California Hazing Bill Goes to Governor

[Tom Earp]

I am sure this will be another far reaching bill that will enable States to dictate to Greek Organizations on how they may have to operate.

When of course many Law Suits include Officers, National HQ, and Advisors to be held Libel, who will want to be listed as members of House Corporations, Alum Associations, or Advisory Boards?

This was a rouge group that used Greek Letters and now, We all will suffer.

So, where was Chico State when all of this was going on? Hell, they were ingnoring the situation.

Look out Insurance Rates going up because of this!

Hopefully With Gov. Arnolds own law suit, he will think about it before He signs it!


Stupid is as Stupid does!

[EE-BO]

Actually, I think this is a good bill. Here is where hazing is defined,

SB 1454- Section 4- (b),

"'Hazing' means any method of initiation or preinitiation into a student organization or student body, whether or not the organization or body is officially recognized by an educational institution, which is likely to cause, serious bodily injury to any pupil or other person attending former, current, or prospective student of any school, community college, college, university, or other educational institution in this state." [emphasis added]

This is not restricting any reasonable activities required of associate members or pledges in their pre-initiation days. This addresses the serious stuff we should all be eradicating in Greek houses.

And it does not create any added legal liability for nationals or housing corporations as can be seen below from another portion of the bill,

SB 1454- Section 4- (d),(e),

" (d) Any person who personally engages in hazing that results in
death or serious bodily injury as defined in paragraph (4) of
subdivision (f) of Section 243 of the Penal Code, is guilty of either
a misdemeanor or a felony, and shall be punished by imprisonment in
county jail not exceeding one year, or by imprisonment in the state
prison.
(e) The person against whom the hazing is directed may commence a
civil action for injury or damages. The action may be brought against
any participants in the hazing, or any organization to which the
student is seeking membership whose agents, directors, trustees,
managers, or officers authorized, requested, commanded, participated
in, or ratified the hazing." [emphasis added]

I don't know of any housing corp or HQ that authorizes, requests, commands, participates in or ratifies hazing as defined by this law.

Just my take. I think this is good legislation and solid organizations who make guys earn their letters in a responsible way have nothing to fear.

[Kevin]

I'm not really sure what this law changes about anything?

What in the hell is conduct "which is likely to cause bodily injury"?

Does it have to be 51% likely? Such a strange standard. What are "reasonable" activities? Again, no standard.

As far as the civil liability, it was already there. This is a waste of paper.

[gphiangel624]

The most important thing to note about this bill is that it makes hazing a violation of the Penal Code as opposed to the Education Code, and it prescribes misdemeanor and felony charges which the Education Code did not clearly define.

A court/jury would have to define whether something is likely to cause bodily injury. The whole law basically exists to make the penalties for hazing more harsh, hoping to deter it from happening.

I'm hoping this law goes into effect.

Originally Posted by ktsnake

I'm not really sure what this law changes about anything?

What in the hell is conduct "which is likely to cause bodily injury"?

Does it have to be 51% likely? Such a strange standard. What are "reasonable" activities? Again, no standard.

As far as the civil liability, it was already there. This is a waste of paper.

[Kevin]

I realize what it's doing, but the standard seems extremely vague. That may get in the way of anything this bill is attempting to eradicate.

[EE-BO]

The Texas law is pretty vague too.

This is where it gets tricky, and why it is a good idea for Greek organizations to stay well away from the "grey area".

There is lots of room for prosecutorial discretion here, and in the end I think that will be a good thing for chapters who can demonstrate a borderline incident is isolated, and a bad thing for chapters whose reputation suggests a borderline incident is indicative of more serious issues.

One more reason I think a chapter is wise put heavy focus on grades and philanthropy- and tout it publicly (not to mention it is kind of a good thing for the members too.)

A good analogy might be the fact that most companies have in their employee handbook a policy on personal internet usage during working hours using company computers.

Provided an employee is not looking at inappropriate websites, I have rarely been aware of cases where a person was fired because they used a computer at work for personal reasons but were an otherwise outstanding employee.

However, this kind of rule is often used to terminate an employee whose internet usage at work is indicative of a pattern of unproductive behavior that, in and of itself, might not be easily documented for a clean and legitimate termination of the employee. So you have to have specific rules in place that are worded such that they can be enforced taking into account specific factors- but also leave some discretionary power to the employer so that the rule is not discriminatory, but just applied using judgment.

I suspect this is why hazing laws are so intentionally vague. In serious incidents, one would hope the law is applied to any organization. But in borderline cases where reasonable people could disagree over whether an incident met the burden of proof for a prosecution- I believe hazing laws are applied on a discretionary basis depending on the general character and reputation of the organization involved (and I believe that based on my own knowledge of reported incidents and the degree of punishment sanctioned by universities, HQs and local law enforcement.)

[Kevin]

The thing is -- in serious incidents of hazing, there are existing criminal charges which may be filed.

Outside of that, does this not just give an excuse to insurance companies to deny coverage due to the fact that activity was potentially illegal?