That can become a sand trap since who gets to define extreme. IMO that is the job of our judicial system. Don’t like some aspect then change the laws. I believe that is what is happening in PA…the legislature is taking a hard look at hazing laws to see if they can be more tightly defined. As far as the laws that existed 2 years ago or so when this happened that is what the legal system is dealing with and existing sentencing guidelines and case law. You really can’t have retributive justice on an isolated case IMO simply because the media sinks it’s teeth into a case or try a case on social media feeds. Worse yet are sweeping generalizations about a large segment based on a small sample size as these frat threads tend to evoke.
Non-Greek here, but so what? A group of folks figured out a way to help its members. ANYONE could have done the same thing - an academic club, a group in a dorm, even a church youth group. If the professors were dumb enough to keep giving the exact same tests year in and year out, then that burden is on them. Now, if the fraternity had lifted a current test, that would be stealing/cheating and another matter. But how many folks pass their class notes and tests down to friends or younger siblings? What’s the difference?
Look, that “test database” is a myth. If frat boys are just a bunch of drunken, assaulting idiots, what makes you think that they would have the motivation or ability to keep a file of tests organized.
The Greek system is an easy target right now because they aren’t politically correct. But issues happen “off campus” as well. They just don’t get the coverage the Greeks do. The more we punish the Greeks (as a whole, not individually when they deserve it as in the instant case) it will just push stuff off campus where the schools will have even less control.
Unfortunately, when you have severely inebriated people (frat brothers) supposedly looking after other severely inebriated people (pledges), this kind of things happens. No one has their heads on straight to assess a possibly (in this case, definitely) life-threatening situation. Unless colleges are willing to do away with supporting organizations that continue to support this type of culture, it’s rinse and repeat.
Sure as are kids who pass out and die in snow piles, kids who fall out of windows and so on. Eliminating Greek doesn’t eliminate the abuse of alcohol. I am no tea totaler but hard liquor was just too expensive and not what got passsd out at college campuses in my generation. We played drinking games too and my campus had no Greek. The difference was we were legal and today’s kids are not and there was no root beer flavored vodka. Kids have choice. Plus one person’s fun is another person’s haze. My son’s high school swim team had all kinds of team rituals like shaving their bodies or dying their hair red. One mother complained and that was the end of things that the kids thought were fun and comradely. The line between comradely and hazing is a very fine line. Underage drinking is a very defined line. Adjudicating black and white laws is straight forward. Adjudicating gray areas never is.
This has been discussed thoroughly in the other thread, the students in charge of the event were, mainly, not drinking or drunk. The bottom line is the criminality lies not in underage drinking (although there’s that) but in a criminally negligent failure to call for aid, and then cover that failure up.
PSU will launch a database this fall which will begin tracking pertinent information about frats for nationwide view. It is an expansion of the “report” card they started here, which easily compares arrests, parties, philanthropy, gpa, etc and tends to illuminate which frats are pretending to be something they are not.
Not sure about that. There are many people who think 18 should be the age. The sheriff in the town next door even says “if they are old enough to die for our country, they are old enough to have a beer.” So it’s more like speeding than the crime of the century.
And the reality is that we are now suffering the unintended consequences of crack downs over the years. Back in the day, everything was keg beer. Now as we enforce restrictions, the kids move to flavored vodka. Stick it in a water bottle – who will know. Don’t ask about that one. 
I am one of several posters who think it should be 18 because of campus binge drinking and pre-gaming and all the super secret drinking.
I agree @momofthreeboys. A lot was lost when legal beer was taken away and underage kids that want to party had to go to whatever could be easily sneaked into dorms: hard alcohol or drugs. It takes a lot of Natty Light, literally pounds of liquid, if you want to get your BAC above a dangerous level on lame beer. Most people get full, throw up or fall asleep long before they get to a 0.2 or whatever raises your eyebrows.
That’s exactly what happened. I would be much more comfortable with them in a commercial establishment with security, etc. With little money, you can’t drink too much either. And with uber in many places driving shouldn’t be an issue either. Vs a bunch of rookies behind a lock door or in a basement with a bottle of vodka. What could go wrong