“Hazing” refers to any activity expected of someone joining a group (or to maintain full status in a group) that humiliates, degrades or risks emotional and/or physical harm, regardless of the person's willingness to participate ("Hazing Defined" 3). Going into a freshmen year of college, boys and girls these days are expected to join a Greek organization, whether it be their parents’ wishes or just the pressure of their friends joining. Through social media such as Facebook or Instagram, the involvement with Greek organizations is becoming more and more of a big deal. Because the desire to be in a popular sorority or fraternity is at a maximum high with our generation, there is no limit to what he or she will do to be accepted. Does hazing, though illegal in a majority of the United States, bring more negative issues or benefits to not only the organization itself, but to the universities as well? Through peoples’ personal stories, examples, and statistics, this essay will display both the good and the bad sides of hazing. The history and laws about hazing are quickly becoming common knowledge to men and women involved in Greek organizations, due to the major issue of hazing becoming appealing as more members come to join. Anywhere somebody goes, he or she can expect to see a Greek organization tie. Nationally, there are about 9 million Greek members, including all eleven of the Apollo astronauts (Maisel 1). Because there are so many Greek members nationally, there are many different types of Greek organizations, such as strictly volunteer groups, honor societies, or the typical social organizations. No matter what type of Greek organization one joins, hazing is strictly illegal in a majority of the country. In California ... ... middle of paper ... ...zation as well. While hazing may be the main scare of parents or universities, Greek organizations look at it as a way to further get to know his or her future siblings. Joining a sorority or fraternity, is a classic tradition more than likely experienced by many parents of students and the need for the “traditional college experience” is something many students are dying to find. But is risking lives of students for a stronger brother or sisterhood worth it? Or is not permitting hazing not allowing a Greek organization to be the strongest it can be with members that are worth it? Greek life participants are known to have a close knit bond to their “families”, and the concept of hazing being necessary to form that bond have universities stuck; while they don’t want anybody hurt, a university wants the honor of having a popular/well represented Greek organization.
Every year students at an accredited university have a decision to join groups/activities. In many cases a lot of students choose to join either a fraternity or a
Greek organizations, such as, fraternities and sororities have been a part of the college experience for centuries. We pride ourselves in brotherly and sisterly love, academic success, and helping others. There are countless stereotypes and myths that surround the “Greek life” name. Just some myths include: all Greeks haze their members, they only care about physical looks not personalities, and they go to college just to party and get drunk. Kappa Delta Sorority upholds none of these stereotypes. We have a strong no haze policy. Hazing is defined as an activity or situation that can cause emotional, mental, or physical discomfort. If a member is caught hazing or if a new member is caught allowing herself to be hazed, there will be major consequences, such as, national probation or deferral of initiation. Kappa Delta also does not look at physical appearance as the only quality for possible new members. We look at personality and qualifications that can benefit our sorority; instead of having a group of women that are pretty and popular, we like to have women with strong morals, work ethic, and have the willingness to love each and every member of Kappa Delta. Kappa Delta Sorority is like no other fraternity or sorority on campus; we do not waste our time with partying and drinking. We pride ourselves in our historical background, philanthropies, and our values. I know Kappa Delta is the best sorority not only on MTSU campus but in the whole country.
Greek life in most people’s eyes is considered to be joining a sisterhood or brotherhood such as a sorority or a fraternity. Greek life is an extremely large part in numerous universities. More than half of the students are actually members of a Greek organization. Some may say that Greek life is not for them, but they truly do not know all of the advantages that come from being a member of a Greek organization. Do they realize how several of our nation’s leaders were members of Greek life probably not, since most of them were? One should join Greek life, not only for abundant friendships gained, but because of advantages, for example leadership skills and along with the countless networking
Hi Kaitlyn! I am involved in Greek life as well, so I can relate to this! I agree that a huge strength within a sorority are those members who are truly dedicated to their chapter, especially the board members, they are the ones who keep the organization running smoothly (most of the time). A major weakness for a sorority could also be those members who are not as dedicate. I feel like every sorority and fraternity have those members who only care about the social status, and it seems like those are the ones that constantly break the rules and ruin their reputation and put the entire chapter in danger of being put on probation or even kicked off campus. An obvious opportunity for any sorority is kicking out those members who do break the rules
Popular types of hazing include forced alcohol consumption, humiliation, running gauntlets, and forced sexual activity. While hazing through groupthink happens within many avenues, the focal point will be college campuses across America. The perplexing reality is that college fraternities haze new members in various forms of condoned behavior where if found in another setting would be considered criminal.
Often, when one hears about fraternities or sororities on the news, the program has to do with hazing and a death or injury that it has caused an innoce...
Hazing has been around forever. However, up until the last few decades, it was never taken too seriously. Now there are serious cases where death has even occurred. Hazing is something that we need to define, so that we can properly punish the people who commit some of these crimes. Some of the cases throughout recent years prove that hazing can be a serious criminal action, and also punishable by law. The effects that hazing can cause on a person, and a community are numerous. This information is backed up through facts that will support these claims. Luckily, there is ways that hazing can be decreased and possibly prevented entirely. Hazing needs to be taken more seriously
Hazing is an issue that has attracted much attention over the last few decades. College fraternities, high school programs, professional sports, and the military have all had their fair share of attention. The military is frequently held to a higher standard than these other organizations and has developed a bit of a black eye since the 1991 “Tailhook” scandal. Motion picture portrayals like that in the 1992 film “A Few Good Men” showed the public, not inaccurately, the dark side of command sponsored hazing. Hazing is not in keeping with the high standards of conduct that the U.S. Military aims to uphold and the ethical implications of these behaviors are diverse.
Kimbrough, Walter M. Black Greek 101: The Culture, Customs, and Challenges of Black Fraternities and Sororities. Cranbury: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2003. Print.
The purpose of hazing for Black fraternities aligns with the reasons every other Greek organization claims to haze: to stress the importance of membership in the organization and to help the new members form a new self-perception because their old lives are considered to be “flawed” (Jones 2000). “In 1990, the nine members of the NPHC suggested a ban on pledging (in addition to hazing) largely due to hazing deaths associated with Black fraternities” (Parks 2015). However, the suggestion from NPHC was not effective because hazing over the years has seemed to have continued to progress along with the physical harm associated with it. As mentioned above, there were hazing deaths associated with Black fraternities, way more than associated with any other type of Greek organization. At North Carolina Central University, a member of Omega Psi Phi, Nathan Swinson, died after “being forced to run several miles and complete a battery of grueling exercises” (Parks and Spencer 2013). Swinson is only one of many men who have died due to the injuries of hazing but that does not seem to stop the organizations from participating in the hazing
I was deeply disturbed as I read through some of the court cases provided by the NIAAA (“National”, 2011, p. 10-15). I never experienced or witnessed hazing during high school or college. Recently, it was revealed that the football team at Lake Zurich High School, IL had a major hazing scandal that lasted decades (Keilman, 2017). The sexual acts and violence that coaches allowed to happen is unbelievable. I remember when the story broke on the radio I was shocked to the point where I didn’t feel comfortable describing what occurred to my female teaching partners.
Hazing is the imposition of strenuous, often humiliating, tasks as part of a program of rigorous physical training and initiation. If you want to a university or college and you was so excited join a club or fraternities have go through hazing join, to me it sound stupid to prove yourself join to a club or fraternities just to injury yourself in the progress, what the point of hazing if you are harm yourself. For example, if you saw the movie Brotherhood, it is about college students that have robbed a liquor store for fraternities as part of they hazing until one of them rob the wrong liquid store and shot in the shoulder by store clerk, then the fraternities try cover they track for the liquid store robbery and they try keep the wounded college student alive until they find a way to get him to the hospital, in the end fraternities member are charged with attempted robbery of each liquid store they rob that night and one member is charged with murder of innocence college student who put in trunk of a car after go through with one of the fraternities hazing and died of lack of air due to hour he spent in the trunk.
Of course, there are Greek houses that do not haze, but in reality, most do participate in this sadistic ritual. How can the discomfort and endangerment of pledges be ignored during hazing? The lack of supervision and responsibility has caused hazing to become a seriously dangerous issue that is not always addressed by members. Students who have gained control of these organizations have gone full speed ahead at making up their own rules. As time has passed, they seem to have forgotten the true meaning of brotherhood and sisterhood. These members that choose to imperil pledges take advantage of the pledges’ desire for popularity and status, thereby failing to acknowledge the humiliation and emotional discomfort that pledges can be made to endure. There have been a number of incidents where pledges have been forced to drink too much, and they have died from al...
Hazing (subjecting newcomers to abusive or humiliating tricks and ridicule) has always been seen as a secretive campus activity when it comes to fraternities and pledging. As a result, Dr. Mark Taff resorted in his article that, "..a series of 168 cases of injuries and deaths related to fraternity hazing activities...[occurred] in the United States between 1923 and 1982" (2113). Young college men are being hospitalized and even worse, dying, just for a couple of friends that give them a sense of belonging. The major causes of hazing are the students' wanting a sense of belonging in a big college campus, the college's infrequent knowledge of what occurs in fraternities, and the unwillingness of fraternities to change tradition. Since hazing has been around for more than a century, one cannot expect the practice of hazing to stop all together. It will probably take years before hazing perishes from the fraternity scene. Nevertheless, until an end is put to hazing, solutions can be used to make hazing less common, until it no longer exists. These solutions that may be able to put an eventual stop to hazing, in the long run, are better education about fraternity hazing, stricter laws to prevent hazing from occurring, and more intervention from college administrators.
...n, hazing education should not be limited to members of Greek and other university organizations. All members of the university community should be educated on the topic since according to the Theory of Reasoned action and the research by Richardson et al. (2012), “relevant others”, such as close friends outside of the organization, can influence the observer’s decision to report. Furthermore, because the severity of the situation influences the likelihood that an observer would report, emphasizing not only the physical but the psychological consequences of hazing would increase awareness on how detrimental even hazing situations that may seem mild can be (Richardson et al., 2012). Integrating these findings into educational anti-hazing initiatives has the potential to increase effectiveness in efforts combat hazing within student organizations on college campuses.