Could dividing work be considered hazing?
 

Could dividing work be considered hazing?

I understand that you can not ask a new member (pledge) to do something that the rest of the chapter would not do. However, can a chapter separate new members (pledges) from the members (actives) regarding same activities?

For example - house clean up.

Say a fraternity has 30 members (actives) and 10 new members (pledges). Say it only takes 10 members to clean the house each Saturday. As such, you want to have four separate groups of 10 each so that a member (new or old) would only need to clean the house once a month. Is it hazing to have one group made up entirely of new members (pledges)?

Or say you had each class year - i.e. senior (includes 5th years), junior, sophomore, freshman - as a group. In this case, if a pledge was a sophomore, he would do clean up duty with the sophomore actives.

And kind of a follow up, if you divide the work as noted above, would the groups all have to be the same size? In theory, a small group would be doing more work.

I've always been told that if you have to ask its probably hazing,lol. FIPG has a detailed listing of activities that are considered hazing.

True. :D

Personally, I do not see this situation as falling under hazing rules. However, I've been "out of the loop" and things that was not considered hazing "back in the day" is now seen as such.

This is what the Risk Management Policy of FIPG, Inc. says about hazing.

HAZING

No chapter, colony, student or alumnus shall conduct nor condone hazing activities. Hazing activities are defined as: Any action taken or situation created, intentionally, whether on or off fraternity premises, to produce mental or physical discomfort, embarrassment, harassment, or ridicule. Such activities may include but are not limited to the following: use of alcohol; paddling in any form; creation of excessive fatigue; physical and psychological shocks; quests, treasure hunts, scavenger hunts, road trips or any other such activities carried on outside or inside of the confines of the chapter house; wearing of public apparel which is conspicuous and not normally in good taste; engaging in public stunts and buffoonery; morally degrading or humiliating games and activities; and any other activities which are not consistent with academic achievement, fraternal law, ritual or policy or the regulations and policies of the educational institution, or applicable state law.

An additional situation. What about participation in "pledge only" activities? For example, some campuses may have events for pledges only - like Sigma Chi Derby Days. The pledges are being "asked" to participate in something that the members are not.

Again, I don't think of this as being hazing - and normally wouldn't ask - but the way everything seems to be viewed as hazing gets me to wondering.

Which quite frankly, isn't always a good thing. ;)

If an activity consists of participation by all members, and no one feels physical or mental discomfort, and there is no risk of physical or mental harm, then you're probably safe. Piece of cake :)

Outside of approved new member education lesson plans, there should be no activities that separate the uninitated from the initated to lessen the suspicion of hazing.

Dividing work isn't hazing. It's called delegation and it's the true mark of leadership to be able to distribute the work.

If you need to do a house cleanup, select names at random that include members from all years. Better yet, at the beginning of each school year, give members the opportunity to join committees that are headed by officers of the chapter. The committees will work toward the fulfillment of chapter goals. And by having members involved in the implementation of chapter goals, each member will feel empowered and involved.

This is one of those things that really shouldn't be considered hazing but probably would be. You aren't asking the new members to do anything the actives don't have to do - you're just asking them to do it at a different time. But some folks would consider even that to be enough to label it "hazing".

We had some "pledge only" activities, but new members voluntarily participated, or not, as they chose. For example, one sorority ran a talent show as their annual charity fundraiser. Any individual or group could enter an act. A couple of the larger sororities would enter both new member and sister acts each year. Basically the NMs chose to do their own separate thing rather than join the sister act. It wasn't considered hazing (nor should it be) because the NMs chose to do their own thing and each NM could decide whether or not to participate, without repercussions. Although, I'm not sure if a NM could opt to be in the sister act instead or vice versa.

Another rule of thumb is to pretend that the pledges' parents are in the room. If that would make you change the way that you treat pledges, then it is probably hazing.

If you're dividing people into groups for work weeks etc, it's probably better to make everyone count off and have the groups be totally random, regardless of whether you're worrying about hazing. It helps people to get to know others outside of their class, especially if you're at the kind of school where almost all pledges are freshmen.

I've never understood the pledges only doing Derby Days concept since my chapter was small, but as I learned about 70 member pledge classes it made more sense. Having 10 chapters of 200 women chase you about the campus might be a little frightening. :p

TSteven, your hazing policy is the same as my organization's hazing policy. No offense to you NPC folks giving avice here, but your rules are different -- NIC groups, while we do not condone hazing, we define it differently.

House cleaning is not considered hazing in my opinion, even if it is only for your new members according to both our groups rulesas long as it does not include "use of alcohol; paddling in any form; creation of excessive fatigue; physical and psychological shocks; quests, treasure hunts, scavenger hunts, road trips or any other such activities carried on outside or inside of the confines of the chapter house; wearing of public apparel which is conspicuous and not normally in good taste; engaging in public stunts and buffoonery [or] morally degrading or humiliating games and activities".

In other words, as long as it's just normal, everyday cleaning, doesn't create a humiliating or degrading situation and doesn't interfere with academics, it should be okay.

If you're really conflicted about this, give your chapter advisor or HQ a call.

I agree with 33girl. Integrate the 10 NMs into the 30 actives, and break the groups up that way. Don't make the NMs one group, because THAT could LOOK like hazing. Then, I think you'd be fine.

Again, NPC and NIC groups define hazing differently. Consult with your own advisors or HQ if you're unsure of something.

To me, dividing work sounds fine as long as it doesn't become a situation where new members are being abused.

I think that 33girl is just pointing out that there can be no argument about whether NMs are abused or not if the cleaning groups are integrated.

It is good practice to integrate on a couple levels:

First... isn't this a good way for the NMs to get to know the brothers better and vice versa?

Second...if you get into the habit of separating it and somewhere down the line (a year or two from now) someone skews it just a little and instead of the usual house cleaning, the NMs are scrubbing the kitchen floor with their own toothbrushes and being asked to do other "degrading" methods of cleaning, then it is clearly hazing, by NIC standards also. If everybody has house chores together, in integrated groups, you avoid the possibility altogether. That is truly risk management, because you are working to eliminate the possibility of something going wrong.

Dee