My point (since your links were about nonlegal definitions and debunking myths):
There should be few hazing definitions and policies based on "common sense" because what is "common sense" to me isn't "common sense" to everyone. Everything should be based on the legal definition, wherever it comes from.

True Story:
Years ago, I had a fraternity member say to me "you've never loved an organization or appreciated it until you've almost died for it." That stupid stuff makes complete sense to him and a lot of people. They would consider that pledging and not hazing and judge others' love for their organization based on that. Call them crazy but they call us crazy.

It's all a harmless difference of opinion until someone gets hurt and/or loses their charter.

Which is why I don't talk about "common sense" when it comes to hazing. ;)

Read the links I gave above from the Southern School. Some of them are just about common sense rules and laws.
I do believe that we are on the same page.
I lost my home chapter because of a combination of violations of hazing and student code violations. "Dumb, dumber, and dumbest".

Those 'penalties' really don't do anything. At the worst, the chapter just leaves IFC, but that doesn't really affect much. SAE couldn't have parties at the house for awhile but those were extreme circumstances, they're fine now.

I knew that Bows.;)
However it would seem as if TPTB on campus have given rather clear "notice" to all students.
And that is generally not done just to keep an Ad min busy for a day or two.
And it is TPTB, much more than IFC, that has control over matters. And leaving IFC is just the ez way to go.
And unfortunately that is something most students just to not care or wish to understand until it is too late.
And yes, I am speaking from experience.:(

Is there any realy common sense when it comes to hazing?:mad::rolleyes:

All I can say is wow... I was NOT expecting that, lol...

Okay, I selected the wrong function and merged all of the posts in that topic into one. Then I found the right function and moved them to the "Hazing Tradition" thread. Please go there to continue. Sorry for the confusion.

*This got mixed up into the other thread, but I intended to post it here*


I don't know where to post this, but here is just as good a place as anywhere else I guess.

My son is a Boy Scout and a rep from the Order of the Arrow came to talk at his Boy Scout meeting because it was time for elections for OA. There was a video that was played where they talked about what Order of the Arrow is and about the Ordeal that the kids go through in order to join. During the Ordeal, they must sleep alone outdoors, go a full day without talking while doing service and then there is an initiation type ceremony. They said in this video, very specifically "This is not hazing and we do not haze. This is not like a fraternity initiation with hazing..."

This bothered me on two levels because 1) Everything they do that weekend would be considered hazing by most NIC groups and 2) How dare they imply that all fraternity initiations involve hazing?

Anyway, just wanted to vent with that.

As an Arrorman, I'll quickly agree with your second point.

As to your first point, I think it points up how the current climate has led some groups to throw the baby out with the bathwater as to what constitutes hazing. I think I've said before here at GC that my ordeal weekend was one of the most memorable of my life. I do not consider anything that happened to me that weekend, including the sleeping alone under the stars, the meager meals, the silence or the work, to have been hazing.

I think they were trying to emphasize that it's all supervised and nobody would be harmed, but I was offended that they used a fraternity as the opposite example, especially SINCE those activities would be considered hazing by the fraternities. You know if a fraternity did that, they would get in trouble for hazing. I'm not worried about son going through the O of A ordeal weekend. He has to wait until fall anyway since he won't have his first class until the court of honor being held two weeks after the O of A weekend. It was just the irony of the statement.

I cannot see my son going that long without talking, but he has surprised me with Boy Scout stuff. He does all kinds of things for them that he won't do at home..lol. This weekend, they are camping at Fort Wayne and spending the weekend cleaning up the grounds. I can't get the kid to help me clean up our own yard!

I say, if you want to get hazed then that is your stupidity. If you believe that putting your hands on me is proof of sisterhood, then you are not the sister for me. After weeks of getting your behind whipped, the people over the lines wonder why their neos do not get along and they do not want to work together. It is your fault. I hope that one day, people will be smart and stop allowing other people to whip their behinds to be accepted.

"Hazing" has a completely different definition now than it had in past years. Of course anything physical is (and always has been) regarded as hazing but today hazing is anything outside of your organization's Membership Intake program (which is in compliance with the schools' anti-hazing policies and state laws). So much of what many members never regarded as hazing is in fact considered hazing today. In other words, pledging (which back in the day wasn't regarded as hazing) is hazing today. Many would like to see some form of the pledge process (minus what many consider to be "true" hazing) re-instated for various reasons.