Beta Chi at Leigh Univ

[zhbeta158]

I don't know... maybe reorg, maybe reevaluation, but it doesn't look like hazing, just that there needs to be an emphasis on risk management for the whole chapter, Beta Chi has progressed much lately, according to both the university and general fraternity

[EE-BO]

Originally Posted by zhbeta158

but it doesn't look like hazing

That's the part I have been thinking about, and I do not have a clear answer.

On the face of it, I agree that this does not appear to be hazing.

Let's assume this incident took place to a lesser degree- say a pledge walked out of the house with a beer and got stopped on the sidewalk and given a ticket for possession and was tested and had blood alcohol of .06- just for the sake of argument.

In that situation, odds are nothing would have come of this.

But if that young man had been forced to drink 3 beers and get to a blood alcohol of .06, then that would be hazing I think since the kid would have been coerced into breaking the law. Again, it would probably not ever get reported or anything- but if we are talking in purely legal terms I think that would be hazing.

In the actual situation, I think it would be fair to say the 2 pledges (and maybe others) were well beyond the point of making rational decisions a few drinks before reaching their final state of intoxication.

At that point they were incapable of making decisions, but older people- who by virtue of the active vs. pledge relationship can be reasonably assumed to exert a certain degree of control over those pledges- continued to feed them alcohol.

On that grounds, I suspect hazing charges could be possible- but it is a fine point of legal distinction on which I am not certain. You would have to establish that by virtue of the pledges's intoxication they were, by default, coerced into drinking to near fatal excess since they had lost the ability to make a rational judgement of their own (and lost that ability with the help of those who nearly killed them for that matter.)

But certainly providing alcohol to a minor and reckless endangerment are right there in any event.

I don't believe in dry houses or babysitting chapters, but that only works if certain very firm lines are never crossed. And unfortunately a big one was crossed here. Every time this happens, it just gives alumni and the general public all the more reason to not let fraternity men govern themselves and learn good lessons from the experience.

[Coramoor]

That stinks.

Just as they were finally getting their chapter's shit together.

I'd recommend some sanctions, but not a closure. They screwed up, that is to be sure. There is no mention of hazing. Not stopping a kid from drinking isn't the same as making someone drink. They are all adults capable of making their own decisions (risk management issues abound though).

Closing a prospering chapter along with losing their house...pretty harsh.