Chi Psi Colorado Proceeds

[EE-BO]

When you started a new job, did anyone ever play a little joke on you? That would be a form of hazing.

For example, an irate customer calls in and someone forwards it to you on your first day. Or someone hides something of yours and later gives it back.

Granted it does not exist everywhere- all depends on the environment. I have worked at places where I would not even consider kidding around with anyone, and some places we loved to play jokes on each other. A lot of what deemed acceptable depends on the environment and I think people's own behavior will change to adapt (or they will find another environment where they are more comfortable.)

Or when you are the new kid in school and you get picked on- and whether you are later accepted is due in part to how you react to that. Do you shrug it off and go with it, or do you run to teacher and tattle.

Hazing is a part of life. The word hazing has come to be associated with more extreme forms- and the word is most commonly used in association with unacceptable forms or after a tragedy has happened. But that is not its true meaning.

I make that point just because I think it affects any discussion had on this particular board on the forum.

It matters because it explains why some kids can get drunk, and with impaired judgement do something like this. Some people who haze hard may get some sadistic or erotic pleasure out of it, but for the vast majority of people this is simply a natural human behavior.

Alcohol combined with an environment in which more dangerous hazing practices are a norm within that group is where you run into trouble I think.

And that is what I think happened here- and what I think happens in many cases.

Whether the lawsuit is the right move is hard to say- but only because it is so unimaginable that this whole thing happened.

When I was in college, a lot of us pushed our limits- but whether you were a pledge or a brother, there were always people in the room keeping watch and trying to keep things getting out of hand. They would be drunk too sometimes of course, and so that intervention was not what it should have been.

But I was never witness in my Greek life to anything that involved forced alcohol consumption or even anything that could be construed as such. I really mean that. It is hard to know in a he-said, she-said kind of situation, but in this case if the allegations prove true that guys were drinking while blindfolded and/or in a very isolated setting, it is going to be very hard to convince a reasonable person it was voluntary. The first question is, if this was not so bad- why did it have to take place well out of sight of the rest of the world? If the chapter was afraid to do whatever they were doing in the house behind closed doors, just how can they say these charges are not worth exploring in trial?

Camping out and partying is fun- been there done that. But all the allegations in this case point to something far beyond a situation where people had the voluntary ability to do themselves an injury.

I am a lot more open-minded about "hazing" than many on this forum, but forced drinking is one place where I draw a very hard line. In the long run, the kind of environment that permits that is headed for disaster.

And not just for the victim. What about the guys charged? I am willing to bet they meant no real harm- but even if no charges were filed they have to live with this for the rest of their lives. And so do their fraternity brothers who will wonder "what could I have done to stop this?"

Laws and IHQ regulations are somewhat vague for good reason in my opinion. But there are very clear boundaries beyond which nobody wins or has any real reason to cross the line, and this incident crossed a big one.