a barn five count is way and they were hazing in this Barn we there’s no
Way in the world like I said we rolled all over Aly Georgia for about an hour and a half and it’s one o’clock in the morning looking for them Parts all kinds of places and then she came back and told us like yeah I found out they went to this
Barn that’s I mean they they will go through Great Links to sort of you know script out how do we get away with doing this and and unfortunately we normally don’t catch people unless somebody ends up in the hospital or dead and that’s unfortunate thank you thank you yeah um very
Interesting here’s another one uh has there uh been a study conducted to determine the impact of hazing on students whose parents are members of the aspirants desired organization are parents hazing perpetrators are aspirants coerced into hazing participation because they are legacies now you just gave yourself a
Research topic I haven’t seen that but that’s that would be great so I I endorse that study that be a great dissertation topic um I would love to see that I haven’t seen it U so it could exist but I I haven’t seen anything like that I think it’s a great question it’s
A great question thank you thank you okay um through your research do you find hazing issues for black lettered fraternity or sororities and HBCU bands get more media coverage and attention than that of white fraternities sororities or cultural organizations yeah so people and particularly npac groups are very
Sensitive about that and they’ll say oh when we have something happen it gets blown up I I honestly can’t say that in um in my experience because particularly so the band case for FAMU probably got more attention than any other hazing case because when you think of hazing nobody thinks ban they
Think you know if it’s a fraternity ha and case people just like yeah that’s what they do unfortunately that’s how people think so just like wait a minute somebody died with the band it was the drum major that’s why that one stood out I I’m convinced of that um but
Particularly in the last decade or so you know a lot of the cases involving IFC groups have gotten a ton of attention um the pzas they have been out they’re really generating a lot of attention so when I talked about parents they’re out there actively engaging I
Know in Louisiana there have been you know hazing cases at Southern University which is an HBCU involving uh npac organizations they haven’t gotten the same kind of coverage that the IFC groups at at sub at uh LSU have gotten it’s not even close so um you know I I
Think there’s a perception that it’s been disproportionate but it really hasn’t I I think it’s been fair and I think that because the parent activists uh have mostly been white parents they’ve really driven that so you’re seeing more and more of that coverage become Amplified thank you thank you um Okay so
Uh this is an interesting question as well um what strategies would you recommend to best combat the poor word of mouth or bad press that Greek life experiences obviously Greek life has plenty of benefits and we want to showcase them but we would also like a way to rebut any accusations that we
Might receive thank you they said yeah no so yeah I’m I’m a a fan of doing some on a college campus to do sort of like a poll or climate survey and people don’t really sometimes afraid to do it but to sort of ask the people on the campus
What are your impressions of Greek life just to sort of see what’s the impression of the people on campus and so you start with that as your Baseline data Forin the groups I mean if you’re really Brave you would ask him about different groups to say what you know
What comes to mind when you think about this group and you could do a word clap I mean there are a lot of different ways you could do that um but see what that impression is and then to look to see what kinds of activities and events are
You doing that either you know support that or you know work against that those are the kinds of things I think the challenge is and I always try to tell people um you know Greek students will say well nobody talks about the good things that we do that’s you hear that a
Lot and um there’s this like Chris Rock monologue where he’ll say you know guys want to you know get credit for Stuff they’re supposed to do it’s like if you say I take my kids to school what you want a cookie I mean that’s you’re supposed to so it’s like Greek saying we
Do community service you’re supposed to why do you want to you know but but we don’t really spend enough time promoting those kinds of things and when you look and I tell chapters to audit their social media when you look at what they’re promoting on social media it’s
Always social type stuff it’s we’re having this kind of event and those kind of things it isn’t a lot of the you know we’re working to you know think about being a culturally based group in the State of Florida right now how many culturally based groups or all groups
Are involved in addressing the Dei issues in the state Florida are they calling press conferences are they doing are they going to the capital to meet with their leg they aren’t doing those kinds of things so sometimes people are saying well we ar getting credit for you know
The little service that we do and then the harder question is if somebody dies how many hours of community service do you have to do to make up for that deal and just give me the number and then I’ll start telling people like oh get them a pass because they completed
$10,000 of community service so they’re they can kill somebody um we have to be honest about what we do so I think a lot of times people just say well we’re not getting enough credit for doing the things that we’re supposed to do but the things that you’re supposed to do pale
In comparison to the other things that you do you don’t spend as much time doing that and I think that there are a lot of opportunities now for fraternities and sororities to to play in issues that are impacting college students all fraternities and sorties could really lead to push to try to you
Know have student loan forgiveness or any student related issues that are impacting them through Congress we don’t ever see that we don’t see any activism from those groups that you know to take the lead to address issues that impact all college students so there are opportunities out there but you know
We’re still stuck doing the kinds of things that we do and you don’t get enough credit for that because you’re supposed to do that that doesn’t really stand out but anytime someone gets hurt or gets killed that’s going to disproportionately drown out anything that you say that’s good and that people
Have to be honest but I think you start with the campus assessment and what do people on campus think you know I tell students talk to administrators on campus ask them what do you think about our groups but you know but we don’t ask those kind of questions and it’s sort of
Hard to hear that but you sort of have to do some baseline understanding of where you are and then build from that so that’s the suggestion that I give that and I I was on a campus once where not long ago they did that and so they
Were just sort of like yeah the non Greek students really hate us I mean so they were just like we did it we know okay so they know that so what then can they do to be more engaging to do things that you know people um can look at them
In a new light so that that was helpful for them but they at least you know did that first step thank you thank you um so what impact have you seen uh as a result of the growth of social media you talked a little bit about that yeah talk a bit more
So so social media is a gift and a and a curse even by itself a lot of groups want to have those viral moments where they do something really cool um and I think sometimes that reinforces let me just stick particularly with like black fraternities and sororities when new
Members and they have their probate shows that dominate social media it’s on Instagram that I mean that’s it’s just huge it’s on Tik Tok everybody that goes viral I mean people don’t go viral because they were out protesting it’s just not that’s not what’s happening so
It can be good the thing I tell them though as an expert witness is that they need to audit their social media because even in a probate video as an expert witness I might see something in that video and in that show that tells me they violated their
Rules or they post something on Twitter I still call it Twitter I don’t care what Elon calls it I call it Twitter you I found things on Twitter that I’ve been able to use as an expert witness to help paint a picture of this is a chapter
That Embraces hazing openly that yeah we pledge and it’s post 1990 those kind so they need to be very careful about the kinds of things that they are putting out on social media and be much more um deliberate to say what is our social media strategy how are we building our
Brand as an organization and is it always just social things are we showing some other things do we and I’ve seen some chapters do this recently which is great they highlight members that are here’s a member they’re in this this and this and this they’re graduating they’re they’re doing this after graduate all
Those things are great we need to do a whole lot more of that particularly now we’re in sort of like this um I don’t know what to call it’s sort of like these elaborate graduation photos that people like to go viral with that they’ll do photos and even videos with
The cap and gown and those kind of things we got to do more of those kinds of things and so um it it can be helpful but I don’t think we’re using it to amplify the benefits of the organization it’s still a lot of the the social type
Stuff it can be a problem because when I work a case the first thing I do is go to social media for that chapter that’s the first first thing I do and I want to see are there some bread froms just to show if they’ve been doing some things
For a while and I’ve been able to find them uh on social media so I I always tell them that if somebody who does it work first place I’m going to social media thank you thank you for that um here’s an interesting one too what are the consequences currently for those who
Participate in The Hazing the the actual pledges and I realize they have another name but we all know what people yeah so it depends that’s a challenge too because a lot of the policies both for the national organizations and for some campuses that when you start a process
You’re joining you agree that you will not be hazed and that you will report hazing and if you don’t report hazing then you will be sanctioned I think that’s a that’s an unwinable or untenable position for that person because so I start the process I’m pledging an organization they start hazing I report
It the chapter gets suspended the members get suspended I don’t join the organization so now the group that I’m trying to be a part of I pissed off everybody they’re not going to tell unless they just decide like I don’t like these people anymore they not treat
Me right I don’t care I’m telling you’ll get a few that and that does happen but for most people they become co-conspirators immediately and they’re just like I’m not telling so now they’re in violation like the members are and I think sometimes it’s unfair and I tell members of the organizations we they’re
Saying well they could just quit they don’t have to do this so it’s like we’re holding the aspirants more responsible for our rules than we are for our rules if we just follow our rules and they don’t have to make that hard decision so we’re telling them look if you don’t
Like it you just quit and I don’t think that’s fair so I I I struggle with policies that say we’re going to sanction the person the aspirate because you basically are telling the aspirate you have to make a choice in the beginning and if you decide that you’re
Going to tell then you’ve already decided that yeah I want to be a part of the group and you might be initiated by the the national body but there is no chapter and the people who are in the chapter all suspended so they hate you and they’re talking about you and you’re
Not getting respect from anybody else because they’re gonna say your paper you didn’t go through the process in the black fraternity sority experience so it’s I I think it’s it’s sort of hard to say I I think you’ve got to be able to have some kind of level of
Amnesty for those aspirants who do come forward a way to sort of protect them so they aren’t viewed as a person that um does all that but I I don’t think there’s any incentive for them to tell um because they want to be in the group and so you’re basically saying they
Didn’t follow the rules I tell on them and now I’m blowing up the whole thing I don’t know why they would choose to do that and I haven’t found a good reason why somebody would because once again you tell what you were hoping to join
Now is over it’s over so while I even go through the process when the group initiates you but there is no chapter the members aren’t active what was the point of it thank you thank you here’s a question about how would you distinguish between hazing and workplace
Toxicity oh I I’m not an expert enough to know people will use that term in terms of hazing with workplaces and I think there have been studies uh that’s beyond my scope so I try to I’m not gonna try to extrapolate too much um I know there have been some studies but
That’s that’s beyond my level of expertise and I think actually once I got I got asked to to do a case like that and I I I backed off I was like no that’s not I don’t know enough about that to to be a credible person so I
Don’t yeah no I I like that answer actually because it’s always better to stay in your lane right yeah that’s right exactly yeah so um here’s a here’s another one really these are all amazing questions um couldn’t these unincorporated groups like the gazon family still be penalized for violating
The student code of conduct How would that work from the point of view of administration so yeah so that’s a good question I think a lot of campuses are trying to figure out how how far does our reach extend in terms of off-campus groups and I know there’s a lot of
Conversations back and forth like how responsible should we be for things that happen off campus so if that if their fraternity house is five miles away from you and a sexual assault happens there um is that your title n issue because they’re students what if it’s a non-student that’s there but your
Students are involved it’s I think colleges and universities really rustle with you know how far does are because some people will say like I this has nothing to do with you I’m a student there but you don’t have any right to deal with everything that goes on in my
Life so if something happens why are you going to discipline me if I go and rob a store are you going to discipline me because of that it didn’t have anything do with you I just and that’s their point we deal with you know Orlando Police if Orlando Police aren’t dealing
With it then you can’t touch it either so that’s I mean some campuses will stretch a little bit farther off campus and address things but I think some and particularly the legal person on the campus is going to be more conservative to say do we want to open ourselves up
To be responsible for the activities of students further off and then like I said there’re GNA be some people who push back to say this isn’t in your jurisdiction just because I’m a student doesn’t mean you have you know jurisdiction over everything that I do
And that’s the the balance so I I know schools are still wrestling with you know how far you know just thing on my you know at Dillard we had a situation where we had a young lady who came for orientation she had been on campus a day
Met some guy online he came picked her up from campus sexually assaulted her off campus she reported it to us and so the question was and we did we put it on our clar report but I talked to some experts that say that should have been
On your CL report he was not a student it didn’t happen on campus but but then some people say but she was picked up from your campus so you have to you know but we couldn’t discipline the person who I mean she had to go through the criminal system we provided support for
Her but we were just trying to figure out how do we report this is it a clear violation for us when we I mean she had just got in the campus we didn’t know her and but she came back and reported to us so we did know but that person was
Not a student he just picked her up from campus so it’s I don’t I don’t know what the you know the right answer is I I would say work with your legal counsel on campus to say does your campus have a philosophy about how far off campus does
Our jurisdiction go and how do we manage that because I I think it would be different based on the campuses I’ve seen people look at it different ways thank you thank you um so here’s one what advice would you have you kind of alluded to this in your own family but
What advice would you have for parents who are members of the divine nine um the black fraternities and sororities for folks who might not know that on here and have children who are interested in in our respective organizations and will be in college in about five years are there improvements in hazing
Culture i the Improvement that I would say I think there is much more awareness uh I think there’s some awareness that you can do with your kids um just to have those kinds of conversations um so it’s like we watched document there’s a new documentary from PBS call hazing is
Done by Byron hurt you can look at it free online I would look at it with your kids um like I said my son is 15 he’s just sort of like I don’t want to do fraternities because people hat I me he sort of he knows about our because I
Mean he lives with me so I mean that’s part of it too but you know my daughter is more open but just watching those kind of things and having conversations about it and then when they decide that they’re interested um to continue to have those conversations uh I think you
You just have to be engaged with them um you know and if my daughter decides you know I’m I’m sneaking up there is I’m going to look to figure out what’s going on but she’ll know enough you know in terms of how to make the right decisions
Those kind of things so I don’t think it’s necessarily a negative thing like I said my wife is more um squeamish about it than I am um in terms of because I think there there are benefits in my dissertation I looked at benefits from
Joining so I I I do see there are lots of good benefits but sometimes it just it depends on the chapter too you look at some and it’s like folks that’s the biggest thing they’ve ever done and they might not do anything else and I you
Know I want them to be a part of a chapter with people who have something to lose because they’re focus a little bit differently you got people want to go to Mid school and law school you can reason with them a little bit more than folks who are just like this the
Highlight of my life I you know join this group and I’m just having a good time that that becomes a little bit more problematic so I just think you know there are a lot of resources out there I think you got to have open conversations
About them say look this is the deal um you know want you to be careful we need to keep an open communication if you know you feel like you’re in danger you know something you gota let me know you just have to have that kind of conversation
So thank you thank you here’s another one um there so many good ones um it seems like most hazing incidents are based on sexual assault is there a committee or Council Within These Greek councils that are in charge of educating and protecting students no there can be some you know I
Was on a um task forth with the North American and fraternity Council a while ago that they had they pointed out the three major areas where we see misconduct alcohol hazing and sexual assault that was one of the three um but I I don’t think we you know like I said
In my experience I don’t think we’re doing enough targeting Greek organizations about sexual assault so I think that that is an opportunity where just like we do mandatory hazing workshops every year I think there should be mandatory sexual assault I just we started doing them at Diller
That was mandatory sexual assault um we we do it covered in orientation but cover it again for Greek organizations because it’s a different Power Dynamic uh and so I think you got to address it that way so I I just think we’re there’s so much more that we can do so anything
That you do more than what we’re doing on campuses now I think is an improvement yeah thank you thank you this this is sort of uh uh connected um have you seen cases of LGBT hazing possibly being more intense than heterosexual like assault of individuals no there’s some writing
About so for example the Florida ANM B case part of the conversation about that is that the drum major who was kill was a gay man and I think part of the reason he felt that he had to do this because people were questioning him as a gay
Drum leader and so for him it was proving that you know I’m a man just like everybody else I think is the way it was sort of interpreted but I think part of his severity of his beating was because he was a gay man um that’s a good question and there have
Been some you know studies about particularly fraternities and um gay members um there was a book that looked at that a little bit um in a little bit more depth but I haven’t seen a lot of research lately you might look and see I don’t know what the the latest
Conversation is about how that impacts hazing and sexual assault um but like I said I don’t we’re not talking about that enough I think that’s just another area where we need more research we need more conversation we need more education about it uh but that’s still for some
Organizations that’s still sort of a taboo topic that because fraternities and sororities are still very much heteronormative groups um I mean there are organizations founded as fraternities for gay men or for um lesbians I mean there are groups founded like that with their explicit Mission that’s what we serve uh but there are
Lots of groups um I was at buck nail and um recently and one of the fraternities uh one of the active members openly gave man I mean just you know so there are groups I think that are much more accepting than others it just depends um but there’s a lot of opportunity there
For us I I think we just grrat the surface thank you thank you um got time for one or two more questions here’s one what can an institution do to get student organizations to understand the criminal nature of hazing is there anything can they bring people in um
Anything you can think of yeah I no I think there are people um like I said at I love to talk to criminal side because particularly for me and I didn’t show you all all the real graphic pictures I have um expert witness work has opened
Up my eyes so I understand a criminal very well um working with police working with um attorneys and understanding and looking at the laws um so you know I definitely I would love to do it but I think you can get local people um who
Know your laws of the state you can have your um campus attorney could do some work you could have someone from your police department or the the city police or da talk about that somebody who’s done a case so I think there are lots of different ways that you can get it that
Lots of different resources that you can use um like I said there are some high-profile National attorneys that do that kind of work too I’ve done work with Doug feberg Doug does a lot of The Hazing cases um he’s he’s great so there are lots of different ways you can do it
But definitely I say and you might mix it up one year you bring attorney one year expert witness police might do one those kind of things yeah thank you so this is a um our last question but I think it’s a really good one and that is
What if you’re working on a campus and you’re working with fraternities and sororities and you have almost no um support uh from student conduct or from Administration in addressing these issues what do you do and and I think this person might be asking just to protect themselves too right and also to
Protect students yeah no I you you got to make sure sometimes you have to do as education for the people on campus um if you think there’s a potential problem to say could we have a workshop to talk about hazing so that key people on campus can understand what’s going on
And what kind of strategies we can take um you have to look for an advocate if you have a campus attorney it’s it’s a risk management issue I mean they don’t want to deal with it and if you’re sort of raising the alarm now and you guys
Haven’t done some things to mitigate any problems if there’s a lawsuit that institution is going to get sued because you know it’s sort of like y’all didn’t see this coming it’s much easier and most C cases campuses don’t get sued because they can show we’ve done the workshops we’ve met
You know Bowling Green has had a number they had a hazing death a couple years ago um I spent a day with them last year and I met with the conduct people we talked about how do you do your investigations I mean we went through a
Lot I met with several groups so they had a major high-profile Hazen case that the institution paid out so everybody’s attention is like what do we do to keep addressing these issues and you don’t want to have to come to that so if you sort of have a sense to say you know
What and just like I said if it’s upper level Administration if it’s the attorney you can just say look I’m on the ground we have some issues we need to make sure people on campus understand what’s going on so we can do a better job addressing these issues and look at
It as a riskmanagement opportunity because that’s what it is uh and it will save you from being in a lawsuit like I said most of the time campuses don’t get sued um because they can just say nope we brought in Walter he covered XYZ they’ll let you off they go after everybody else
But if there’s an opening schools have had to pay out because they didn’t do anything so it it it becomes liability that’s that’s the only way I can I can frame it thank you um well first of all I just want to say thank you so much uh
Walter this was fantastic thank you for answering all the questions I know we still had about six left but we’re running out of time but I I wanted to say um thank you to um the Proctor Institute for the Rucker Center for minority serving institutions and um to
All the attendees today those were amazing questions we will be sending out the video and um I know um uh Walter that you are open to talking to people just put up your email feel free to reach out to Walter uh like I said I’ve known him for years and years and years
And he’s just um absolutely wonderful in terms of a resource so thank you so much Walter really really appreciate you being with us today yeah thanks everyone great questions I appreciate it but yeah feel free to reach out I’ll be happy to help any way I can thank you thank you everybody take
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