my new sorority hazes
 

You know, I feel stupid, I should have known... after all our "Rush" was held at a fraternity party with alcohol flowing freely... I have friends that are in national sororities at other schools (I am pledging a local) that have told me that isn't supposed to happen.

I really like (most of) the girls, but after our pledge induction the other night I don't want to go through anything like that anymore. We were forced to drink as a punishment for not completing a task (well, I wasn't because I had to drive, but all the other girls were) and made to do humiliating things in public. I know it's no big horror story, but it made me really upset.

I was told when I decided to pledge that there would be no hazing, and I believed it. I get along well with the pledge chair, and she's actually the one that talked some of the other girls out of making me drink.

So here's what it comes down to: my school is very small and only has two sororities...the local I'm pledging and an NPC sorority. Therefore, both of the rushes were held seperately, and at the same times. I (obviously) went to the one for the local, because I met them first and got along with the pledge chair. I still want to join a sorority, but I don't know if because I have started pledging the local, if I can join the national. Or if I'll have to wait until next year. I haven't de-pledged the local yet either... I don't know what to say to them, because I don't want to hurt the feelings of the girls I like. Part of me wants to stick it out and change things from the inside. I don't know what to do.

If you are feeling really uncomfortable with this house, and you don't like the "pledge activities" going on, leave asap. No one should have to submit to that. However, if you enjoy some of the other girls company and might wanna stick it out, bring it to the house's attention and say: Hey I don't feel comfortable doing this. If the house analyzes their program and doesn't make you drink anymore, things might get a lil better. However, if you say something and no action is taken, don't stick around to see what the rest of the semester holds. Ask your fellow new members. Ask what they think about the new member program.

My house had a really bad semester one semester and it took that one semester for us to completely change the way our new member program worked. Hopefully if your house gets a wake up call, they will change a bit.

You can also bring up the issue to your Greek advisor.

As for joining a national after quitting a local... it's possible. You may have to wait til the next recruitment period tho. I don't know how your school works with recruitment. It may be in bad taste (or even against the rules) to quit the local now and COB the national. But it's up to you and again... i don't know where you go to school.

Do what is right for you. If you dont feel comfortable and you do what you can to try and figure out why your sisters are doing this to you, I wouldn't stick around.
Hope that helps.

If you forced to do anything that you would not normally do that is considered hazing! Forced consumption of alcohol and public humiliation is clearly hazing! Get out now unless you feel you can help change the way that your organization operates. Groups like this is what gives Greek Life a bad reputation!!

Drop now. For organizations that haze, it gets worse the farther along in your pledge period you progress.

As long as you don't get initiated, you can rush with another organization.

I'm crossing my fingers for you. Greek life can be wonderful -- if you find where you fit. And somewhere that abuses you is NOT where you fit.

Get out of there now! Report them to the Greek advisor, too. They should NOT be able to do this. Ask the Greek advisor about pledging the national when you go see him/her.

Good luck to you.

Thanks for your advice everybody. Unfortunately we don't have a greek advisor, greek life office, or anything of the sort, we're just sort of hanging in the air.

I'm just really torn - on one hand, I don't want to hurt any of the girls' feelings, and I know if I can stick it out, I could do a lot to change things from inside and make us a better organization.

On the other hand, I don't want to deal with anything more like this. And I'm afraid if I pledge the national, it will just be the same thing, and then I'll have alienated myself. I want to stay friends with most of the girls... there are a few i really don't like though, and one of them happens to be the president :(

We have a pledge activity tomorrow night, so I think maybe i'll try to talk to our pledge chair before then and tell her how I feel.

I suggest you quit now and turn them in for hazing. Even if there is no hazing policy for your org., there are probably state laws prohibiting hazing.

Also, it is my belief that if you are hazed, and you turn them in for hazing, you will automatically be released from that organization and will be free to join another when you decide you are ready. Someone feel free to (gently) correct me if I'm wrong.

ATSGirl:

As a greek and a current advisor I would tell you to drop as soon as you can, but do it respectfully. You don't want to intensify any type of harrasment or attitude that they may have towards you....especially with such a small school environment.

Since you don't have a greek life office, I'm assuming that they don't have a formalized recruitment process, so you would be able to join the NPC sorority any time you would like, if they have openings...furthermore...technically since the other group isn't an NPC you could belong to both.....unless they have some local rules governing such things.

I would definately talk to your pledge chair and tell her about the things that have made you uncomfortable, and reiterate that you were told there would be no hazing...so they broke their word (and a promise to you)...and you don't need to belong to a group who does that....

Good luck!

thanks for listening

o.p.i.e.

Listen to Opie. He's a smart guy.

Do you know any new members in the other sorority on campus? You may want to have a frank talk with one of them if you do to find out if they haze as well. You could just ask outright, but if you say, "I hate hazing, do you haze?" they could just say what you want to hear. You can even be a little evasive yourself - just talk about your pledge period and the hazing like you think it is normal and see how they react - "Oh yeah! This one time we did ---" or "Ugh, you had to do what?"

Ah...shucks *blush* Thanks! I take that as a great compliment coming from you FuzzieAlum!

My heart goes out to you. When i was a new member, there was a girl on my hall that was severly hazed by a local sorority and thats why she transferred to my school and joined an NPC group. She had said that it effected everything she did from her school work to trying to sleep at night. She felt terrible about herself and ended up dropping out of school.
Please don't allow yourself to get that sucked in. If you are uncomfortable, i think you should do what you think is best for you. You should enjoy being and seeing your sisters, not afraid of them- EVER! There are better places out there for you. I think you should follow your heart.

GET OUT NOW

I agree with what everyone else has said so far... It sounds like this organization is just asking for a hazing-related accident. If this is how they start out with their pledges, it will probably only get worse as you get further along in your pledgeship. I personally wouldn't want to stick around to find out.

Your pledge chair was able to prevent the other girls from trying to make you drink last time -- but she may not always be around to protect you. And why should you need protection from girls you want to call your sisters???

Please believe me when I say that not all sororities are like the one you've described. I think you'll be better off joining an organization that values you instead of humiliates you, and leads by example, not by bullying.

Good luck and please keep us updated. :)

LEAVE NOW

The new member period is not supposed to be all about surviving to the next day.

Just to Add to all of the above!

If Your are not comfortable in the situation, GET OUT ASAP!

If you dont, then it is your fault for putting up with it and will still go on!

You will catch a lot of heat but you will know yourself It Aint Right!
It is wrong!

See some other sites about 2 women dieing. Was it Hazing or not? Well, they are both still Dead!


We as Greeks Do not want that to happen, but it does becaus of some inane reason to Haze!

BS, I want every New Associate to become my Brother! That is how we grow!

We stress Grades! Get the Grades or do not get Initiated! In A Nut Shell!

Getting Hazed...
 

Have you seen that drug commercial on TV???

"Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now...
Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go..."

Yep.....get out now. Since there's no Greek Advisor, bring it to the attention of your Student Activities office or even Dean of Student's office.

No one should be hazed; no one should CHOOSE to allow themselves to be hazed.

Iris

Check with the other pledges
 

Check with the other pledgees.

If several of them feel like you do, you have a chance to change from the inside.

If they were also told "no hazing" during rush, they may feel like you do.

In my experience, I suffered horrible things as a hazing victim along with my fellow pledges and 18/19 year old boys, cause we wanted to be in the house.

When the pledge trainer said "do this" we followed like sheep, and if the other 15 guys start stripping when he said to, it takes a very confident person to say "goodby".

We occasionally had a pledge drop out, usually the day after some hazing event - but never in front of the others.

DZRose93, beautifully said.

Get out NOW.

I dont know about your state, but in Texas, as in other states the Hazing laws CLEARLY state, "Submission to an act of hazing does not constitute a defense against it." TRANSLATION: If you get hazed, by LAW you have an obligation to report it to the admin or police. Failure to do so leaves you in the same legal boat as the hazers. How would you feel if you decided to stick it out and another NM reported it and the actives AND you all got slapped with Class A misdomeanors and got fines and probation and had to go to court and got kicked outta school.

Heres an excerpt from my university's Code of Student Conduct and Policies

Under state law (V.T.C.A. Education Code, Section 51.936) individuals or organizations engaging in hazing could be subject to fines and charged with a criminal offense.

According to the law, a person can commit a hazing offense not only by engaging in a hazing activity but also by soliciting, directing, encouraging, aiding or attempting to aid another in hazing; by intentionally, knowingly or recklessly allowing hazing to occur; or by failing to report in writing to the Office of Student Life firsthand knowledge that a hazing incident is planned or has occurred. The fact that a person consented to or acquiesced in a hazing activity is not a defense to prosecution for hazing under the law.

In an effort to encourage reporting of hazing incidents, the law grants immunity from civil or criminal liability to any person who reports a specific hazing event to the Office of Student Life and immunizes that person from participation in any judicial proceeding resulting from that report.

The penalty for failure to report is a fine of up to $1,000, up to 180 days in jail, or both. Penalties for other hazing offenses vary according to the severity of the injury which results and include fines from $500 to $10,000 and/or confinement for up to two years. The law does not affect or in any way restrict the right of the University to enforce its own rules against hazing.

The law defines hazing as any intentional, knowing, or reckless act, occurring on or off the campus of an educational institution, by one person alone or acting with others, directed against a student that endangers the mental or physical health or safety of a student for the purpose of pledging, being initiated into, affiliating with, holding office in, or maintaining membership in any organization whose members are or include students at an educational institution. Hazing includes but is not limited to:

C. any activity involving consumption of food, liquid, alcoholic beverage, liquor, drug, or other substance which subjects the student to an unreasonable risk or harm or which adversely affects the mental or physical health of the student;

In Short... Get out Now.

Also know that we are here for you.

Hazing is WRONG!
 

Dear ATSGirl:

Get out! If you do not feel comfortable, get out before it gets worse and you grow more attached to the members. The same thing happened to me years ago... I was pledging a Co-ed Latino Fraternity and was told there was no hazing, blah, blah, blah... The night of intitiation was TERRIBLE! I actually stopped listening to them to see if they would ask me to leave, but didn't (I know many members from H.S.). I should have known when they began to blindfold us. Anyway, I am now a founder of a Latina-based Sorority and although we are not NPC, we DO NOT haze at all! As a matter of fact, our PA's (New Members), get spoiled rotten! You should not put up with any hazing!

Hope this helps!

I agree - if you are being hazed, you owe it to yourself to get out of that situation asap and to report the hazing to the authorities.

If you depledge, you should be free to pursue membership in the NPC sorority at your school. Most, if not all, NPC sororities have strong anti-hazing resolutions.

Good luck and stay safe. :)

mr tom
 

always right on...
sweetie, the advice here is sound. but you've got to be able to do it. search your heart.
:cool:

My recommendation (based on experience) is that if you are NOT HAPPY don't continue. I initiated into a local because I didn't want to quit, I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it (and we were hazed!). Unfortunately, I still wonder 'what if. . . ' What if I had de-pledged, what if I had realized that the bid I recieved from the other sorority I liked was for the entire year not just the semester I received it even though first semester freshmen are not allowed to join a social org. . . . I was also a member of the first pledge class and one of the main reasons was so I could help to form the sorority among other things.

I would recommend that you seriously reevaluate why you joined, why you want to leave, etc. If you are not happy, if you are not comfortable, don't stay.

Sarah

Holy smokes, Lifesaver, nicely done!

Devil's Advocate
 

Hey Folks,

Let me add a small opinion, and I don't mean to start a flame war here, just wanted to say something about this situation as well.

Hazing is wrong, but there is another option for her. Stick it out if it's nothing serious. Ok, I pledged and was hazed, and it sucked, but it presented a challenge for me and my group. Nothing serious, of course, went on, i.e. NO forced drinking or any naked crap, physical harm, etc. So, in my opinion, if you want to pledge, and there isn't a better choice out there, stick with it but be VERY cautious. Do not participate in activities you are not comfortable with. I'm telling you now, if someone tried to lay a hand on me or shove alcohol down my throat without my consent, I would have walked out and never looked back.

I'm not in her situation, I don't know the circumstances of the social life on the campus, but if she thinks she can get in and change things, then it can't be wrong to support her decision to continue. I'm not trying to send someone off to get hurt, but everyone here is quick to yell, bitch, and scream for this person to runaway and get this group in trouble. How exactly is that going to stop the next group that pops up, or save the next pledge group?

Once I was in, I was like, "there is no way I'm going to stand by and let this house do again what they did to me" and if it wasn't for a select few before me, things would never have toned down. Sure enough, things did change, and nobody really cared. Most of it was out of boredom and lack of imagination:) People haze because they can't come up with smarter productive uses for pledges or the program.

My point is simple, if and only if this is not the super-crazy-waiting-for-a-tragedy-type sorority, then it's not a bad situation for someone like her to pledge. If the pledgemaster respects and looks out for the pledges, then things will get better once she's in. If you want to attack hazing, you bring it down from the inside out, otherwise another outbreak with another group will occur (sounds like a disease, doesn't it?). Just consider what I said, but above all else, watch out for yourself and don't do anything you are not comfortable with as everyone else suggested. That's #1, but I wouldn't runaway scared until that choice comes up.

That's all, goodluck and keep us posted,


RUgreek

RUgreek,
I COMPLETELY know where you are coming from. I kinda hinted at it in my first post cuz i went thru a similar experience. I did some things i wasn't too proud of as a pledge, but as the future classes got initiated, they started seeing that this new member program wasn't right even tho there were still people in the house that liked being mean to new members. i don't know if they were bitter from their past experience but they are still bitter for us making changes as alumnae... but i digress.
point is, we had a crap semester and after that we basically said, things need to change. so they have and now things are different and our girls are a lot happier with it.
But if she is willing to stick thru it and change the system, i think it would benefit it. however, if she is not happy and doesn't want to continue, she should have every right to leave and the sorority should know why. and if there are other NMs who feel the same, they should leave as well. it would make a huge statement and hopefully something will click in the org's mind that what they are doing isn't right and will change things up.
Sorry, i am trying to be optomistic. i don't know the personalities of the active members but i doubt they are all out for blood. (figure of speech!!!) If your class is able to stand up to the rest of the house and say "this isn't right..." it will affect the house.
Ok... i am starting to repeat myself.

Basically... do what makes you happy. this is a time to be selfish. and if your 'sisters' will shun you if you quit... they probably weren't worth having as friends to begin with.

www.stophazing.org
 

HI There,
If you truly feel uncomfortable with this house you should leave. If you have doubts talk to your other pledge class members there are probably others who feel the same way. If so then maybe you can all band together and say no we're not going to do such and such.
Everyone keeps talking about hazing and it being illegal - yes it is and it's deadly as is suspected in 2 recent deaths in Los Angeles. It is against Federal Law and State Law as well.
My question is - How old are you???? The thing I don't like is that the hazing must have involved forcing under 21 years old to drink. First off, underage drinking could get you kicked out of school if caught. Secondly, do they have designated drivers to take you home afterwards or do they just let you all wander off on your own. Do they check to make sure you didn't get alcohol poisoning.
Realize that they are putting you and your fellow pledge class members in jeopardy for what? So you can join them and become their friend/sisters. Hmmmm.......last I checked I've never hazed any of my non-greek friends - many of who are as close as my sisters. Why would I want to be hazed to have new friends.
Keep us informed of what's going on

I have to agree with everyone, that if you are in a situation where you are being hazed you have to do something about it. One option other than just quiting is to talk to the other new members. Maybe you can get somewhere from the inside or get together and form your own organization. A lot of locals and some chapters that become part of a national organization start as a break off from another sorority. In reality if you do really love some of the girls and want to call them your sisters, talk to them. If you cant find a way to make things better within the chapter, then get out. DO NOT stay in a situation where you are hazed.

Well, tonight is our next pledge activity. I can't make it tonight, and need to tell my pledge chair that, so that is when I plan to talk to her about everything.

To answer some of your questions, I am in a somewhat unusual situation... I'm 25, and a "returning student"... I just go part time and work during the day. Part of what gives me pause about this whole deal is that I wonder if I'm just being an old fart :) My pledge sisters looked uncomfortable, but none of them spoke up. The only time someone said anything was when we were blindfolded, and we have a deaf girl in my pledge class, and the poor thing was just terrified. Other than that though, the other girls seemed like they were having fun (except for the drinking part). I'm also concerned because i don't know if I can pledge the NPC sorority because I'm a part-time student. I emailed the Membership VP yesterday, but did not mention yet that I'm not an 18 year old full time student :)

I have decided to depledge this sorority, though... I have had other issues with them already beyond the hazing issue, and I've decided that as much as I would love to help these girls see the light, so to speak, that I must put myself, and my obligations to my family first.

Yall are wonderful, thank you for all of your advice! If you have any suggestions as to what to say to my pledge chair (who I adore, so I don't want to be mean, but i do want to explain to her that what they are doing IS hazing), I would really appreciate it!

Tell her the truth! You were so excited to be a part of a sisterhood and had expectations as to what is was like but have been disappointed by the actions of the older sisters. Tell her you don't think they are living up to their ideals. Maybe if she relays the message to the chapter things could change in the future.
Good luck:)

I just want to tell you that all of that is hazing...anything that makes anyone feel uncomfortable is hazing...I do give you warning that most NPC sororities require you to be a full time student. The coming back to school part doesnt seem odd to me, cause my own chapter has had members who are your age and just coming to college, but they did have to be full time students.

Well, here's the latest update on my saga...

I found out I can't pledge the NPC sorority. Since I'm not a full-time student and never will be, I'm ineligible, thank you and goodbye. :(

I never ended up making that call or writing that email yesterday, I just didn't show up to the pledge activity. I'm guessing that they know now I am de-pledging, but I still have to make it official.

I can't tell you all how disappointed I am not to be able to become a part of greek life. It's something I've always wanted to do since I was a little girl. Thanks for all of your advice, though..... I'm sure you'll see me lurking around here still :)

atsgirl,
You are absolutely doing the right thing. You must know that in your heart. Being humiliated by other people is not a part of friendship Greek or otherwise. As for your participation in Greek Life, I would kindly direct you to the following Alumni Initiation thread:
http://greekchat.com/gcforums/showth...threadid=20287
Cutie Pie2000 put together a wealth of information on this aspect of Greek life.

Also, erica812 is starting a chapter of Beta Sigma Phi at her school. I would definitely suggest looking into this very active sorority.
erica's GC thread:
http://greekchat.com/gcforums/showth...threadid=23269
the national site:
www.betasigmaphi.org

I can tell you that Greek Life needs and wants women of character. What you are doing now is an example of your character. I will continue to hope that you find a sisterhood within which you can find a true home and become the leader I suspect you already are.

Greek Love and Mine,
violets

atsgirl,

I agree with what some of the other women have said. Alumnae initiation is definitely an option you should consider. One of my best friends from college was just initiated this month into Delta Zeta as an alumna initiate, and she says it is one of the best things she has ever done! :)

Hey -- don't mean to be a killjoy, but you're not doing anyone any good if you don't tell these girls why you're depledging.

I agree with what has been said so far. Alumnae initation is definately something to look into! It can be a great experience! :)