Now that you've clarified, yes this is hazing. Just because you warn someone that they'll be hazed, doesn't make it no longer hazing.

Then I guess things are fine as long as the dialogue remains open and things are carefully handled.

Unfortunately, there are individuals and chapters who have gotten in trouble for doing things that the school and local/regional/national body were fully informed about. Things can change and schools and local/regional/national body change their minds about something they previously approved of. That includes schools and local/regional/national bodies having selective memory and acting as though they never approved of something.

This is not the formula used to determine whether something is hazing.

"Pledge" consent does not mean it is not hazing and "pledges" have minimal power through which they can truly control the outcome. There are a lot of bonding activities that are technically hazing and that includes bonding activities that can cause mental and physical harm. Giving "pledges" water and stopping if they are pushed too far does not make it nonhazing. Schools and GLOs are not buying this logic that members try to use.

You all need to rethink this and be careful with whom you share this information until you rethink this.

This, but add state law to the mix. What some groups consider hazing, others do not. What matters is what your GLO, your campus and your state law think.

If your campus and HQ are cool with it, I'm not going to argue.

But I do think it bears repeating that under most definitions of hazing I am familiar with, consent is not a defense -- if an activity is otherwise considered hazing, then it's hazing regardless of whether the pledge consents or not. I'm just guessing, but my guess is that your campus and HQ are okay with what you're doing not because the pledges consent but because you have structured it in a way that, to use the definition Kevin gave earlier, your are not "recklessly or intentionally endanger[ing] the mental health or physical health or safety of a student for the purpose of initiation."

This is where it gets sketchy and excelblue's chapter, school, and GLO need to be careful. If something happens, his chapter may be thrown under the bus. His chapter needs to protect its neck.

So you and your brothers are trained medical professionals who can immediately ascertain that a pledge has been "pushed too far" and can provide emergency treatment?

Agreed. I misread it earlier as "brothers worked out and some pledges joined them", like morning P90X time or something.

Really, what would this activity hope to accomplish?

Preventing the pledges from becoming a bunch of fatasses. Some fraternities take this VERY seriously.

Yeah. So under the Oklahoma statute, if blue's chapter is forcing pledges to do extreme calisthenics, that's going to be at least reckless unless they take some real CYA steps like requiring all new pledges to get physicals prior to the extreme physical activity. Even then, it'd be really iffy to the point where I'd definitely veto the activity.

Forced calisthenics are a particularly risky activity. Imagine you have a member with an undiscovered heart condition and they have a full-on cardiac arrest in the middle of your activity.

These things aren't forbidden (mostly) because of some high-minded moral code. These things are forbidden because your national and local leaders don't want to be sued into oblivion for allowing members to negligently harm other members.

Yep.