A simple fix to stop hazing
By DAVID LITTLE
A student chugs a bottle of blackberry brandy during a fraternity initiation and dies in the basement after passing out and choking on his own vomit.
A student dies in a car accident after returning from a fraternity initiation at the Sacramento River. The driver of the car had marijuana and cocaine in his system.
A student is rushed to the hospital with a blood alcohol level of .496, more than six times the legal limit, after passing out in conjunction with a fraternity initiation ritual. Somehow, he lives.
A student dies when he is forced to drink large amounts of water and exercise strenuously in a cold room during a fraternity hazing.
All of this has happened in a little more than four years at Chico State University.
I'm tired of fraternity apologists dismissing it as boys being boys.
It's time to call it what it is criminal.
And it's time to put an end to it, one way or another.
The best solution? Eliminate fraternities altogether. Just get rid of them. The university will survive. I promise.
There's no need to dismantle the Greek system, just the male half of the equation. Sororities not only enjoy strong participation at the university, but they also manage to have initiations without killing or humiliating anybody. Unlike the boys. What do they say about girls maturing faster?
I don't want to broad-brush all fraternities as lawless bastions of anarchy. Almost all do philanthropy and community service, and some provide structure a place to live, designated study hours for young men who need it. But it takes an awful lot of good deeds to balance out even one death.
You can't kill one fraternity brother a year and then say, "Yeah, but last year fraternities picked up trash in Bidwell Park." Sorry. Doesn't work.
If young men in the Greek system are so concerned about community service, there are many such groups on campus. Join CAVE (Community Action Volunteers in Education), for example. You don't have to prance around in your underwear or drink vodka to get into CAVE. You join, and they put you to work.
The fraternities will argue that in three of the four incidents, the fraternity was not at fault. Two were supposed to be dry events but some of the fraternity boys made the wrong decision, you'll hear. Then in last week's death, supposedly no alcohol was involved at all. But water intoxication is potentially fatal, and the practice seems to be making the rounds nationwide among fraternities. Matthew Carrington, 21, died after strenuous exercise when his electrolytes became severely depleted, reportedly sending him into a seizure.
That's not even the worst of the hazing. Carrington's mother, who lives in Pleasant Hill, told the San Francisco Chronicle her son said last fall pledges had to trade their shirts with homeless people and dress as prostitutes and walk the streets in Southern California. That's supposed to promote brotherhood?
And fraternities wonder why fewer people are joining these days?
It gets worse, but you'll never hear about it. Fraternity secret, you know. I know some very fine people, former fraternity members who survived it all, who say fraternity initiation rites (they never use the word hazing) are harmless ways to bond with brothers, important traditions that cross generations. Accidents are an aberration by rogue fraternities, no reason to abandon a system that has benefited so many.
I already hear the arguments: Disbanding all fraternities because of a few deaths is like taking all cars off the road because of a few accidents. It's easier to just police the bad ones.
But it's not. The university has little control over fraternities because all are off campus. The fraternity involved in this week's death was suspended by the university and the fraternity's national office in 2002, yet continued to exist. The nearby church and the police will attest the Chi Tau house on West Fourth Street was a modern-day Animal House. The home's owner apparently didn't care.
So who's responsible? The university and police do all they can. The landlords frequently do nothing. And every so often, one fraternity messes up and makes all the others look bad.
Then everybody says, "What a tragedy." And forgets. Until the next one.
Well, I've seen enough. The only way to solve the problem of fraternity hazing is to get rid of fraternities.
I'm tired of the turmoil created just so a few misguided youths can prove their "brotherhood."
David Little is editor of the Enterprise-Record. His column appears each Sunday. He can be reached at
dlittle@chicoer.com or 896-7793.
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