Why Haze!!

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

It's not a black and white issue? Uhmm, yes it is a black and white issue, and no it is not a joke.

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.

Originally Posted by sasquatch

"Hazing" can be practiced without degrading anyone or putting them in any danger.

And that's my point, as any such practices, by many definitions would not be considered hazing to begin with.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

sometimes the definition is loose enough to cover almost anything

For example, most hazing statements contain prohibitory clauses against practices "which might cause mental discomfort."

-- study hall is hazing?
-- requiring people to attend meeting is hazing?
-- requiring people to pay attention in meeting and not goof off is hazing?

That sort of clause, I think (and it's in Sigma Nu's policy) is a nice catch all clause which makes it really difficult (impossible) to know whether a practice runs afoul of the policy or not.

[cheerfulgreek]

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.

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.

[PhiGam]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

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.

There are grey areas. I've heard of fraternities trading pledges with another chapter for "hell weekend." Who gets punished there?
What if the pledges do all of these things voluntarily?
Once again, my chapter does not ever haze, but I know of others GLOs that do and have talked about it to my friends in other fraternities. We do #14 but it doesn't interfere with academics, my pledge class had a higher GPA than the fraternity (which is above the all-male average as well).

[jon1856]

Originally Posted by PhiGam

There are grey areas. I've heard of fraternities trading pledges with another chapter for "hell weekend." Who gets punished there?

In answer to your question: Both could be.
Questions like yours truly get answered when TPTB, either school, local town, and/or HO, get involved and start enforcing regs et al.
None of us here can truly answer questions of than nature.
Unless it has already happened to them directly.

[33girl]

What I find most offensive is when policies tell me "you were hazed" even if I did things voluntarily for people and with people because I LIKED them - they just happened to be sisters and I was a pledge.

I bought fries back from Wendy's when I was going there anyway because a sister was sick and craving them. Does that mean I was hazed? I guess I'm not allowed to do something nice for another person.

I stayed up till 3 AM talking with my big - we were so involved in conversation we forgot the time - even though I had to go to class the next morning at 8 AM. I guess I was hazed because I suffered from sleep deprivation.

I drank too much at a mixer and a sister dragged me home and made sure I ate so I didn't get sick from drinking too much. I guess that means she hazed me by making me eat something I didn't want to.

Anyone who really wants to can take the most innocuous things that happen in pledgeship and make them into hazing.

[LXAAlum]

Originally Posted by 33girl

What I find most offensive is when policies tell me "you were hazed" even if I did things voluntarily for people and with people because I LIKED them - they just happened to be sisters and I was a pledge.

I bought fries back from Wendy's when I was going there anyway because a sister was sick and craving them. Does that mean I was hazed? I guess I'm not allowed to do something nice for another person.

I stayed up till 3 AM talking with my big - we were so involved in conversation we forgot the time - even though I had to go to class the next morning at 8 AM. I guess I was hazed because I suffered from sleep deprivation.

I drank too much at a mixer and a sister dragged me home and made sure I ate so I didn't get sick from drinking too much. I guess that means she hazed me by making me eat something I didn't want to.

Anyone who really wants to can take the most innocuous things that happen in pledgeship and make them into hazing.

True, but, your situations all appear to have been "voluntary" on your part, i.e., you weren't "compelled" as a condition of continued membership to do all the nice things you did - it's when it crosses the line that even innocent "errands" etc....can be construed out of context into hazing.

Hazing occurs when the line between brotherly love gets blurred with unbrotherly stupidity....

[33girl]

Originally Posted by LXAAlum

True, but, your situations all appear to have been "voluntary" on your part, i.e., you weren't "compelled" as a condition of continued membership to do all the nice things you did - it's when it crosses the line that even innocent "errands" etc....can be construed out of context into hazing.

Hazing occurs when the line between brotherly love gets blurred with unbrotherly stupidity....

But that's my point. If it is "black and white" someone could say "oh, 33 did this and she is a pledge, therefore she must have been forced and it must have been hazing." That's the problem. It's gotten to the point in sororities that sisters are afraid to be alone with pledges because something could get misinterpreted.

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by LXAAlum

True, but, your situations all appear to have been "voluntary" on your part, i.e., you weren't "compelled" as a condition of continued membership to do all the nice things you did - it's when it crosses the line that even innocent "errands" etc....can be construed out of context into hazing.

Hazing occurs when the line between brotherly love gets blurred with unbrotherly stupidity....

My point precisely.

None of this falls under what hazing actually is. It's not grey, but people make it grey, by posting opinions like the one you quoted. It's black and white, because it involves a group's request (or the request of individuals within that group that the person in a subservient position perceives to be important) that a potential new member take some action in order to be held in esteem by the group and/or to gain entrance into an organization. I think request defined as hazing can be explicit, or implicit, either way it's hazing and it's wrong. The problem is people who haze and expect those who are hazed to behave in a certain way fail to consider the fact that some pnms could be chronic worriers who could be distressed by verbal abuse, or that some come to the fraternity/sorority with a bad past, have thought about quitting school, are addicted to alcohol/drugs or perhaps have considered suicide. Even strong and healthy people have limits to which they can be pushed. Add to the fact that many hazing traditions are inherently negligent, and sad consequences such as wrongful deaths become all too likely, especially when binge drinking is involved.

macallan25, I totally disagree with you. Members who haze justify actions that are outside the range of normal human behavior. People who join by allowing themselves to be hazed, crave relationships and acceptance, not primarily because they respond to the organizations particular ideology. Some people allow themselves to be hazed because they find themselves in an unfamiliar surrounding their 1st year in college away from family and childhood friends, so they then seek a feeling of belonging. To these people, enduring hazing rather it's physical and/or mental, beats the pain of loneliness. I'm not saying joining a fraternity or a sorority is wrong, I would be a hypocrite if I said that. But I don't think anyone should have to risk their health in any way, shape, or form.

Also macallan25, because my opinions are different from yours doesn't make them dumb! I don't agree with 99.9% of your posts in many threads that you've posted in, but I don't call them dumb or stupid. Your opinions on OJ are the only posts I've ever agreed with. If you think my opinions are dumb, then you don't have to respond to them.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

My point precisely.

None of this falls under what hazing actually is. It's not grey, but people make it grey, by posting opinions like the one you quoted. It's black and white, because it involves a group's request (or the request of individuals within that group that the person in a subservient position perceives to be important) that a potential new member take some action in order to be held in esteem by the group and/or to gain entrance into an organization. I think request defined as hazing can be explicit, or implicit, either way it's hazing and it's wrong. The problem is people who haze and expect those who are hazed to behave in a certain way fail to consider the fact that some pnms could be chronic worriers who could be distressed by verbal abuse, or that some come to the fraternity/sorority with a bad past, have thought about quitting school, are addicted to alcohol/drugs or perhaps have considered suicide. Even strong and healthy people have limits to which they can be pushed. Add to the fact that many hazing traditions are inherently negligent, and sad consequences such as wrongful deaths become all too likely, especially when binge drinking is involved.

macallan25, I totally disagree with you. Members who haze justify actions that are outside the range of normal human behavior. People who join by allowing themselves to be hazed, crave relationships and acceptance, not primarily because they respond to the organizations particular ideology. Some people allow themselves to be hazed because they find themselves in an unfamiliar surrounding their 1st year in college away from family and childhood friends, so they then seek a feeling of belonging. To these people, enduring hazing rather it's physical and/or mental, beats the pain of loneliness. I'm not saying joining a fraternity or a sorority is wrong, I would be a hypocrite if I said that. But I don't think anyone should have to risk their health in any way, shape, or form.

Also macallan25, because my opinions are different from yours doesn't make them dumb! I don't agree with 99.9% of your posts in many threads that you've posted in, but I don't call them dumb or stupid. Your opinions on OJ are the only posts I've ever agreed with. If you think my opinions are dumb, then you don't have to respond to them.

It would seem then that the only way not to haze (per your definition which is something you apparently just made up) is to not have new members.

My collegiate chapter shows up to football games in shirt and tie -- sometimes coat and tie. Do you think that new members, pledges, feel maybe just a tiny bit of peer pressure to also show up in shirt and tie? Do you think they might be asked to change clothes if they didn't? Yes and yes.

That's hazing to you? It is under your definition. That said, I've never heard of anyone in the history of the world being charged with hazing for activity such as that.

My collegiate chapter emphasizes social graces, good manners and etiquette. We teach our new members how to act, how to treat women with respect, etc. When they're at formal, do you think new members feel like they're under a bit of a microscope when it comes to how they treat their dates? Do you think they will be corrected if they do something wrong? Might that correction (done in a polite, nice way) create some "mental discomfort"? Yes, yes and yes.

So now, according to your newly minted definition, and perhaps my own organization's insanely vague definition, teaching etiquette and expecting members and new members alike to exhibit good manners is hazing.

In order to be initiated, our new members are required to reach a certain GPA. The GPA they are required to reach is different from that which is required to remain a member. Is requiring that new members get good grades hazing? Again, you'd be the only person in the history of the world to think that, so choose your answer carefully.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

I think request defined as hazing can be explicit, or implicit, either way it's hazing and it's wrong. The problem is people who haze and expect those who are hazed to behave in a certain way fail to consider the fact that some pnms could be chronic worriers who could be distressed by verbal abuse, or that some come to the fraternity/sorority with a bad past, have thought about quitting school, are addicted to alcohol/drugs or perhaps have considered suicide. Even strong and healthy people have limits to which they can be pushed. Add to the fact that many hazing traditions are inherently negligent, and sad consequences such as wrongful deaths become all too likely, especially when binge drinking is involved.

So basically, everything is hazing and everything any Greek group does has to be geared to coddle the weakest member.

The thing is - Greek membership IS NOT EASY. Has it occurred to you that if someone's a chronic worrier that sitting through hours of membership selection as a sister isn't exactly going to be the best thing for her? Should someone who can't handle being around alcohol at all really join a fraternity who doesn't overindulge but does offer alcohol at their parties? Someone who's suicidal should work that out with a psychiatrist or a counselor at the student center - NOT expect a group of 18-22 year olds to help him/her through it just because he/she is a pledge. 18-22 year olds shouldn't be doing that.

Pledgeship is training for active brotherhood or sisterhood. If you find out during pledgeship that it's not for you, you can quit. Greek life is not for everyone, and it's time we stopped pretending it is.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

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.

The above does contain parts of policy items from my own organization's hazing policy, but the above is not my organization's hazing policy. I also know the state of Oklahoma's hazing law. The above looks nothing like that.

You, Sigma Nu and Oklahoma all define hazing differently -- and I only looked in three places.

[macallan25]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

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.

Of course it's not a black and white issue. If I make a bunch of pledges go to STUDY HALL to IMPROVE THEIR GRADES......should I be kicked out of school and charged with hazing in court? I mean, technically holding study hall for pledges only is hazing.

I was hazed.......nothing I did was "designed to produce mental or physical discomfort, embarrassment, harassment or ridicule." It was a tough experience and it made me extremely close to my pledge brothers. Probably the one thing I loved going through that I wouldn't want to do again.

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.

Why is it a major problem? That's dumb. So you're saying that the person who was allegedly "hazed" shouldn't have any say in what happens to the group that he was working hard to get into or the person that was "hazing" him? What if the kid loved what he was doing and felt no danger, distress, mental discomfort, etc. etc.

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.

Ok

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.

People don't want to term it as such because IT ISN'T A YES OR NO ISSUE. Hazing, the act of hazing, and what constitutes hazing will be debated till the cows come home.

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.

For the third time, yes, it is a grey topic. There are countless things in that list that I don't think you would get in trouble for...ever.

Also, you know what really irritates the shit out of me....bullshit "hazing" designations like #14. Really? If we make our pledges LEARN THE HISTORY OF THE ORGANIZATION THEY ARE WANTING TO JOIN we are hazing? Really?

[Zeta13Girl]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

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.

I hope cheerful greek this once and for all clears it up for you. What makes me mentally and physically uncomfortable is probably different then at least 50% of the other GCer's on here. Same goes for being embarrassed. The beauty of being an individual is that we all have our different breaking points and its impossible to set a standard line for everything.

Hazing is like any other political issue you will never get a 100% agreement. The will always be pro choice/prolife, anti-gun bearers/right to bear arms, for capital punishment/against capital punishment.


You dont have to agree with what is said on here, but you need to open your mind and try to see that it isnt black and white. You can't tell me that a kid who's parents forced him to go to military school and gets peed on or beaten with a 2x4 is the same thing as having a new member where a pledge pin to show pride in the organization he willingly chose to join.


*in case anyone is interested as my fraternity education chair one year I had the new members ask me one thing about greek life they wanted me to find out. They wanted to know where paddles originated from... While looking up the answer I stumbled across information that stated Hazing didn't start in fraternities until military men joined them and they transfered over what they had learned in the military to the brothers. After they left the uneducated brothers continued with the activities and didn't know where to draw the line.*

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by Zeta13Girl

*in case anyone is interested as my fraternity education chair one year I had the new members ask me one thing about greek life they wanted me to find out. They wanted to know where paddles originated from... While looking up the answer I stumbled across information that stated Hazing didn't start in fraternities until military men joined them and they transfered over what they had learned in the military to the brothers....

That's the same info I learned years ago, specifically regarding NPHC organizations and the military men who brought back military practices. Then of course it passed on to many sorority chapters.

I deleted your last sentence because I do not know about the military men leaving and the left over men not knowing where to draw the line. I think that some of the military practices themselves crossed the line in many ways. They were meant for military bonding, rites of passages and to prepare soldiers for combat, the possibility of being a POW, etc. Plus, in some chapters the military brothers stuck around long after they graduated, or did not go back into active duty, so they often had a hand in what was taken too far.