University officials charged for hazing

[exlurker]

A recent article from the Times of Trenton NJ includes statements by -- among others -- some lawyers about the indictment of administrators:

http://blog.nj.com/timesupdates/2007...istrators.html

[UGAalum94]

I hope that the administrators are cleared and that they are able to seek some redress from being improperly charged and maybe tried.

(Of course, I'm assuming that they had no knowledge or participation in the fraternities unregistered event.)

Unless we want to go back to the days of college students being viewed as minors in the complete care of their universities despite in most cases these same students being over the legal age of majority (with of course alcohol purchase and/or consumption being the exception), its very difficult to see how in the world the administrators who supervise organizations can actually be considered guilty of committing crimes based on behavior they didn't engage in themselves and had no knowledge of.

It just seems crazy that they were indicted when there doesn't seem to be any evidence that the hazing would have been tolerated had they known of it or that they did know about it.

Do you really think we're better off treating college students like high school students in terms of university oversight of social events?

Doesn't this seem nuts?

I've got no problem with the charges against the people in the organization who were involved. But the administrator being held responsible isn't going to be a move in the right direction.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by Tom Earp

Nothing actually, I am just saying they are in the line of fire in a sue happy society or being charged because they work at this School, but were not involved!

True?

I have no idea, and neither do you.

They were not sued by some sue-happy litigant, Tom. They were indicted by a grand jury, which presumably heard sufficient evidence to believe that these two school officials should be charged with hazing.

New Jersey criminal law (N.J.S.A. 2C: 40-3a) says: "A person is guilty of hazing . . . if, in connection with initiation of applicants or members of student or fraternal organizations, he knowingly or recklessly organizes, promotes, facilitates, or engages in any conduct, other than competitive athletic events, which places or may place another person in danger of bodily injury." (My emphasis) It is "aggravated hazing" -- what these two officials have been charged with -- if death results.

I must assume, though it is only an assumption, that sufficient evidence was presented to the grand jury that these two officials had been criminally negligent, perhaps turning blind eyes, to the point where their negligence facilitated hazing.

I recognize as well as anyone that grand juries make mistakes and that DAs may not present cases based in fact to grand juries, although I continue to believe that the Duke lacrosse incidents of the world are the exception rather than the rule. Most DAs I know value their integrity enough to make that the case.

Originally Posted by AlphaGamUGAAlum

I hope that the administrators are cleared and that they are able to seek some redress from being improperly charged and maybe tried.

(Of course, I'm assuming that they had no knowledge or participation in the fraternities unregistered event.)

With the caveat given above that grand juries can be misled and can err, I am assuming that they would not have been indicted unless there was at least some evidence that they did have knowledge or but for their negligence should have had knowledge.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

With the caveat given above that grand juries can be misled and can err, I am assuming that they would not have been indicted unless there was at least some evidence that they did have knowledge or but for their negligence should have had knowledge.

The negligence standard would require that the administrators have a duty to know about this sort of hazing... or at least to investigate. I think the prosecution has an uphill battle with this one, but it all depends on the facts.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by Kevin

The negligence standard would require that the administrators have a duty to know about this sort of hazing... or at least to investigate. I think the prosecution has an uphill battle with this one, but it all depends on the facts.

I would agree it's likely to be an uphill battle.

Along with the facts, though, it will depend on whatever the law in New Jersey may be. Many states have been moving toward imposing duties that would not have been considered even a few decades ago, especially with regard to alcohol and safety (such as duties imposed on the host of a party).

I have no idea what the standards in New Jersey might be. I take it from the article linked above that there is no precedent for this kind of case there -- maybe prosecutors are hoping that the court's will enunciate some kind of duty.

[James]

What about that old adage that a DA can get an indictment on a ham sandwich?

Originally Posted by MysticCat

I have no idea, and neither do you.

They were not sued by some sue-happy litigant, Tom. They were indicted by a grand jury, which presumably heard sufficient evidence to believe that these two school officials should be charged with hazing.

New Jersey criminal law (N.J.S.A. 2C: 40-3a) says: "A person is guilty of hazing . . . if, in connection with initiation of applicants or members of student or fraternal organizations, he knowingly or recklessly organizes, promotes, facilitates, or engages in any conduct, other than competitive athletic events, which places or may place another person in danger of bodily injury." (My emphasis) It is "aggravated hazing" -- what these two officials have been charged with -- if death results.

I must assume, though it is only an assumption, that sufficient evidence was presented to the grand jury that these two officials had been criminally negligent, perhaps turning blind eyes, to the point where their negligence facilitated hazing.

I recognize as well as anyone that grand juries make mistakes and that DAs may not present cases based in fact to grand juries, although I continue to believe that the Duke lacrosse incidents of the world are the exception rather than the rule. Most DAs I know value their integrity enough to make that the case.

With the caveat given above that grand juries can be misled and can err, I am assuming that they would not have been indicted unless there was at least some evidence that they did have knowledge or but for their negligence should have had knowledge.

[DeltAlum]

Originally Posted by exlurker

A recent article from the Times of Trenton NJ includes statements by -- among others -- some lawyers about the indictment of administrators:]

Thanks for the link:

Three quotes from the article strike me:

"Bocchini (the County Attorney) said the indictment by the grand jury sends a "clear message that there is culpability involved in the ingestion of alcoholic beverages on college campuses. Rider University is involved in this today, but it could have been any college or university across the United States."

"Campbell's inclusion in the indictments could reverberate nationwide as colleges struggle to cope with underage drinking and on-campus fraternities. Fierberg said the indictment of an administration official sends a huge message to both fraternities and the campuses that house them.

"I am not aware of a similar circumstance and I think it speaks to the seriousness of the prosecution, the tremendous tragedy this family has unnecessarily experienced, and how young people on campuses must be protected by schools and school officials," he said.

The final underlined comment would seem to ask for a return to the In Loco Parentis situation that we lived with in the sixties.

The question is whether this message is being received by local chapters -- and whether anyone is taking this seriously.

You can be sure that the people in the administration buildings are.

Whether there is a conviction here, or a judgement against the uniersity in whatever lawsuit will probably follow, the outcome could have huge implications.

[dznat187]

From what I remember from the news coverage of this story, wasnt the fraternity 'shut down'. I think the fraternity was in trouble for other issues and were repremanded by the university. Wouldnt that mean the university did their job to prevent hazing.

It is ridiculous to expect university officials to know everything that is going on on campus and be able to control all students. Only brainwashing or mind control could do that. There will always be students who make bad decisions. Some will be more dangerous than others, but to blame university officials for the actions of students is very scary.

I work as a live-in fraternity advisor and this case has really frightened many of us who work in the field. As much as I can keep an eye on what is going on in my house, I can't be there at every moment of every day nor can I make good decisions for my fraternity men. I can educate them and be there for them but ultimately decisions are their's. Granted officials and advisors should be able to spot trouble issues.

I think this whole case will bring to the forefront the whole live-in/housemanager job. Many schools are beginning to require professional live-in advisors, like myself (with a masters) and are moving away from having members of the fraternity serve as the house manager/advisor. I think Rider is making good strides in changing these positions and hopefully other schools will see the benfit of this change and see how it is worth the added expenses.

I really am interested to see how this all pans out and what effect it has on those working in higher ed administration and specifically those working in greek advisor positions. In general greek life is entry level and does not pay that well. If you add in the possibility of being charged or sued because of a chapter's actions, there may be even fewer people willing to work in Greek life and the retention of greek advisors will continue to decline.

Natalie

[exlurker]

Another recent article on the charges:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/08/06/rider

The article mentions activities besides the drinking, including push-ups and sit-ups and a scavenger hunt. The article indicates that those activities weren't required of the pledges, but the older members wanted the pledges to participate in them. It wouldn't surprise me if there was moderate to strong pressure for pledges to take part.

Reader comments following the article seem to run the gamut of likely responses.

[Tom Earp]

Sorry, the latest I received that they were sued=Indictited for this.

They are sued for intictment by the Grand Jury Judge for trial!

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by Tom Earp

Sorry, the latest I received that they were sued=Indictited for this.

They are sued for intictment by the Grand Jury Judge for trial!

One more try, Tom. "Sued" means a civil action has been brought. They haven't been "sued for indictment," because there's no such thing. They've simply been indicted or charged.

Indict = criminal charge.
Sue = civil claim.

And there is no such thing as a grand jury judge.

[jon1856]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

One more try, Tom. "Sued" means a civil action has been brought. They haven't been "sued for indictment," because there's no such thing. They've simply been indicted or charged.

Indict = criminal charge.
Sue = civil claim.

And there is no such thing as a grand jury judge.

FYI/General information on Grand Juries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_jury
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-476es.html

In NJ:
http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/rules/r3-6.htm

More than a passing interest for me as my girl-friend has been on a Federal Grand Jury for over 6 months now.

[Tom Earp]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

One more try, Tom. "Sued" means a civil action has been brought. They haven't been "sued for indictment," because there's no such thing. They've simply been indicted or charged.

Indict = criminal charge.
Sue = civil claim.

And there is no such thing as a grand jury judge.

Okay, but I asked a judge about the difference and he said pretty much the same thing you did.

Suit is civil
Indictment is criminal

He basically said that an indictment is a suit of criminal intent of a crime. A grand jury is a panel where rights are thrown out. There must be a jury leader. Is this a judge?

[GreekGirl06]

Originally Posted by dznat187

From what I remember from the news coverage of this story, wasnt the fraternity 'shut down'. I think the fraternity was in trouble for other issues and were repremanded by the university. Wouldnt that mean the university did their job to prevent hazing.

It is ridiculous to expect university officials to know everything that is going on on campus and be able to control all students. Only brainwashing or mind control could do that. There will always be students who make bad decisions. Some will be more dangerous than others, but to blame university officials for the actions of students is very scary.

I work as a live-in fraternity advisor and this case has really frightened many of us who work in the field. As much as I can keep an eye on what is going on in my house, I can't be there at every moment of every day nor can I make good decisions for my fraternity men. I can educate them and be there for them but ultimately decisions are their's. Granted officials and advisors should be able to spot trouble issues.

I think this whole case will bring to the forefront the whole live-in/housemanager job. Many schools are beginning to require professional live-in advisors, like myself (with a masters) and are moving away from having members of the fraternity serve as the house manager/advisor. I think Rider is making good strides in changing these positions and hopefully other schools will see the benfit of this change and see how it is worth the added expenses.

I really am interested to see how this all pans out and what effect it has on those working in higher ed administration and specifically those working in greek advisor positions. In general greek life is entry level and does not pay that well. If you add in the possibility of being charged or sued because of a chapter's actions, there may be even fewer people willing to work in Greek life and the retention of greek advisors will continue to decline.

Natalie

The fraternity after the party face severe penalties from the school's administration however no real official action was taken by the University because we were waiting to see is criminal charges were going to be brought up against the university. They were not allowed to wear their Greek letters they could not participate in Greek week however many of the brothers shaved their Greek letters in their hair. And they had other restrictions as well but I know for a fact on the finished book that over half of our campus is supporting both of the officials that have been charged I personally think that neither of them should be charged because they weren't there it was the fraternity's fault because they didn't go through the right channels that is required from the Greek councils.

[EE-BO]

Originally Posted by dznat187

I work as a live-in fraternity advisor and this case has really frightened many of us who work in the field. As much as I can keep an eye on what is going on in my house, I can't be there at every moment of every day nor can I make good decisions for my fraternity men. I can educate them and be there for them but ultimately decisions are their's. Granted officials and advisors should be able to spot trouble issues.

I think this whole case will bring to the forefront the whole live-in/housemanager job. Many schools are beginning to require professional live-in advisors, like myself (with a masters) and are moving away from having members of the fraternity serve as the house manager/advisor. I think Rider is making good strides in changing these positions and hopefully other schools will see the benfit of this change and see how it is worth the added expenses.

I really am interested to see how this all pans out and what effect it has on those working in higher ed administration and specifically those working in greek advisor positions. In general greek life is entry level and does not pay that well. If you add in the possibility of being charged or sued because of a chapter's actions, there may be even fewer people willing to work in Greek life and the retention of greek advisors will continue to decline.

Natalie

Natalie,

Very well stated. It hard enough to find alumni and outsiders willing to do the work to help care for a fraternal chapter- and if these prosecutions are successful, then it will become even harder. In fact, the more coverage this situation gets- the more reluctance it will create no matter what the outcome.

Reading through the articles I get the sense of a prosecutor who cares more about sending a message and setting precedent than in dealing with the facts at hand. Mike Nifong reincarnated?

We do not know the facts at hand, but I think any reasonable person can agree that University officials could not have the direct ability to forsee the imminent danger of a specific occurrence of this kind of event and effectively prevent it except in extremely unusual circumstances of insight. An example of that might be a University official who was an alumnus of a chapter where such an event took place and had been present- and no evidence of any such circumstances has been presented to date.

This is going to sound very hard and cruel, but it is right time to say it.

Looking back at my chapter- I cannot remember a single pledge class where there was not at least one person who did not drink alcohol at all. And I cannot remember any events where pledges were physically forced to drink, or nagged into excess drinking.

I am sure it happens- but I have never seen any evidence to suggest it is an epidemic problem. I am still waiting for anyone to produce substantive evidence that drinking-related deaths among college students are convincingly disproportionately associated with membership in a Greek organization.

Now, houses where that kind of thing happens on a routine basis are going to naturally attract the kind of kids who want to drink heavily in the first place.

This is still a bad thing, but not in the sense that totally innocent youths are being corrupted- rather people with bad habits tend to congregrate.

Going back to my example about non-drinkers or infrequent drinkers, there were voluntarily sober people at every Greek party I ever attended. It is not that hard to say no if you really don't want to drink, or if you don't want to drink irresponsibly.

And so I find it hard to believe that a fraternity can systematically corrupt youths so quickly. That assumes that at 18, the average young man is weak-minded and not much of a man.

Perhaps this young man's parents should reflect on what example they might have set and how their childrearing choices might have contributed to this.

Maybe they are not to blame at all. Maybe this was an isolated incident.

But just think for a second about the fact this young man made a very bad choice.

Does it make more sense the conditioning for that bad choice came from a few months of fraternity membership or nearly 18 years of parenting?

Consider also how many of us have imbibed incredible amounts of liquor a time or two in college. I sure did- I remember those 2 incidents well (or rather the 2 day hangover that followed.)

In the grand scheme of things, this unfortunate young man paid the hardest price for something a great many of us have done a time or two.

That is a tragedy- but it is no excuse for this kind of criminal prosecution.

I do not see a search for justice here. I see a deliberate attempt to wipe out Greek Life by making it impossible for it to exist.

Natalie, it is a worthwhile concept to have well compensated individuals living in and running Greek houses- but it is not financially practical.

And as many fraternities have learned the hard way, when you have a dry or strictly managed house that is populated with members who are not prone to making good choices about conducting themselves- a few guys/girls in the chapter renting a house nearby will soon be host to a completely unsupervised environment where the drinking and other things will take place anyway.

It will be interesting to see how this unfolds, but unless some extraordinary circumstances emerge regarding the University officials and direct knowledge of events in this particular chapter- I don't see this prosecution succeeding in the long run (meaning in the appeals process if there is a conviction.)