It's only hazing if it's tied to membership
 

Go back and read the definition again, Jhawkalum. It's not hazing unless done as a condition of initiation or continued membership.

One person interviewed (Lumpkin) said she was told once that her involvement in the "disapproved campaign" might result in her being made inactive. That threat, if coupled with any action described in the definition, might qualify as hazing. Otherwise, the article describes heavy intimidation and coercion, but not hazing.

Actually not to prolong it... but on a point of clarification ;) were the activities between pledges and actives or pledges and pledges, or actives and actives??

There is no doubt the actions were reprehensible but the collective - Theta Nu Epsilon itself, is (most certainly!) not NPC and not subject to NPC rules. Its member orgs may well themselves be NPC but the threats etc weren't perpetuated against members of an org to others in their org or wishing to become a part of their org.

So on a purely technical point I don't see that it fits the hazing definition - though it is unacceptable and no doubt the general attitude and actions of individuals are a far cry from the core founder values of the member sororities involved in Theta Nu Epsilon.

ETA: Ohhhh MysticCat81! A pox on you for typing & posting faster than me! ;) :p

Decadence,

To answer your question, it was between some actives and the pledges gathered as a group for a pledge meeting on the rules and regs of the Machine. The pledges were gathered in a group at their house and asked if they had a problem with abiding by the rules of the Machine. (They were asked by an active who also happened to be a Machine "rep".)

ETA:
"At the end of the spring 2003 semester, Lumpkin also said she heard she would likely be placed on inactive status in the sorority like Riley Buck. Lumpkin was told Buck had become inactive because she had led a successful College of Arts and Sciences Senate campaign against the Machine's wishes." (From the above mentioned article...)

Honestly, if people aren't allowed to vote how they want to vote, that goes beyond hazing IMO.

And it (allegedly) doesn't only tell its pledges how to vote, it tells its actives how to vote also. Any one - pledge or sister - who was campaign managing a non-Machine endorsed candidate would have received the same treatment and singling out in a meeting. Say every Friday is pin attire day and the sisters have to dress in pin attire or get fined - if you apply that to the pledges it's not hazing because the sisters have to do the same thing too.

Don't get me wrong, I think this is whackety whack whack, but I don't think that "hazing" is quite the term to throw around here.

I'm really trying to stay out of this and I am not going to comment on it a great deal.

I don't think this is ever construed as hazing. It's not something done to pledges by actives.

The whole thing is much more complicated than it appears. I really can't explain it. I don't particularly want to try to explain it. I will just say that it's more complicated than you think and that unless you've been around it yourself, you don't understand.


To the best of my knowledge, Kappa Alpha Theta is not a machine-affiliated sorority.

At my school, it's like 70% Greek. But, the Greeks do control most of the school. One of my sisters is Senior Class President and the Vice-President is also in a Sorority. Its mostly like that in the upper classmen classes and the Freshman and Sophmore classes don't have too many Greeks because they just got to the school.
Also, the Student Government is not run by Greeks but since there are so many people crossing I have no doubt that Greeks will be in the most of the offices in the years to come.

Machine
 

Open this link and look for the Chapter on the Machine, and it will give you alot of info on the machine, as well as, sources for the info.

http://www.education.ua.edu/leader/f...heCapstone.pdf