The fraternity wasn’t allowed to haze him, but 20-year-old Alex Beletsis was dead anyway. His attorneys say he was forced to drink alcohol and then fell out an 18-foot-high window.
Not only did the members of Theta Chi cause his death, Beletsis’ attorneys argue, but they also tried to cover it up during a subsequent investigation by the University of California, Santa Cruz.
I dislike fraternities more than most, but am not sure they are culpable in this case if a man in his 20s decides to drink and snort drugs to excess and then jumps or falls from a bathroom window. Personal accountability seems to be lost in our society. This man had no doubt attended many such parties in his years in the frat, was trying to become an officer of the group, and likely encouraged younger students to drink. He could have said no or stopped attending or even tried to change the group’s events. I am sorry for his family for their loss; his actions had awful consequences.
I thought this was going to be about the Penn State one (not Tim P, the latest one).
One thing that seems strange to me, the victim was not a pledge, he was a full member of the frat. The article says the victim had to go through another round of hazing because he was up for an officer position. Is that true? If so, it seems unusual to me. I was in a frat back in the day at school with a big Greek system. We were hazed as pledges. Nothing dangerous really, just a lot of physical and mental abuse. But I never heard of brothers getting hazed. You became an officer by a simple vote at a meeting. Maybe they do things differently at UC Santa Cruz.
When I went to our national conclaves and conventions, I found little standardization in chapter operations. Even the initiation ritual just followed general guidelines.
Our officers were also determined just by election, but we didn’t have any pledge hazing, other than after-party cleanup, food runs, etc.