A First? TX A&M dorm officers ousted for hazing

[hoosier]

RHA, Hart officers charged with hazing

By Rolando Garcia
October 11, 2002

The vice president of the Residence Hall Association (RHA) and other residence hall student leaders may be ousted from their positions for their involvement in an alleged hazing incident, but the students are condemning the University's proceedings as a sham trial rigged against them.

Student Conflict Resolution Services meted out sanctions this week to Eric D'Olive, RHA vice president for administration, Jennifer Caballero, the president of Hart Hall, Rashaun Fontenot, Hart's vice president, and at least four other Hart residents for hazing freshman Clayton Whittle, who also lives in Hart.

The students were given conduct probation, which according to A&M student rules places them "not in good standing with the University" and ineligible to hold office in any student organization. Whittle received hall probation, which is a warning that a student is in violation of residence hall rules. All are appealing the decision.

The charges, D'Olive said, stem from a Sept. 16 incident in which he and others duct taped Whittle to a swivel chair and tried to spin him around until he vomited, an activity D'Olive and Whittle characterized as friendly horseplay.

A group of Hart residents had gone to Sbisa Dining Hall to eat dinner together, and Whittle ate 18 Push-Pops to break the unofficial Hart Hall record. To hold the record, a student must not throw up afterwards, D'Olive said, and so he and others playfully attempted to make Whittle throw up when they had returned to Hart.

Outside, in plain view, D'Olive said, they tried to tie Whittle to the swivel chair. Whittle said the prank was random and harmless.

"We were all joking, and I just wish I'd had my camera," said Whittle, a business major.

Matt Fuller, the Hart director, came outside and stopped the activity, D'Olive said. After speaking briefly with the participants, Fuller wrote an incident report which he submitted to University officials. The report, D'Olive and other participants maintain, is full of gross inaccuracies and fabrications, especially its assertion that hall leadership had made a tradition of making students who broke the Push-pop record vomit.

"It is in no way a tradition," said D'Olive, a senior international studies major.

Fuller could not be reached for comment Thursday.

According to University rules, hazing is defined as "any act that endangers the mental or physical health or safety of a student for the purpose of initiation, admission into, affiliation with, or as a condition for continued membership in a group or organization."