Beta Chi at Lehigh Univ
 

Beta at Leigh in trouble
http://media.www.thebrownandwhite.co...ntedstoriestab

However, Was beta at fault?
http://www.thebrownandwhite.com/home...6-39276cec10fe

Alumnus Response

FWIW...the school is Lehigh.

I am an alumn, and I think their charter should be yanked. Bad decisions all around. RE-org them in the next 4 years. Adios.

I am with you ZZ-kai, and of course would defer to the knowledge of a chapter alumnus in any case.

The Loving Cup reference bothered me- that is not secret, but it is ritual in nature and had no place as part of some drinking game.

But there is no worse sign you can send to the world about the ability to self-govern than to let 2 pledges get to near fatal levels of intoxication on their first night as a part of our organization.

This brings forth the issue of forced drinking versus choice. In general I do believe each person is responsible for their own drinking, but how could anyone defend the fact these young men while in a state of what must have been obvious severe intoxication were allowed to keep on drinking?

The fact they were drinking at all certainly gives rise to many legal and RM issues, but putting the law aside and looking at common sense and brotherly care- there was just no excuse for this getting where it did.

I am glad everyone is alive.

Agreed.
 

Agreed.

And the Loving Cup is reserved to initiated brothers only, isn't it? Or is it a chapter's decision?

I don't know... maybe reorg, maybe reevaluation, but it doesn't look like hazing, just that there needs to be an emphasis on risk management for the whole chapter, Beta Chi has progressed much lately, according to both the university and general fraternity

That's the part I have been thinking about, and I do not have a clear answer.

On the face of it, I agree that this does not appear to be hazing.

Let's assume this incident took place to a lesser degree- say a pledge walked out of the house with a beer and got stopped on the sidewalk and given a ticket for possession and was tested and had blood alcohol of .06- just for the sake of argument.

In that situation, odds are nothing would have come of this.

But if that young man had been forced to drink 3 beers and get to a blood alcohol of .06, then that would be hazing I think since the kid would have been coerced into breaking the law. Again, it would probably not ever get reported or anything- but if we are talking in purely legal terms I think that would be hazing.

In the actual situation, I think it would be fair to say the 2 pledges (and maybe others) were well beyond the point of making rational decisions a few drinks before reaching their final state of intoxication.

At that point they were incapable of making decisions, but older people- who by virtue of the active vs. pledge relationship can be reasonably assumed to exert a certain degree of control over those pledges- continued to feed them alcohol.

On that grounds, I suspect hazing charges could be possible- but it is a fine point of legal distinction on which I am not certain. You would have to establish that by virtue of the pledges's intoxication they were, by default, coerced into drinking to near fatal excess since they had lost the ability to make a rational judgement of their own (and lost that ability with the help of those who nearly killed them for that matter.)

But certainly providing alcohol to a minor and reckless endangerment are right there in any event.

I don't believe in dry houses or babysitting chapters, but that only works if certain very firm lines are never crossed. And unfortunately a big one was crossed here. Every time this happens, it just gives alumni and the general public all the more reason to not let fraternity men govern themselves and learn good lessons from the experience.

That stinks.

Just as they were finally getting their chapter's shit together.

I'd recommend some sanctions, but not a closure. They screwed up, that is to be sure. There is no mention of hazing. Not stopping a kid from drinking isn't the same as making someone drink. They are all adults capable of making their own decisions (risk management issues abound though).

Closing a prospering chapter along with losing their house...pretty harsh.

This is a difficult situation. Technically, it is hazing, because the house had alcohol available to the pledges. That constitutes as hazing in and of itself. Don't know if that is how I would define it, but that is the way it is defined. I think it is because the pledges could feel obligated to drink if alcohol is provided, whether they are told to drink or not. And Some blame has to be put on the brothers. They need to monitor actions, if someone has a .5 BAC then you can definitely tell, and the brothers should have cut him off long before that.

However, I am on the fence whether the chapter should of got the axe. I know that the school and the national office first priority needs to be safety, so action needs to be conducted, but I don't think there was clear evidence that the chapter is disruptive or wouldn't prevent this in the future.

According to my ACLU "friends", if this is the definition, Beta National has to go after every state, county, store, bar and store that sells alcohol because it "is available" for consumption. My local ACLU would settle for two options:
remove all liquor within 300 miles of a chapater or close all chapters within 300 miles of liquor.

Be advised that I am not part of the ACLU, but I have good lawyer friends who are good lawyer friends who are not.

Personally, I say punish each violator under the civil/criminal code. Pledges are booted, actives are made alumni and out of the house, those actives that acted by doing nothing pay $1000.00 each to the Beta fund of choice,
and the house is under dialy scrutiny by a Beta Alum who lives in the house. I am unemployed, I'll do it.

That doesn't sound quite right. Was I being hazed every time my family got together for a BBQ and had a keg there? It was available, I was underage, I saw all the adults drinking...was I coerced into drinking also?

If they pledges were made to drink, yes-clear violation and they need to be punished. On the other hand, if a legal adult choose to break the law by drinking and further by drinking himself in to a stupor, that is no ones fault but his own. When does personal responsibility come into play?

Again, clear RM violation, but not one that should end an otherwise good chapter.

It is technically hazing, and basically the hazing laws are so broad that most likely we have all been hazed unintentionally during out time. I mean, TECHNICALLY any kind of test is hazing. I don't agree with it all, but if they wanted to say it was hazing they could.

Also legally, the host of the event is responsible. Someone bought the alcohol, and "let" the minors drink it, whether they told them they could or they just didn't stop them.

The law works to trap people pretty much when the law wants to.

Again, I still don't agree with the chapter being diminished. However, they are fighting an up hill battle.

I am inclined to agree. It's one thing to celebrate and enjoy each other's company. It is quite another to drink in excess to the point of hospitalizing two new members.

The only way this would be true is if the brother's or their representatives made it appear mandatory to drink or that some negative consequence would occur if they didn't. This situation is clearly against Beta's Risk Management Policy. However, I feel the chapter could likely be educated and changed with some involvement from the University and others. However, it's not up to us (alumni). The President's will likely be asked to vote in August.

Just to clear up this and the issue about whether provision of alcohol is hazing,

The reason the logic about chapters providing alcohol does not apply to bars or liquor stores is that there are laws in place to limit access in the latter establishments. You have to be 21 and show proof of ID on demand. A bar or liquor store does have alcohol available, but "access"- let's call it "open access" to be more precise- is not there for anyone under 21.

I think it is important to point this out because it demonstrates just what an enormous risk/liberty anyone over 21 is taking when they personally make alcohol available to those who are not yet 21. By doing so, one is violating some pretty tough laws that are very strictly enforced compared to many other laws which are commonly broken- such as speeding.

Here in Texas, if a clerk at a liquor store does not check ID and sells to someone under 21, the fine can be five figures. I am personally aware of multiple situations where stores were fined $10,000 for a single violation and the clerk was arrested on the spot in sting operations. That is how serious the laws are about providing alcohol to those under the age of 21.

Underage kids drinking alcohol at a chapter house is not hazing. It is only hazing if alcohol consumption is forced- and that derives from the typical hazing law reference to forcing someone to commit an illegal act. Unlike other areas of hazing laws, like line ups or tests, which require that a certain degree of discomfort or inappropriateness (often left to interpretation by prosecutors) accompany the act for charges to be filed- there is no ambiguity about the fact that forcing someone to commit an illegal act in a pledge-active situation is hazing.

But there is still the difficulty of appearances with this. Even if a pledge brought his own alcohol and that can be proven, it is going to be very difficult to convince a jury- or the general public- that someone reached near lethal levels of consumption without being at the very least encouraged to do so.

And that is when the inherent assumption about actives versus pledges kicks in. The average person will reasonably assume that an active will have some degree of influence over a pledge, and the dumber the act in question, the easier it is to assume that there was outside influence by a person in a position of power (ie hazing) involved.

Think of it like the sexual harassment laws. One reason many companies have policies against in-office relationships between people of different ranks is that no matter what the real circumstances- there is an automatic and reasonable presumption that the person in higher authority exerts a certain degree of control over the other person.

And so if a relationship goes bad, the party in a lesser role in the company has pretty solid grounds for a harassment complaint by default if that person ever feels that future promotions etc. are being denied because of how that previous relationship ended.

I think this is exactly why no more kegs or community alcohol in chapter houses was really the first rule to be heavily enforced in recent decades and has become an even bigger deal in the past few years as more comprehensive hazing legislation comes into effect.

That rule gets right to the heart of where fraternities in general have had a serious issue for a long time.

Simply put, the privacy of a chapter house and the age range in active members creates a perfect environment in which to circumvent laws about open access to alcohol by underage persons- laws which society at large have decided are very important. And with good reason. Drinking incidents in and of themselves are problematic, but alcohol is also a very common factor in serious hazing incidents, fires and other major risk management events.

PS- kddani, geekypenguin or any other legal experts- do please chime in here if you see this. I am not an attorney by trade and I hope I am getting this all right.

Understood. I was merely pointing out the statment made by AEBOTT.

If the legal definition of hazing was that literal then we have problems regardless of the other laws in place.