<p>The university asked the judge to throw out the lawsuit filed by Robert Champion's family. They said the school is not to blame, it was Champions own fault because he should have refused to take part in the hazing. He should have refused to be beaten by his attackers.</p>
<p>What do you think?</p>
<p>Morally or legally?</p>
<p>Legally, I don’t know the Florida law. Morally, I believe that the attackers are 100% responsible for their behavior, and he was 100% responsible for his. 25-year-olds should know better than to submit to voluntary beatings. That doesn’t change the wrongness of the beating, it’s just a fact.</p>
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<p>Completely disagree. Whether he volunteered to be hazed or not is 100% irrelevant. </p>
<p>The attackers have absolutely no right…moral or otherwise to cause his death. To believe he bears even some responsibility is a vicious form of victim-blaming…especially considering the activity he wanted to join is a legitimate one and he’s no longer alive to defend himself. </p>
<p>It also dilutes the focus from where it truly belongs…on the perpetrators and their abettors…the ones who hazed him and the university for trying to cover up and deflect blame by blaming the victim for his own death. A behavior I’d expect more from unsavory characters ranging from schoolyard bullies to tyrannical tinpot dictators of all political stripes. </p>
<p>Would you say the same about a soldier being murdered by fellow soldiers because he supposedly made serious mistakes that was used as justification by his NCOs and other soldiers to haze and beat him to the point of driving him to suicide?</p>
<p>“The attackers have absolutely no right…moral or otherwise to cause his death.”</p>
<p>Why do you think we disagree on this? That’s why I said they are “100% responsible” for their behavior and its consequences.</p>
<p>“It also dilutes the focus from where it truly belongs…on the perpetrators and their abettors”</p>
<p>Here we disagree. I think there is plenty of room to examine mistakes a victim made without in any way excusing the evil conduct of attackers.</p>
<p>I don’t see the parallel at all with the hazing in the military. Soldiers go to jail if they try to walk away. Once you join up, you don’t have choices. Furthermore, it’s both a right, and many people view it as a duty, to serve one’s country in the military. There just isn’t any comparison to being in a marching band where you could just find another musical ensemble instead.</p>
<p>It comes down to the fact that the university should have known what was going on in this student organization. That is why they should be at fault.</p>
<p>Oh, I thoroughly agree. Nothing absolves the university from its failure to act. They knew that this was going on for literally decades.</p>
<p>The university is giving their legal opinion. The courts will decide whether they are correct. What they are saying is Champion violated the anti-hazing pledge he signed with the university by not reporting the planned event to law enforcement or university administrators. Had he thought the event would not occur, once it started with two students before him submitting to the brutal ritual, he should have left and/or refused to participate and reported it to law enforcement or university administrators as he previously swore to do.
Of course, the university is not blameless, as they know hazing occurs. But they may not be liable because the law may say that forcing students to sign a pledge, the university is legally absolved. In that case, the legislature needs to change the law.</p>
<p>Does Florida have contributory or comparative negligence? That is, in some states, if the victim’s own negligence contributed at all to his harm, he collects nothing. That might explain the university’s position.</p>
<p>The article I read states that Champion discussed whether to go through with the hazing with a friend beforehand. He didn’t have to do it. He had signed an anti-hazing pledge. He was 26 years old. He apparently did nothing while two other students went through the hazing. Didn’t report it. Then he chose to do it himself. </p>
<p>Yes, I think the university should have shut down the marching band when they knew that hazing was continuing despite the anti-hazing pledge. Yes, nothing can excuse the acts of the hazers. Yes, it is terribly sad that this young man died.</p>
<p>But I have to say that given the facts cited in the article, he did bear a significant burden of responsibility. Moreover, if one of the two students who went through the hazing before him had died, one could argue that he–and all of the other witnesses who had signed the anti-hazing pledge and yet did nothing–would have been complicit in THEIR death.</p>
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<p>Really? I’d say that students need to start honoring the anti-hazing pledge they signed.</p>
<p>What Consolation said! I had been thinking about an appropriate response, only to find that Consolation summed up my thoughts perfectly.</p>
<p>I think, both sides are at fault. One side should have never had such horrific procedure, another side should have never agree to be treated this way, he was not forced, was he? Participation is not mandatory. And if he is done it against his parents wish, it is another fault. However, if his parents agree, than it is their fault as well. But, this type of extreme hazing or any harmful treatement for any circumstances for that matter (including some sport related pracitces) should have been banned, so there is Univesity fault also.</p>
<p>I looked it up, and apparently Florida has pure comparative negligence–which means that if Champion’s own negligence was partly responsible for his harm, any recovery by his family from other negligent parties (like the university) would be reduced proportionally. Only if his negligence was wholly responsible would they get nothing. So it’s unlikely, in my opinion, that the judge would throw out the case on this grounds at the start.</p>
<p>Thanks, Hunt, for looking that up!</p>
<p>Here’s a link that explains this thread - [FAMU</a> blames hazing victim for his own death: Heartless or prudent? - CSMonitor.com](<a href=“http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2012/0911/FAMU-blames-hazing-victim-for-his-own-death-Heartless-or-prudent]FAMU”>FAMU blames hazing victim for his own death: Heartless or prudent? - CSMonitor.com)</p>
<p>The whole thing just makes me sick.</p>
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<p>I’m not going to get involved in this thread, because the very concept of hazing of any type does not compute in my brain and makes me crazy. I just wanted to say that posts like the one quoted are why I LOVE College Confidential and why I think I’ll be staying on here long after college admissions is a distant memory. Where else does an issue like this come up and a parent just looks up the law? Smart folks here. Smart folks.</p>
<p>I think that if one of my loved ones did something so foolish and got killed, I’d be speechless with rage at everyone, including my loved one. It’s just so senseless. It’s like the drinking deaths where bright young people chug hard liquor and die – you want to shake them and wake them up before it’s too late. What torture his family must be experiencing.</p>
<p>It’s easy to say you would be angry at your dead loved one when you’re not actually faced with a dead loved one. I’m sure Robert Champion’s parents are too consumed with grief over his death to be angry at him.</p>
<p>I went to high school with Champion - we graduated in the same class from SWD. I only say this to explain the band culture. In the South at historically black colleges, joining the band is like joining a fraternity. The culture starts in high school. SWD has a strong marching band (that I was also in); we used to have mandatory study hour then practice until sometimes 9 at night. During the season it was pretty much school, band, homework, sleep. Most of your friends were in band. Most of our band directors attended FAMU and if you were serious about band, you intended upon going to FAMU. A large percentage of my class went there, and many were in the marching band at FAMU too.</p>
<p>I’m not saying this to excuse the behavior, but by way of explaining Champion’s motivations. You usually join the band in 8th or 9th grade. By the time he was a drum major at FAMU Champion had been in the marching band culture for 8 or 9 years. The pressure to go along with the hazing is STRONG. Sure, people can sign anti-hazing pledges, but a piece of paper is not going to stop an endemic culture. In a lot of these fraternal organizations (and the band is one of them) if you’re not hazed like the others you are ostracized socially. They can’t remove you from the organization, but they can treat you like you are not a member. And especially for a drum major, the pressure is even stronger to be perceived as “hard,” as someone who can take the hazing and still stand. To have the other members of the band respect you in a culture that’s built upon hazing, you have to get hazed yourself.</p>
<p>Again, not condoning, just explaining. Imagine there is something that’s become a large part of your life so much for 8 or 9 years, that you manage to become one of the leaders of the best of that something in the country (and FAMU’s band is largely accepted as the best HBCU marching band) and you know the only way to stay “in” and respected is to submit to hazing? It’s easy to say that he was dumb for going along with it from the outside.</p>
<p>FAMU is trying to cover their butt, that’s all. They’re getting sued and no one wants to lose money. Personally, I say shame on them for pointing to anti-hazing pledge as their way of ensuring people don’t haze, as if a piece of paper is going to stop it. What kind of PROGRAMS do they have in place? Are the band’s adult leaders (directors and such) actively engaged in conversations about it? Hazing at FAMU’s band has been a problem for YEARS. My directors in high school hinted at it. They went to FAMU in the 90s. This isn’t an isolated incident in which a bunch of kids just decided to beat someone up. This is an activity that a school-sanctioned organization has been participating in for <em>decades</em> as part of the organization’s culture and hierarchy, and you can’t tell me that FAMU didn’t know about it. The band brings them a lot of money.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for sharing this perspective, juillet.</p>
<p>What I don’t understand is the victims age. He was 26, several years older then the traditional student. He probably felt that whatever it took, he was strong enough and old enough to take it. Poor guy probably had quite a bit of challenges in his life to be in college at that age.</p>
<p>“It’s easy to say you would be angry at your dead loved one when you’re not actually faced with a dead loved one.”</p>
<p>Well, you don’t know what I’ve faced or how I felt about it.</p>
<p>“The pressure to go along with the hazing is STRONG…It’s easy to say that he was dumb for going along with it from the outside.”</p>
<p>Yes, the pressure is real. This is Psych 101. A large majority of people in Champion’s position submit to the hazing. Of course, if 1000 people jump off a bridge and die to win social acceptance, they all made a very foolish, if common, mistake. </p>
<p>My whole life growing up and in college and grad school was built around my singing groups and our social life. I was utterly happy in that life. I get it. But I believe it would be foolish to pursue that path in the first place if I knew that there was a sick culture of physical abuse involved – and as you say, everybody knew about this hazing expectation. I would not let my kids be in a choir under those circumstances. I wouldn’t even have choral music in the house. I would much rather they had a music-free life than learn that it is a good thing to hit people and to shun them if they don’t agree to be hit. That’s worse than wrong…it is evil and should be called out by name. To the extent that people get embedded in this culture early in life, the parents bear some responsibility for that.</p>