Hazing in our country, specifically at colleges and universities across the United States, has gotten out of control and the wrongs committed by hazing largely outweigh the tradition of this humiliating ritual. Allowing 19 and 20 year olds the power and authority to do whatever they want to others goes against the values of American society and this issue needs to be addressed. In addition to being a major issue on college campuses, hazing continues to be a cultural problem in America and can exist at different stages of society. Although illegal in 44 states, hazing persists in high school/college organizations and teams, the military, church groups, and even professional sports. Due to the number of deaths and injuries that have resulted from hazing practices, hazing has reached the point where the federal government needs to step in and put pressure on schools and other organizations to wipe out hazing from their campuses and American culture permanently. Along with federal anti-hazing legislation, there are additional courses of action that need to be taken by schools and groups of people to put an end to this heinous activity. 

Hazing has served as a long standing tradition of initiation in many college Greek systems, organizations, and other areas of society, however this doesn’t make it right. Inherently evil, hazing has done more bad than good in the past and goes against societal morals and values. According to the article “Hazing continues despite efforts to change” by Jim Mandelaro, hazing has resulted in the death of at least one college kid annually since 1970. One major problem with hazing is that, unlike the ones created for child abuse and domestic violence, there is no national organization to collect information on hazing and track hazing cases. The only cases that can be tracked are the ones that appear in the media and in surveys. This serves as a problem for trying to bring hazing offenders to justice and highlight its negative effect on not just college campuses, but on society as a whole. When speaking on hazing as a cultural problem in Mandelaro’s article, Susan Lipkins, a Long Island psychologist who specializes in conflict and violence on campus and whose work is featured at insidehazing.com, says, “Hazing is alive and well in high school and it gets passed along later in life,” (3). Lipkins adds, “I call it part of our ‘vulture culture’ where we differentiate between winning and losing and people are willing to suffer humiliation and abuse in order to be accepted,” (3). Lipkins further supports the idea of hazing as a cultural problem, claiming that it is not limited to high school and college, but also exists later in life. She alludes to the fact that in various levels of society hazing occurs as a way to separate the winners and losers, with the winners being the ones who are willing to be humiliated in order to feel accepted into a group or organization, and the losers being those who are not able to withstand the abuse and in turn are not accepted into a group as part of the hazing. This hazing culture is wrong and has reached its tipping point, leading many people to feel that it needs to be better controlled if not eradicated altogether. 

Furthermore, hazing needs to be stopped because it has spread beyond high school locker rooms and college frat houses, and into adult society earning it the label of a cultural problem. In his article “Hazing is not just a college problem, it’s a cultural problem as well,” the author Pete Camarillo talks about how hazing exists in society in addition to high schools and colleges. Camarillo says, “Hazing happens across the nation and outside of college fraternities, such as in the military, professional sports, in gangs and maybe even to the new employee or intern at your office,” (2). Camarillo alludes to the reality that hazing knows no societal bounds and can be found in military boot camps, among professional athletes (i.e. rookies are hazed as new members of a team), and in companies or organizations as a way of introducing new employees into those companies and groups. Camarillo explains how once people are given the chance to become someone that they want to be such as a professional athlete, member of a Greek house, or even CEO they are willing to do something that they would not normally do based on an incentive, and this could include hazing. Camarillo answers the question of where 19 to 23-year- olds learn this humiliating behavior from when he says, “They learn it from older brothers, supervisors, coaches, sergeants, teachers, coworkers, teammates, and other members of a group they were trying to join,” (3). This, according to Camarillo, is why hazing is a cultural problem as well. This is due to the fact that adults and older generations are contributing to the hazing problem by letting this behavior continue and in a way making it seem like less of an issue. This leads to the reality that people remain silent about hazing and live in a state of being afraid to speak up on this issue.

A large issue that has halted progress to try and eradicate hazing from college campuses and beyond is the fact that people are afraid to speak up about hazing incidents and remain in a culture of silence surrounding this problem. In the article “Anonymous reporting and a culture of silence: Why so few hazing reports result in sanctions” written by Kelly Jasiura for the University of North Carolina’s The Daily Tar Heel student newspaper, Kim Novak, a national expert on student risk management, says that most of the time people do not report hazing because they are afraid of what will happen as a result. Novak says, “They believe that when you say the word ‘hazing,’ everyone automatically assumes, ‘Oh my gosh, they’re going to get kicked off campus,” (1). Students are afraid that if they report hazing then it will result in the closing of fraternity or sorority chapters. Moreover, they are fearful that they will receive backlash for coming out about this growing problem. In addition to the culture of fear, another issue allowing hazing to persist is that colleges are not efficient in investigating anonymous reports of hazing with vague information. As mentioned in Jasiura’s article, Gentry McCreary, a consultant with the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management, believes that school administrators begin investigations of hazing focusing too much on certain allegations which tips off the organization accused of the hazing and allows their members to come up with a uniform story to get around the accusations. McCreary says, “They go straight for the bullseye, and when they do, they show their hand,” (2). Schools have failed in conducting hazing investigations, and this has allowed hazing offenders to get away with acts of hazing and in turn done nothing to bring them to justice and/or wipe out hazing from their campuses. According to Anne Arseneau, director of Student Leadership Development at the College of William and Mary, one way to prevent members from sharing information about hazing allegations is for investigators to issue them questionnaires and ask them questions at the same time in order to prevent the organization’s head figures from receiving notice of a hazing report ahead of time. Furthermore, making it clear to students and others what constitutes hazing and how to report it goes a long way in the fight to eradicate this humiliating behavior from college campuses. Arseneau admits that at William and Mary, a clear and consistent message of what defines hazing and heavy advertising of ways to report it have helped to combat the issue. In order to crack down on, if not put an end to, hazing on college campuses across the country, students and others must break the culture of silence and be more open about hazing incidents, while universities need to be more proactive and efficient in their investigating of hazing incidents. 

In addition to these changes regarding hazing, people must change the culture surrounding this issue on top of enforcing anti-hazing legislation. In his article “Commentary: The End of Hazing” Ibram Rogers makes the point that we cannot rely solely on federal anti-hazing laws, but also need to make a comprehensive and organized effort to change the hazing culture at schools across the country. Rogers talks about how schools should hold fraternities and sororities to the same standards as other clubs and organizations. Rogers says, 

“Just like members of these student organizations usually sign or recite loyal oaths committing themselves to community, to brotherhood, to sisterhood, to the band-colleges and national offices should mandate that each member must sign an oath of understanding that he/she will be subjected to campus and/or criminal prosecution if hazing is committed by any person in the organization.” (3)

Rogers argues that by doing this, members of these Greek organizations will be more influenced to make sure that no hazing goes on in their organizations since they will be liable for its effects. Since there is a culture of secrecy that covers up hazing, external warning will not be enough to wipe out hazing, but rather internal checking and monitoring. Fraternities and sororities will not be influenced to change their traditions simply because of laws; however, higher education must not only give them the support and ability, but also the incentives to get rid of the practice of hazing. Rogers goes on to say, “Currently, the incentives to maintain the tradition are more enticing than the incentives (or hazards) to eliminate it. That needs to change,” (3). Rogers makes the point that laws against hazing will just cause members to fear punishment and consequences for hazing, but discussions between members and school officials could provide incentives to change the culture of hazing, rather than its vicious cycle, on college campuses. The incentives to maintain the tradition of hazing right now are greater than the incentives to eradicate hazing, and this needs to change.

Some people support hazing and see it as a positive influence. In John Talty’s “Why Hazing Can Lead to Positive Change,” Talty talks about how being hazed in college made him a better and stronger person. Talty notes how many people have had similar influences where they came out of hazing as a better person. While this may be true for some people, it goes against my claim that hazing tears people apart and affects them physically and psychologically. People like Talty are a minority on the hazing issue and a majority of people see it as wrong and unjust. Research has shown that people with low self-esteem go through hazing to try and live up to certain standards in order to feel better about themselves. This supports the notion that people join fraternities and sororities as a way of “buying” their friends as opposed to going out and making friends on their own which makes people more socially adept and less sheltered. Talty goes on to mention how hazing brought him closer together with his pledge brothers, which goes against my claim that hazing fails to bring about team cohesion. Although Talty’s experience going through hazing was positive, there are far more cases of hazing that have gone wrong and left people in a hurt state, including the fact that over 100 young people have died as a result of hazing since 1970. In addition, it has been shown that those who go through the harsh initiation of hazing are more dependent on their peers and feel uncomfortable when left alone. Talty describes hazing as being a benefit to his growth as a man and a positive process, however hazing involves heavy alcohol consumption, humiliation, isolation, significant sleep loss, and sexual acts which all do more harm than good on people being hazed. While Talty talks about how hazing made him better at managing his time, it has been proven that hazing causes a lot of people to struggle with schoolwork and fall behind in the classroom.  

Although hazing has gotten worse in recent times, there are several ways that people can put an end to this issue. One way is for the federal government to enact anti-hazing legislation and put pressure on federally funded schools to fix their hazing problems. In the article “Death by Hazing: Should There Be a Federal Law Against Fraternity and Sorority Hazing?” the author Devon Alvarez says, “Congress needs to enact a uniform definition for hazing, and provide proportional punishments that acknowledge the severity of the crime and serve as a deterrent to future hazing,” (56). The federal government holds a lot of power in the United States and their intervention with hazing could go a long way in changing the culture around hazing, if not ending its existence. Congress needs to create a clear definition for what constitutes hazing and create punishments for offenders, which will together help prevent hazing on college campuses across the country. In addition, Alvarez says, “Congress should restrict education funding for any state that fails to enact the federal hazing law,” (56). State universities who receive federal funds for education would be forced to be more proactive about reporting hazing and making an effort to stop it from happening on their campuses, as a result of the restriction of federal funds coming in. This action by Congress would also force states to pass anti-hazing legislation as part of the deal. Alvarez says, “The final step in federal hazing legislation would be to require universities to report incidents of hazing to a national database,” (60). Since there are many hazing incidents that occur without people of authority knowing about them, the restriction of federal funds to get schools to report incidents of hazing would be huge in order to stop this issue. Hazing can be eradicated if people work together to report it and bring offenders to justice, and the federal government would be a leading force in this movement to bring down hazing.

Fraternities are a leading cause of hazing, therefore the fight against hazing involves bringing fraternities accused of hazing to justice, if not banishing them altogether. The major issue with this is that fraternity alumni give more money to their schools than their non-fraternity peers. Getting rid of fraternities would cause schools to lose a significant amount of money coming in from alumni who were former fraternity members. In her article from The Atlantic “How Colleges Could Get Rid of Fraternities,” Julia Ryan says, “In a time when many universities face fragile financial futures, angering alumni, especially active alumni, is a nonstarter,” (3). Ryan alludes to the fact that although fraternities are a hotbed for hazing, schools are in a tight spot to get rid of them, because much of the money coming into those schools is from alumni who were former fraternity members and remain active in giving back to those schools. Banishing fraternities would most certainly anger these alumni and cause them to not want to give back anymore, therefore causing schools to lose a significant amount of money. One way to get rid of the fraternities without taking as big of a financial hit would be to find billion-dollar donors who support banishing the Greek system at schools, and will not give their money until these schools get rid of their fraternities and sororities. This would in turn make people think twice about supporting these organizations and hopefully lead to the banishing of Greek systems from colleges and universities, which would be a major step in the right direction towards ending hazing. 

How can we continue to live our lives knowing that innocent young people are losing their lives as a result of something so heinous and meaningless as hazing? Would you want your son or daughter to become a hazing victim as a result of a couple of 19 or 20 year olds taking it too far? With the proper approach to eliminating the culture of hazing and an organized and efficient effort to eradicate this problem from society, we will no longer have to suffer through stories of hazing tragedies and live in a culture of fear surrounding hazing.
