HAZING NEWS STORIES

Three fraternity members from Chico State will serve 30-day sentences in the death of a pledge.

The family of a young woman who died in an alleged hazing incident filed a $100 million wrongful death lawsuit against a California State University fraternity. Two pledges drowned at a beach near Los Angeles. Before entering the water, they were blindfolded, their hands were tied, and they were forced to engage in a set of rigorous calisthenics. The two women were forced to do this after days of losing sleep as they did difficult and embarrassing chores for sorority members.

Police picked up a severely intoxicated and slightly injured pledge, from the University of Colorado. She said that members required her and other pledges to be blindfolded and to drink 14 drinks. She had 11. Two other pledges were hospitalized.

A fraternity at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln was accused of eight hazing violations and three alcohol violations. A pledge reported to authorities that fraternity members forced pledges to consume whiskey and beer, screamed profanities at them, urinated on a pledge’s bed, struck a pledge with a broom, and woke a pledge in the middle of the night and forced him to move his belongings to another room.

Southern Methodist University has expelled four students who were involved in hazing that seriously injured a student. The pledge went into a coma after being forced to consume large amounts of water and hot sauce. After the pledge lost consciousness, the men forced him to drink more and punched him in the stomach to make him vomit.

After pledges were knocked down with fire hoses, the national office yanked its University of Texas chapter for three years for hazing and other violations of national’s rules.

A Baylor University fraternity pledge fainted and fell into a barb-wired fence after running in a circle for more than an hour while blindfolded in the woods with other pledges. They were encouraged to show up drunk at a party and at times were verbally abused and threatened by fraternity members. Another time, pledges were kept in a small room for several hours and had to urinate in bottles because of a lack of restrooms.

A University of Florida fraternity may have flaunted its disregard for its national’s reformist dry movement this week. An intoxicated pledge was found tied to a tree, covered with epithets and partially disrobed.

A Florida state court ordered two former University of Miami students to pay $12.6 million in damages to the family of a pledge who drowned in a lake during a hazing event. The pledge drowned while swimming with two fraternity members. Tests later showed that he was intoxicated at the time of his death.

Six members of a fraternity at the University of Arkansas were convicted of battery charges after a pledge was hospitalized for fifteen days following a paddling.

A hazing victim from Norfolk State University suffered injuries after doing hundreds of knee bends and submitting to hitting. She was hospitalized and plans to sue the chapter.

A jury ordered a fraternity at the University of Louisville to pay $1 million to a pledge who had been severely beaten. The same exact charge was filed with the same fraternity at the University of Maryland for beating a young man with a hammer, horsehair whip, a broken chair leg and a hairbrush.

Two fraternity pledges were hospitalized and at least eight other pledges and members were sick and covered in vomit during a hazing incident at Fairleigh Dickinson University. The hazing also included the swallowing of goldfish and paddling.

A sorority pledge from Plymouth State University died following a car crash. Ten pledges were stuffed in a Jeep Grand Cherokee without seatbelt restraints to protect them.

At Carnegie Mellon University, sixteen members of a fraternity de-pledged amid allegations of hazing. Pledges were forced to chug 24 ounces of maple syrup and run through a “gauntlet” in the fraternity’s hallway in which they had to carry a ball and were hit with punching bags. Pledges emerged with rug burns and three of them puked as a result of the incidents. They also said one of the pledges suffered a minor concussion.

After a brutal session of slaps, punches, body slams, and binge drinking a fraternity pledge was finally brought to his knees by a kick to the chest at Southeast Missouri State University. Less than twelve hours later he died of internal bleeding in his bed. Ultimately, sixteen fraternity members faced accusations of hazing. Seven of them were also charged with involuntary manslaughter. The victim’s autopsy revealed fractured ribs, a torn right lung and liver, a lacerated kidney, a bruised and bleeding heart, and hemorrhaging up and down his spine.

A student at Indiana University died a week after sustaining of a skull fracture at a party. After doing a keg stand, he fell and hit his head on a metal doorframe. He was hospitalized two days later and remained in a coma until he was taken off life support.

A fraternity at Indiana University is under investigation for possible hazing when a pledge was hospitalized after drinking a large amount of alcohol in 1999.

A fraternity at the University of Illinois was suspended for two years after members allowed “pledge moms” to drink with pledges, resulting in hospitalizations.

A fraternity from Ohio State University physically and verbally abused six members during hazing. One student had several thousand dollars worth of dental work that had to be redone and another student was admitted to a hospital for contusions to the stomach.

A pledge at Ferris State University in Michigan died with a blood alcohol content of .42 in a house rented for Hell Week. Members delayed for 10 minutes before getting the victim help.

A University of Michigan fraternity was closed after a pledge was hospitalized with kidney failure due to excessive exercise and deprivation of food, water, and sleep.