Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticCat
No, it's not that black and white. The problem is that we have about umpteen+ different definitions of hazing floating around out there. It's easy enough, for example, to say that hazing is illegal and think that has settled the argument, but each state has its own hazing laws. What may constitute hazing in one state does not constitute hazing in another state. Where I live, one must subject another student to physical injury for it to meet the legal definition of hazing. In other jurisdictions, subjecting someone to mental or emotional distress may meet the definition.
Then there are GLO definitions and institutional definitions, where sometimes the definition is loose enough to cover almost anything that differentiates between pledges/new members and actives. That's why you'll find pages of arguments on GC about whether it's hazing to require pledges to wear their pledge pins, with some people remaining adamant that it is, even though the policies of some GLOs expect pledges to wear their pledge pins almost all of the time.
I'm not defending hazing, not at all. But as long as people are using different, sometimes vastly different, definitions of hazing, its anything but black and white. It seems to me that all too often the arguments in these thread suffer from a lack of common understanding or agreement about what hazing actually encompasses.
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How is this not a black and white issue? Hazing is hazing, whether on or off campus premises, and it's designed to produce mental or physical discomfort, embarrassment, harassment or ridicule.
Student guidelines often maintain that hazing can take place with or without the consent of the pledges being hazed. Schools fail to press charges if pledges have consented to some aspects of hazing, and this is a major problem.
What I get upset about is that the public and the media view hazing as primarily a college fraternity and sorority problem. Really, it's also been a social problem in the United States on amateur and professional athletic teams, in high schools, spirit clubs, bands, the military, and even in some occupations and professions.
All schools can suspend or expel students who haze and they know they can, but juducial groups made up of faculty, staff, and students are reluctant to term an action "hazing", which prevents justice from happening. I totally disagree with you about it
not being a black and white issue. People just don't want to term it as such.
Hazing is:
1. Serving members, running errands, performing so called favors
2. Any kind of intimidation, use of derogatory terms to refer to pledges, terrorize, use verbal abuse or create a hostile environment
3.Engaging in acts of degradation such as required nudity, partial stripping, rules forbidding bathing, and playing disrespectful games.
4. Engaging in rough rituals involving physical force, paddling, beatings, calisthenics, and sexually demeaning behavior
5. Singing explicit songs as well as performing sexist, racist, or anti semitic acts, including denying someone membership in a glo on the basis of religion, or skin color. Oh, and lets not forget ancestry. (what's in the past, is in the past!)
6. Employing deception and deceptive psychological mind games
7. Suffering from sleep deprivation.
8. Coerce or be coerced by others to consume any substance, drugs, alcohol, rather they are of legal drinking age or not.
9. Keeping pledge books that require alumni members or big sis/big brothers to sign them.
10. Participating in road trips and kidnapping pledges or any type of abandonment.
11. Requiring the use of peer pressure to get someone to undergo branding or tattooing. Any mutilation of the skin. Period.
12. Participating in dousing of initiates involving dangerous substances or chemicals, animal scents, urine/feces (human or animal) retrieving objects from toilets or anything that's unsanitary. Eating spoiled foods that are capable of transmitting diseases or bacterial infections.
13. Making someone eat/drink anything he/she does not want to eat/drink
14. Making pledges learn fraternity/sorority history that interferes with academics.
15. Requiring pledges to wear silly or unusual clothing
I don't think I left anything out. Hazing falls under these guidelines, so there shouldn't be a question of what hazing is or isn't. Yes, it is a black and white issue, and one of the biggest problems of hazing is after it's been eradicated at a particular school, it seems to always come back. Guys, really! We all know what hazing is. Every state and university knows what it is and what it involves. It's not a grey topic.