A number of high-profile hazing incidents have drawn national attention in recent years. Just last year, multiple sports at Northwestern University, both men’s and women’s programs, saw extensive investigations into alleged hazing that led to multiple lawsuits against the school, as well as the dismissal of both head baseball coach Jim Foster and the Wildcats’ winningest head football coach, Pat Fitzgerald. But perhaps the most tragic fallout from these types of incidents is the trauma that young student-athletes are left to contend with.
To address the issue of hazing, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators has proposed the Stop Campus Hazing Act. The bill would require colleges and universities that receive federal student aid to maintain a website disclosing violations of the institution’s code of conduct regarding hazing by student organizations, as well as detailing corrective measures imposed.
“When parents send their kids away to college, they expect they will get a good education and make new friends. Unfortunately, hazing is a dangerous — and at times deadly — reality, and we must work to end it,” said Amy Klobuchar, Democratic senator from Minnesota, in announcing the legislation.
While efforts like the Stop Campus Hazing Act at the federal level are a step in the right direction, there’s no substitute for meeting students where they live and educating them on the problem at hand. Here’s a look at the challenges and contributing factors of hazing, as well as how one non-profit aims to affect change on campuses across the country.
The problem is pervasive
While hazing is often associated with college fraternities and athletics teams, the dangerous practice isn’t limited to those circles.
“It’s not just in one particular type of organization. It happens anywhere there are new people trying to join a group,” says Todd Shelton, executive director of the non-profit Hazing Prevention Network, which aims to bring awareness to the issue through educational programming and outreach. “And there are members of the group that, for whatever reason, want to make it a rite of passage or make it difficult to join. Hazing happens in high schools, and it certainly happens in athletic teams, but it also happens at summer camps, within marching bands, club sports, you name it.”
For the past 15 years, the Hazing Prevention Network has been offering online and in-person courses and certifications tailored to everyone from college students-athletes to coaches and administrators. Shelton believes it’s also important to educate high school communities, as research shows that 50 percent of college students have already experienced some form of hazing before arriving on campus.
“It doesn’t matter how good a job college programs do with hazing prevention if every year they have a freshman class coming in, and half of them have been hazed in high school,” says Shelton. “Ultimately, you want to get to them before college.”
One of the most pressing problems Shelton sees is underreporting, which results in the problem being kept in the dark and those responsible escaping accountability. Underreporting is especially prevalent at the prep level, as was highlighted by a survey of high school students conducted by Alfred University.
Of those student respondents who thought hazing was a problem (because not every student does), 40 percent said they wouldn’t report hazing. When asked why they would not report hazing, 36 percent said there was “no one to tell,” while 27 percent said, “Adults would not know how to handle it,” and 28 percent said, “It’s not a problem. Sometimes accidents happen.” Peer pressure seemed less of a factor in not reporting hazing. Twenty-four percent said, “Other kids would make my life miserable,” and 16 percent said, “I just wouldn’t tell on my friends, no matter what.”
“What’s critical is holding the people involved in hazing accountable — you can’t just let it go,” says Shelton. “From an administrator or coach’s standpoint, having established clear policies on hazing and following up when those policies are violated is critically important.”
Contributing factors
While physical trauma is an obvious concern with many hazing rituals, Shelton emphasizes the psychological toll it can take as students are made to endure degrading or humiliating acts just to feel accepted. “There are certainly variable degrees of physical harm, but I think, just as important and often overlooked, is the emotional abuse people can endure as they’re just trying to belong to a team or group,” he says.
Shelton identifies alcohol as a factor that can dramatically increase the danger of hazing rituals. “From my observation, it becomes most dangerous when alcohol or some other substance is part of the activity,” he says. “You think of that with fraternities, but it happens just as much in sports teams or other groups where drinking games or alcohol consumption is incorporated into hazing activities.”
The COVID-19 pandemic provided a temporary reprieve from hazing, as students were isolated from group gatherings. However, Shelton says there was an alarming uptick after the return to in-person activities, theorizing that renewed desires for group belonging may have fueled more extreme hazing rituals.
Social media has also played a role in escalating certain hazing practices that were previously isolated, as groups attempt to one-up each other online with increasingly drastic rituals in pursuit of online attention. This public sharing drives escalation rather than deterring the behavior.
“Not only do some people use social media as a means of hazing, but you might have a college in New York that has a specific ritual, and they start posting about it on their social media,” explains Shelton. “And then a team or a group across the country sees it, and they’re like, ‘Oh, we could do better than that.’ So there’s one-upmanship, and there are tons of accounts — Twitter and Instagram, in particular, but also Snapchat — where you can see people are posting these kinds of things.”
While hazing is one of those problems that can seem too big to wrap one’s head around, Shelton believes progress is being made. As education and reporting increase awareness, he remains convinced the hazing culture can be transformed. But it will take committed leadership, transparency that empowers students, and real accountability throughout all levels of an organization.
“We’ve made progress, but there have also been setbacks,” says Shelton. “Hazing is an issue that has existed for a very long time, but by taking a comprehensive approach to prevention through education, policy and accountability, I really think we can reshape the more destructive aspects of student group culture.”
