Blindfolds as Hazing?
 

I'd like information as to under what conditions blindfolding constitutes hazing as a legal matter or by various GLO, GLO Council or FIPG regulations. I believe that Alpha Phi Omega's (Service greek, member PFA) current rules are Blindfolds may be used, but should not be used if it conflicts with School rules or state law.

Randolph Finder
Alpha Phi Omega alumnus

Blindfolding. Always hazing in my group's book.

Laws vary from state to state. Here's Oklahoma's current definition of hazing:

My guess would be that blindfolds in most states are a-ok by themselves and not indicia of hazing per se. However, as I'm sure you can imagine, it wouldn't be difficult to imagine a situation where the blindfold might be used as part of an overall hazing act.

My advice is to know your own state's laws and to consult an attorney if you're still not sure. Your state's Bar Association probably sponsors a "Pro Bono Day" where you can get quick, free advice from an attorney if your group doesn't have an alum who can help you out here.

Caveat
 

The use of Blindfolds in this case is specifically as part of the Nationally designated rituals and the caveat about school rules and state laws is written in the ritual.

Whether hazing or not, they are usually considered bad risk management. The risk of injury while blindfolded is increased too much, especially when you hear about things like being triple blindfolded in a moving car on the freeway...

I would have to agree. If you look at the history of many chapter's ritual, it can be traced back to the Masons. There, blindfolds were used on the uninitiated, due to the fact that they were not yet worthy to see that of the initiated.


But truthfully, it could go either way. If acting in sound mind, I see nothing wrong with blindfolds in ritual and such. However, blindfolds used for anything outside what is prescribed by the respective IHQ would have to be defined as hazing.

Assuming you don't mean that the blindfoldee is driving, how is risk increased?

There are no cars or freeways involved in APO ritual.

Haha, I just got a hilarious mental picture.

I don't think the risk of injury is increased when you are blindfolded (ok yeah, maybe you'll trip over a rock or something but nothing out of the ordinary). I think not being able to tell what is going on around you and what is being done or could be done to you is the real risk.

My guess here is that the "risk" of injury - aside from obvious physical maladies, is mental. Depriving someone of their senses can be viewed as hazing. It may cause fear and therefore, intimidation.

Now, when I was in high school, I went on a retreat called "Emmaus". It was the thing to do for Catholic students. Anyway, we had something called the "trust walk", wherein the student who has not been on the retreat before is blindfolded, and two other students who have "made their trip to Emmaus" guided the new person.

It was scary, but fun, because it made you trust the people you were with. There were rules, however. No bumping into trees and stuff. Yeah, it was outside. The worst thing we did to the new kids was to pretend we were crawling under a bush, so all three of us had to get on the ground and crawl. But we were supervised by many chaperones and Catholic guilt, and no one could leave the designated area.

There have been auto accidents where some of the passengers in the car were blindfolded on the way to a "secret" location and weren't able to evacuate the car quickly, immediately assess the situation, get their blind folds off, etc.

Not from experience by any means, but I would probably just stay away from even driving people around that are blindfolded. Just think how awkward it would look to a policeman if you got pulled over lol.

I think the risk management issue comes into play when the people who aren't blindfolded do stupid things...like "Let's drive all swervey to scare the pledges" and end up getting into a car accident.

This line of reasoning is scary. The pledge voting process itself causes fear that they will not "make the vote," ergo intimidation, ergo hazing by your definition.

Using your logic, I can say that just about anything is hazing.

Sensory deprivation is (in my opinion) proper used correctly, for example:
1) Trust exercises -- what organization would characterize going to a ropes course as being "hazing"? If there's still sanity, not one. Ropes courses routinely employ trust exercises, such as the "trust fall."

2) Team building: Sigma Nu's LEAD program actually has a module in which communication and teamwork are examined. In doing this, all of the participants are blindfolded except for a "leader" and an "observer." The participants have no idea what they're blindfolded for. The leader is handed a bucket of legos and a plan. He then dumps the legos out and instructs the participants as to how to build the project (the leader can't touch the legos) while the observer takes notes. That is programming directly from on-high for Sigma Nu.

3) Ritual.

Thanks for the chuckle.

Ah.. is that what was on the plaintiff's pleadings? I'm sorry, I don't really buy that. The removal of a blindfold is not a difficult or time consuming thing.

I don't believe it went to court because the parties in question weren't suing and they ditched the blindfolds and got the drunk pledges (not all were drinking) out of there before the police arrived at the scene of the accident. The pledges were triple blindfolded. Eye patches taped to each eye, then a typical blindfold around the eyes and tied in back and a then a hood (pillowcase) over the head and tied around the neck by the rope. Pledges were assisted in and out of the cars by actives who yanked them by the ropes. One pledge banged his head against a door jamb of a car when "assisted" from one car and suffered permanent hearing loss. In the ER, he only said that he hit his head on the door jamb of a car.

One car of pledges was in a rollover accident and took considerably longer to get out of the car than the actives in the car who were not blindfolded. Fuel was leaking and actives in the car behind them managed to stop and get them out before the car went up in flames, but it was close. This was in a less litigious time period (mid 80's) but it's these types of events that lead to these rules. I'm fairly certain it's one of the rules laid out by our liability insurance. As you said in the "Does your chapter haze" thread, most of these rules are set for financial reasons (dictated by the insurance companies).

Do we really need to go into the dangers of car accidents while hazing blind folded new members?

oh come ON! those scenarios ^^^ (which sound so ridiculous but lets say ok they did happen) are so ridiculous.

ok i said the same thing twice. triple-blindfolding? and what are the odds that you get in a car accident on the way to some ritual, a car full of blindfolded pledges in tow?

if those are the reason that led courts to say "blindfolding = hazing" sheesh. this is similar to "lets use fake candles during ritual because all of those ppl getting their hair caught on fire." umm, grab a scrunchie and move on.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Kelly Nester, Plymouth State University, 2003

anything and everything involved in pledging, new member education can be argued as hazing since it is such a vague term.

the sad thing is, that sometimes, when it clearly IS hazing but didn't cause death (ex. hospitalization involved after a paddling or other physical harm), the defendants get off on the technicality that hazing is so vague.

That was so sad.

For anyone else who might have missed the thread: http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=71234

Nor in the Delt Ritual.

I can see potential Risk Management issues, though, and I hadn't really considered them before.

Two obvious ones might be a fall or injury due to the blindfolded person not seeing an obstacle or that person getting too close to a lighted candle (assuming some rituals use candles).

As for hazing, to me it depends on how and when the blindfolds are used. I might have a problem with it other than in rituals, and then assuming they are strictly controlled with no chance of harm.

Not to diminish her death in any way, however, what did the blindfold have to do with her death?\

ETA: CLEARLY hazing was involved, but the blindfold seems to be rather minor given that the other women were able to escape from the car.

But your argument is that they were hurt while blindfolded and possibly could have been hurt more because of the blindfolding.

Do you not see that the fact that someone could be hurt doing something doesn't make that thing hazing? It could be dangerous, but not hazing.

But really... having a national rule because of something that happened one or two times ever is just silly.

I was actually not saying that all blind folding is hazing, but that it is a risk that can be managed. Not all risk management is hazing. And, while that scenario seems unlikely, it happened.

This isn't that dissimilar to some of the child safety laws that are enacted. Can you believe that most people my age never had car seats? Yet, many states now require them and are now requiring booster seats until age 8. Yes, our hooded sweatshirts and coats used to have draw strings on them until some kid got hers stuck on a monkey bar and choked to death. Our mattresses weren't flame retardant and neither were our pajamas, but they are now (in fact I heard this morning that the flame retardant is a carcinogen, so you have a choice of your bed burning or getting cancer.. we can't win). It's kind of amazing that we're even alive. Our mothers smoked and drank while they were pregnant too.. and ate lunch meat.

Bottom line, it's a different time and people sue over everything. Good risk management is doing all you can to avoid accidents and harm to our members. The rules are dictated by the insurance companies who, we hope, prevent our organizations from being bankrupt by some crazy lawsuit, but they only cover us if we are following the rules.

If she wasn't blindfolded, maybe she could have avoided flying out the rear window to her death.

Yep.

I didn't recall this story, so I've been reading up on it. It looks like the lack of seatbelts and the fact that ten women were piled into one car contributed more than the blindfolds. While I don't believe the blindfolds had anything to do with her death, I also don't think there's ever any reason to blindfold people outside of specific ritual as mandated by an organization.

:(

Are you kidding me?

While I don't know if not being blindfolded would have saved her life, at least she would have been alert and aware of her surroundings, enabling her to do whatever was necessary to not fly out of that window.

The above was kind of what i was getting at. RaggedyAnn, I didnt mean to mock the situation (and may the girl RIP) but considering the additional pieces to the story, i think the blindfolding is further down on the list of hazards.

Hmm, i'm going with PJ on this one. being blindfolded may or may not have saved her life, but wearing a seatbelt and not being crammed in a car wouldve been more essential. but you dont see Nationals telling chapters to take the bus to rituals versus driving, now do you?

I just think the reaction is a little off. That accident couldve happened blindfolds or not.

Blindfolding in and of itself may not be that dangerous, but unfortunately blindfolding is OFTEN associated with other activities that are. I personally don't see what is wrong with blindfolding for a ritual if the national organization finds that it is not hazing when considering risk management issues. Being blindfolded for a specific, non threatening event may not be a big deal. The blindfolding in the specific case above was just the icing on the cake. I think in that case if you tried to argue that blindfolding wasn't hazing, they would laugh you right to jail.

Angel, find a legal definition of hazing where blindfolding alone is enough. It seems to me that the blindfolding could be a minor factor in deciding whether something is hazing, but I'd have to look at what was going on while the blindfold was on to know for sure.

Again, the fact that blindfolding is "often" associated with other activities is not in itself dispositive.

This answers the OP's question.

Blindfolding when performing a nationally sanctioned ritual is one thing. If it's something nationals gave the OK on, you can probably assume that you'll come out of it without a scratch, and that it has a purpose.

Blindfolding for a local big-little ceremony or a candle pass? Probably hazing per HQ (if it's not a sanctioned ceremony) but personally, fine with me.

But blindfolding people just to intimidate them? Blindfolding them and walking them across campus? Or blindfolding and putting them in a car and dropping them off in the forest? Hazing, and do not do.

It's normal to feel freaked out, scared, and that you are being hazed in the third situation. If you feel that way in the first two - i.e. if you are in fear every moment of your pledge period and you don't trust the sisters/brothers at all - then you should probably stop pledging that GLO post haste.

... and seek therapy and medication.

If you read my post again, you'll see that I was saying that blindfolding is not hazing in and of itself, but in the unfortunate case we've been discussing, it was CLEARLY hazing.

I disagree. Was the blindfolding done in order to promote mental discomfort (a terrible standard, but it's NPC, I think)? Unless it is "CLEARLY" the case that the blindfolding was done for that purpose, then nothing is clear.

Hence the reason why I use the words "can be viewed as hazing" and "may cause fear and therefore, intimidation". I am not advocating or discouraging the activity itself. I am simply stating why people may view it as hazing. If you read my entire post, you will have seen the example in which blindfolding was used as a trust exercise, under supervision.