<p>Wikipedia has compiled a list of hazing deaths taking place from the 1800’s through July of 2014 by sourcing press reports. It includes the name of the victim, the college and the circumstances relating to the death. Sobering.</p>
<p><a href=“List of hazing deaths in the United States - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hazing_deaths_in_the_United_States</a> </p>
<p>I would note that for those of you not familiar with Greek systems, there are a lot of the black Greek systems listed oon that Wikipedia page (post #220). They are notorious for doing bad things to pledges. They are the ones who do the hot branding with an iron, which is absolutely insane. (Not that anything described on that page is “good.” It’s all ridiculous. What’s so hard about figuring out the distinction between light-hearted hijinks – of the scavenger hunt, wear-a-suit-to-class-on-Tuesday, and ok, fine, have a few drinks – and hazing?)</p>
<p>It still doesn’t answer the question of the per-capita rate of deaths from alcohol among students in Greek life and students not in Greek life. Obviously one of each is too many, but it defies belief that there aren’t X number of “general” students dying from “general” alcohol poisoning. </p>
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<p>Buried in one of the earlier linked articles is an InsidehigherEd article, in which a commenter notes from the research that the number of deaths due to alcohol among college students is less than among those of the same age not going to college. I don’t have the patience to find that and pull that up, but it is also relevant information when evaluating what is going on.</p>
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<p>Interesting, in that it lists only one hazing death in 2013, and no alcohol is alleged to have been involved (blindfolded student fell and hit his head on a rock). If my memory serves me, there were about 400,000 fraternity members around that time.</p>
<p>Why does it have to be so complicated? Nothing has or WILL happen from debating the statistics or debate how much is buried. Or how many have been buried! </p>
<p>What is wrong by having schools showing the courage to punish the fraternities that engaged in egregious behavior in a manner that is easy to identify? Is causing the death of a brother by forced ingestion of massive amounts of liquor not sufficient for … permanent expulsion of the culprits and that frat? </p>
<p>Again, nobody is naive enough to think fraternities will ever vanish from our schools. Or drinking for that matter! Yet, is it too much to ask for punishments that match the gravity of the criminal acts perpetrated? </p>
<p>And if those clear cases were really that rare, why would it create big waves in Greek life? </p>
<p>If Greek houses were dry, couldn’t they still everything that they <em>should</em> be doing?</p>
<p>There was a hazing death at Cal Poly SLO in 2010 that is not on the Wikipedia list which makes me doubt the completeness of this list. It was a well publicized fraternity hazing as members were arrested. <a href=“http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2010/06/08/1169804/carson-starkey-hazing-case.html”>http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2010/06/08/1169804/carson-starkey-hazing-case.html</a></p>
<p>^^^^
They have it listed in 2008 on the list.</p>
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<p>I followed your link. There are a couple of black humor posts about bear attacks. The rest are all quite serious.</p>
<p>Many fraternity and sorority houses owned by the universities are dry, just like the dorms are. Many schools don’t even have houses. Many national organizations do not allow drinking. No national Greek organization allows hazing, but what constitutes hazing is different for every group. We had some pledges object to being awakened at 3 am to go out for ice cream, others didn’t like the “joke night”, some didn’t like being blindfolded for anything (so now they just close their eyes). On the other hand, I know guys who were disappointed that some of the old hazing things were eliminated so they did them themselves (shots for an hour, running naked in the snow). No one is claiming 18 year olds are mature and thinking straight. Sororities usually have more alum supervisors and house mothers involved than the fraternities do.</p>
<p>I definitely did more drinking as a freshman living in a dorm than I ever did once I joined the sorority and lived in the house off campus. The kids in the dorms had nothing to do but drink, but in the sorority we had a lot of other things going on.</p>
<p>Bay, according to [this</a> article](<a href=“http://abc7.com/news/cal-student-dies-after-fall-during-concert-at-oracle-arena/377555/]this”>UC Berkeley sophomore student dies after fall during Halloween concert at Oracle Arena - ABC7 Los Angeles), which was linked from the Huffington Post list you were looking at,</p>
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<p>I think you have to distinguish between injuries / deaths:
<p>Because only the former is “the fault of the fraternity system.” The second just isn’t indistinguishable from any off-campus party in which alcohol flows freely, but no one is being forced to do anything. No one says that off-campus parties shouldn’t be thrown just because liquor flows and some people get dangerously drunk. I think there is a big distinction between these 2 things (not that it matters to a dead student or his family, of course - it’s always a tragedy).</p>
<p>“No one says that off-campus parties shouldn’t be thrown just because liquor flows and some people get dangerously drunk.”</p>
<p>It does not matter whether it is a fraternity or not. Whoever, the members of the organization that is serving the alcohol to minors and the owner of the property should be held responsible for what happens. If they are not comfortable with that responsibility, they should not have the party. It is that simple. </p>
<p>A lot of the problem with this type of risky behavior is that students do not seem to understand that they are responsible for their behavior, and they can go to jail. It is all a big joke until someone is dead, or raped, and then everyone is sorry and planning a charity event. It just happens over and over and over. </p>
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<p>Seems like they should be able to do all of the claimed positive things involving service, brotherhood, etc. without alcohol or other recreational drugs, or hazing.</p>
<p>Greek or not Greek, college students socialize with alcohol. So, btw, do 18 - 22 year olds who are not in college. </p>
<p>College students drink a lot more than their age peers not in college.</p>
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<p><a href=“The college and noncollege experience: a review of the factors that influence drinking behavior in young adulthood - PubMed”>The college and noncollege experience: a review of the factors that influence drinking behavior in young adulthood - PubMed;
<p>Also, <a href=“http://www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov/niaaacollegematerials/panel01/highrisk_05.aspx”>http://www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov/niaaacollegematerials/panel01/highrisk_05.aspx</a> indicates that:</p>
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<p>Any organization could have 100 members, have public service projects every weekend, have meetings and leadership opportunities, floats in the homecoming parade, help the freshmen tote their belonging into the dorm that first day like the Greeks do if they want to, but the interest just isn’t there. Some schools do it through dorm groups or band or other organization that gets everyone organized and sets a budget and invests in the schools, but you just don’t see the organization in these other groups like you do with Greek national organizations. I don’t know that many of those groups raise a lot of money for outside charities or has an alum association that keeps them all active as adults. </p>
<p>It can be done, and is done to a degree at schools that don’t have Greeks. At some schools the Greeks are also providing a big service by providing housing on or near campus for a huge number of students. If Greeks were suddenly banned, where would all those students live? In some communities, they are grandfathered in for zoning regs, but if it is a ‘new use’, that many unrelated people can’t live in the houses. Communities don’t allow boarding houses with shared bathrooms and commercial dining in residential areas anymore.</p>
<p>For me the question is why is a frat party consisting of a BBQ with students having a burger and a couple of beers not sufficient? Why all this excess to the point of alcohol poisoning? Is it the immaturity of the some students or is is the pressure being applied by some frats to take partying beyond reason? Perhaps a combo of both? Wondering if the eventual legalization of marijuana might temper some of the excessive drinking?</p>
<p>The good news is that I have heard from numerous friends who have older kids in college that for most, the whole frat party thing dies down mid sophomore year. Most are looking for other forms of entertainment.</p>
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<p>When I went to college, the service aspects and projects that fraternities did tended to be little known among the general student population, which tended to think of them as places that hosted big parties with alcohol. If fraternities really are service organizations, they need to look at how they market themselves – the “big parties with alcohol” reputation appears to be the dominant image that people have of them. If it means toning down the big parties or making them dry so that people will associate them with service instead, wouldn’t that be something worthwhile for fraternities to do?</p>
<p>Note that it is true that some fraternities did not drink all that much alcohol. But the general student population was most aware of the high-drinking ones, which set the image of fraternities in general.</p>