MTV Fraternity life and hazing
 

I've only seen one show and some promos, but it appears they certainly are hazing.

Being a local, they may not have the same definitions that the Nationals do, though.

Wonder how the local laws read in Buffalo.

Put me down in the non-PC bunch.

While I would personally kill any chapter which paddles, and arrest the paddlers, I think pledgeship should be demanding.

I also think personal servitude is a no-no (like MTV sorority pledges having to stay up late to be the members' designated driver, or cleaning members' rooms, running errands, memorizing useless details about a member, etc.)

I think pledges should learn the fratenity/chapter history, know the members names, majors, and hometowns, and should clean the "public" areas of the house.

I think there should be pledge projects for the chapter (plan and organize - but not finance - a dance/party) and for the community (service project).

MTV's fraternity pledges show how all these new guys have to learn brothrhood - sharing, tolerating, working together - in order to have a decent brotherhood. It's going to be fun to see where the MTV pledges go.

I've only watched one episode -- in it the pledges were required to do pushups together. I think that pretty well fits most definitions of "hazing."

New York hazing law:
§ 120.16. Hazing in the first degree

A person is guilty of hazing in the first degree when, in the course of another person's initiation into or affiliation with any organization, he intentionally or recklessly engages in conduct which creates a substantial risk of physical injury to such other person or a third person and thereby causes such injury.

Hazing in the first degree is a class A misdemeanor.
§ 120.17. Hazing in the second degree

A person is guilty of hazing in the second degree when, in the course of another person's initiation or affiliation with any organization, he intentionally or recklessly engages in conduct which creates a substantial risk of physical injury to such other person or a third person.

Hazing in the second degree is a violation.
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I went to Buffalo State, the other SUNY in town, and from what I gather from other higher ed institution in Buffalo, there is sort of a laize faire attitude toward the greeks, including my own school. Let me repeat, this was about 4 years ago, so I don't know what is going on anymore. But talking to some active, seem to be business as usual.

Arya,

Thanks.

If those are the entire laws, it would appear that pushups probably wouldn't be considered hazing, unless the person doing them had some medical condition that would preclude him/her from safely doing this kind of physical training.

Of course, as I've said many times before, I'm not a lawyer.

Do you know if the university has any rule that might more broadly define hazing?

I agree with hoosier,

My sentiments are if it's all in good fun, there is no threat of violence or forced drinking, the pledge program should be the way they project it.

I'd go even a little farther, because scavenger hunts and campus adventures would be under personal servitude, and say that they are alright even the right circumstances.

You also have to consider that it's possible that MTV has either encouraged or suggested they perform these activities on camera, so don't let that one slip by you while the ratings for "i want to see what they do to them next" begin to rise.

I'm another one of those who agrees that anti-hazing laws have gotten out of control, but I can see why it happened.

I think that as long as the "hazing" is something that legitimately applies to the group, it should be allowed. I think actives should be allowed to question pledges about organization's history, the Greek alphabet, and basic info about all the people in the house (I think this can be taken too far though -- requiring them to know name, hometown, age and major would be okay, but sometimes this can stretched to requiring the pledges to know everything about a member of the GLO, from their favorite color to the date they lost their virginity -- and if you've got over 100 members like so many groups do, this would be ridiculous). I think the actives should be allowed to require interviews with a certain number of actives so you can get to know certain members better (again, if there are a lot of people in your house, interviews with ALL the actives shouldn't be allowed). I think pledge projects (social and philanthropic) should be allowed. All of these things are relevant to the group and do have an effect on what kind of members these people will make and should be allowed to be tested.

Obviously I don't agree with physical hazing, forced drinking, that kind of thing. I also don't agree with personal servitude or the forcing of pledges to clean the house, which to me is a form of personal servitude.

I don't agree with "just for fun" hazing either because what someone might see as harmless fun, another girl might be humiliated by -- running topless down Greek row at night, having to serenade fraternity pledges with dirty songs, etc. I think that's why hazing has been eliminated entirely -- because different people react differently to different things and there's no way to guarantee what will cause emotional or physical distress. (Pushups, for example, could injure or even kill somebody with a heart condition, and even though that kind of thing is rare, it's still possible, and I don't think any fraternity wants to be associated with it.)

I think scavenger hunts were outlawed not so much because of their connotation with hazing (although that was a part of it) but because often it led to stealing things -- say, if an item one the list was "a fraternity's composite" or "something from the university chancellor's house." Not exactly something Greek HQs wanted associated with them. Also, the scavenger hunt can easily lead to hazing by requiring pledges to have body parts signed by fraternity members, or fraternity members requiring pledges to do favors for them in order to get, say, that composite that's an item on the list.

Basically, I'm saying that I do agree that most hazing laws are overdoing it, but I can also see that without the extreme laws the lines would get very blurry.

Question: in our anti-hazing bylaws, our nationals bans not only scavenger hunts, but hayrides. I think I've figured out the scavenger hunt ban, as reasoned above, but can anybody tell me why hayrides would be considered dangerous?

Hayrides...hmmm. I've never heard that ban before as "hazing". I know there have been a lot of cases of injury involving hayrides (get drunk, fall off wagon, get run over) and of hayride-vehicle accidents because so many hayrides may cross country roads and the tractor/wagon may not have lights. So from a purely risk management/insurance reason I could see where a ban was coming from, but as HAZING???:confused:

They're breaking their university's hazing policy, therefore I think it's pretty clear that they're hazing.

If they were a local organization and their university had no hazing policy AND they weren't breaking New York state laws (which they aren't, by NY state laws' definition of hazing), then no, it wouldn't necessarily count as hazing. But since their school does have a hazing policy which is openly available on their Greek website, and this fraternity is breaking some of the rules contained in that policy, I think it's pretty clear that the kids are hazing.

Considering the fact that the University of Buffalo has just suspended their charter and is investigating their pledging process for hazing allegations, I wouldn't be surprised if they lose their charter altogether.

This would be THE dumbest thing for the school to do...they'd continue to operate on their own without school oversight (that's apparently common at UB) and they would do that as, arguably, the most famous local fraternity in the USA.

Before anything else, this country is full of fame and recognition whores. There are guys who will pledge just to say they're in "the MTV fraternity." Couple that with no school policies to deal with....

We can debate this all we want but in the end, it's UB and the state of New York who make the decisions about what happens.

I completely agree with you -- I think the same point was discussed earlier in one of the FL threads -- but the point is that it seems like a fairly common thing to do at Buffalo and I wouldn't be surprised if that's how they deal with this situation.

Honestly, I can't imagine what the university COULD do to fix problems with Greek life at their school . . . it doesn't look like the Greek system is doing very well over there.

I haven't been watching the show, but one of my sisters sent me this article:

Campus News - MARCH 19th, 2003
'Fraternity Life' Fraternity Suspended on Charges of Hazing
ERIN SHULTZ - Campus News Editor

UB's chapter of Sigma Chi Omega, the fraternity featured on the MTV reality series "Fraternity Life," has been suspended from the university on allegations of hazing.

According to Dennis Black, vice president of Student Affairs, shortly after the airing of the show, letters and e-mails flooded the university, prompting the administration to look into the initiation rituals of the fraternity.

"The campus approach has always been whenever there's an allegation or concern about possible hazing, they call a timeout in the group's activities," said Black.

According to Black, Sigma Chi Omega will be suspended until an investigation into the alleged hazing is conducted. No charges have been filed against any of the members of the fraternity.

The university's formal definition of hazing is "any action taken or situation created, intentionally, whether on or off fraternity premises, to produce mental or physical discomfort, embarrassment, harassment, ridicule or impairment of academic efforts."

A recent episode of the series featured, among other things, scenes of the pledge class lined against a wall while members of
the fraternity barked reprimands at them for not appearing at the library that day.

"Obviously whatever is portrayed on TV took place months ago, but the groups re active in recruiting and will be pledging new members," Black said.

The decision to suspend the fraternity was made at the beginning of spring break; many of the members were
out of town, however, making it hard to inform them of the suspension.

"Obviously, we had a notification issue," he said.

On Monday, Pamela Stephens-Jackson, university liaison for the Office of Greek Affairs, said a letter to the fraternity was
sent during spring break but that she could not comment further
until the fraternity had received the letter.

Tuesday afternoon Colin Healy, president of the fraternity, said he was unclear on the details.

"I just know that there's a letter," said Healy, who said he was picking the letter up Tuesday night but could not be reached for
further comment by midnight Tuesday.

According to Black, administrators will conduct interviews with anyone who might have information about the alleged hazing to see if a threat had been posed to any of the students.

"They haven't been tried, convicted or executed, or anything," he said, but added that if the investigation uncovers hazing,
members could be brought before the Student-Wide Judiciary.

Delta Xi Omega, the sorority featured on MTV's "Sorority Life 2," has not been suspended.

Black said it is the university's duty to investigate all allegations, especially in light of several recent situations
involving Greek organizations in New York State.

Sigma Chi Omega's suspension comes after two brothers of a different organization at Alfred University admitted to hazing
and beating one of their brothers, who committed suicide in February, and after the death of a pledge in Plattsburg's Psi Epsilon Chi fraternity, which had been suspended for underage drinking.

I actually believe that some of what theyre doing is alright. Yes some of it is out of line, but you should have to "earn" your letters I mean I think it can actually be a good thing and it can help weed out the ones who arent really in it for the brotherhood and just to be on tv or whatever


Nichole

another article from buffalo

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial...20/1006650.asp

a few years ago at a leadership confrence, i was told by our national president that hayrides were not allowed (even for alum groups) because it is a liability issue. i don't know why it would be put with hazing, but the way she explained it is that people can fall off, etc. and since it is a "sorority" event, the national group can be sued.

Never got paddled, but I agree with SirHornyToad, if pledging was easy and nobody forced you to do anything you didn't want, then you'd have a house of unmotivated members.

College is demanding, why don't people start going to the administrators complaining that exams are hazing. Mentally embarassing to you when you don't get an A. Yea it's a stretch, but so are a lot of things. Everyone keeps thinking just because you decided to pledge you deserve to be a member. You volunteered to to join, which means you can always volunteer to quit if the process is too difficult.

You paddle people?

Seriously? Does that turn you on? Pretty homoerotic if you asked me...

The thought of 20-something year old boys paddling eachother kind of makes my blood curdle.

We weed kids out also. We don't need hazing to do it. You can tell if a Candidate is going to be a man of good character without slapping his ass with a piece of wood. There are ways of showing dedication without creating excessive physical discomfort, psychological shock, excessive fatigue, etc.

Paddling and such is ILLEGAL. Your group gets caught, one pledge gets pissed and goes to the cops and your officers and any other participating members will be charged with a crime. A felony in some states. It's assault at the very least.

Or maybe just Sado-masochistic. In any event, it ain't good.

leave the guys alone
 

the guys aren't hazing that badly! many frats do much much worse, plus i think its part of the initiation process, if they want to be in the frat badly enough i think they can turn on a vacuum, i mean come on.
the sigma chi omega boys kick ass, especially tim

Sorry about that...

But it's crap like that which really reflects poorly on us all.

Regardless of your views on it the fact is that it's something that is illegal in several areas. It has also ended up causing people permenant injuries (ruptured kidneys, etc).

But hey.. if you enjoy it.. so be it.

Striking someone with a blunt object is assault.

if its consentual?

First, to clean up some legal things.
This would be a battery, NOT necessarily an assault.

An assault is the threat or use of force on another that causes that person to have a reasonable apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact

Battery is the application of force to another, resulting in harmful or offensive contact.

Both of those definitions are courtesy of my wonderful Black's Law Dictionary.

So this particular circumstance would be considered battery. Much hazing could be found to be assault..... any sort of threats.

There's a pretty fine legal line here.....even if you think consent is given, they could easily say that they did not consent. Also, forced consent isn't going to count as real consent either.

Basically, if they got a good enough attorney, consent means crap.

Anything like this, you seriously REALLY need to watch yourself. Assault/battery could easily carry a nice amount of jail time. Not to mention fines, probation, and that it could effectively ruin the rest of your life.

Much stupider things have happened and have been found by juries to be battery. If there's any sort of contact/unwanted touching, you could potentially be in a boatload of trouble.

Believe it or not, we spent almost an entire class last semester in criminal law talking about the legalities of the movie "Fight Club"....

Last semester.... back when law school was fun (it blows at the moment).

*takes off the lawyer hat and goes back to normal GCer hat*

Oh, and even if you weren't the one doing the beating, if you were present and did nothing to stop it, if you encouraged it, if you helped plan it, depending on your state's laws, you could also be prosecuted under accomplice liability, among other things.

Thansk kddani for the clarification.

::sighs::
 

There's nothing more moronic, IN MY OPINION, than physical negative reinforcement. When I rushed, I thought about all I'd heard about hazing and paddling and such and such and I made up my mind that the moment someone my age told me i'd been bad and tried to hurt me physically was the moment I'd leave. There are SO many more ways to get the job done than hitting someone with a piece of wood. I love my sisters to death and I wouldn't be able to stomach watching, or even KNOWING ABOUT one of them being struck because they had forgotten to pay a $5 dollar study hour fine. There are so many other ways to get a point across. I screwed up last semester with my grades and I was told I wasn't allowed to wear my badge because I wasn't in good standing. You know how horrid I feel when I can't wear my Golden Anchor in public or at chapter meetings? Everytime I look around and I see my sisters wearing their badges, I'm punished. If I was told to bend over and allow myself to be paddled because I didn't make grades, I'd not feel guilty, I'd be ticked off. How ANYONE can stomach punishing, embarassing, degrading, or hurting someone that they claim to love, and call a brother or a sister is beyond my grasp. I suppose it's something that you're taught, but who says you have to be taught that in the first place. As far as earning respect through hazing, I told the fraternity guys I (and all my sisters) know and hang out with that if I ever heard of them mistreating any of their new members, I (and my chapter, who agrees with me) would never speak with them again. Beating someone with less "power" than you is the fastest way to lose respect, imo.
Greek Love and Mine,
Mandie

I think the Sigma Chi Omegas were suspeneded at Buffalo. Go figure...if you do that kind of stuff on tv you might get caught. In this case, by the president/dean of the university.

This is gonna shock you all but what i did through pledgeship for the most part was fun, even the last bit, CI-Week. ASK any of my pledge brothers they will say it was fun and maybe if we had of been hazed just once it would have been cool. What they do on Fraternity Life is NOT hazing. Hazing is forcing your pledges to jump off your third story roof with mattress tied to themselves (we used to do that at my chapter 10 years ago before we got in trouble for it).

Putting someone in danger of life and limb certainly is hazing, as you state with your story about jumping off a 3rd story with a mattress. I think that's even a pretty extreme example.

But bragging about being hazed really isn't the best idea here. Chances are that there's someone from Pike HQ on GC and i'm sure they would not be thrilled with what you're saying. There are forms of hazing that aren't quite jumping off a building with a mattress

I'm not sure when you graduated, but if it's 10 years ago, a lot has changed since then.

Bottom line, regardless of what YOU consider hazing, Sigma Chi Omega violated the University's rules on hazing and have pretty much embarassed greeks everywhere who care about the reputation of greek life as a whole.

Would you not consider the hazing incident in Ill. to be hazing then? Just a question.

Allow me to clarify NO i am not bragging about being hazed as i stated i was NEVER hazed. AND the example i put down happened ten years ago and yes actions were taken to change the traditions of my chapter. The house got cleaned out and reduced from a strong 100 man house to 13 by nationals pulling pins and such. Furthermore i am trying to clear that up, i do think hazing on a whole such as beating people and forcing things to be eaten and such is wrong but letting a group of people know they are messing up isn't hazing, maybe pushups and all isn't the answer but if you let a person not take things seriously during pledgeship and skate by you won't want them nor do they deserve to be initiated thats when you let them know you are "blacking" them if you will. I hope that clarifies things. if not email me or something sorry if i was unclear once again

1. i am not bragging about being hazed
2. That happened ten years ago anyways
3. actually still in school