Ohio University Faculty and Health Professionals React to Hazing Allegations

Helen Widman

Steamy locker rooms filled with power-hungry athletes. Disheveled fraternity houses with broken beer bottles. Sororities turned into houses of embarrassment and ridicule for new members. Those are some of the stereotypical scenes of hazing.

Although those stereotypes do make up a portion of the harsh reality, hazing is not always an obvious act of dominance. Not all hazing on college campuses is extreme; it can range from forcing college freshmen to do the “dirty work” of the upperclassmen, to alcohol and drug abuse that often dominates modern dialogue surrounding hazing today.

“I talked [to freshmen] about ‘little h,’ small things—things that are meant to embarrass you, things that are meant to degrade and demean—up to big scary hazing, like being forced to drink alcohol or being beaten,” says Jenny HallJones, the dean of students at Ohio University and the senior associate vice president for Student Affairs.

The definition of hazing varies across universities, institutions and even states. Arguably, there is no universal definition of hazing.

According to Alcohol.org, “...a number of states have their own laws that prohibit hazing, but definitions of what constitutes ‘hazing’ vary across borders. In Alabama, for example, hazing is identified as any action that intentionally or recklessly puts the physical and mental health of a student in danger. New York, on the other hand, does not mention psychological abuse as part of its anti-hazing laws, but specifically prohibits physical abuse as part of an initiation ritual.”

The topic of hazing is especially relevant for OU after HallJones responded to hazing allegations made last semester. Although the levels of hazing in fall 2019 were not as serious as past hazing allegations, Hall-Jones stood by the university’s zero-tolerance policy and helped launch an investigation which resulted in several organizations and all fraternities receiving suspension in October.

“This is a community effort,” Hall-Jones says. “It's an effort that's got to start at a younger age before college. We need national organizations and sports teams and things that have a history of hazing, we need their leadership and partnership on campuses to eradicate hazing. Personally, I believe that a kind of a zero-tolerance policy on hazing is important.”

At OU, hazing prevention was not implemented into the official university policy until a few years ago. Hall-Jones helped push for this addition in order to start cracking down on hazing.

“We wanted everyone to recognize that it could happen, not just in student [organizations], it could happen anywhere,” she says. “We also wanted faculty and staff to realize that they should be mandated reporters. One of the university stances on hazing is that it's unacceptable, and then if a faculty or a staff member becomes aware of hazing or suspects hazing, that they have a duty and obligation that's written into their jobs that they have to report [hazing] very similarly to sexual assault.”

Hank Nuwer, researcher, author and journalist, has been collecting data on hazing-related deaths for over four decades. After a student died due to hazing-related causes at the University of Nevada during Nuwer’s graduate work in 1975, his passion for hazing prevention piqued.

He published his first article on hazing in 1978 in “Dead Souls of Hell Week” for Human Behavior magazine. Nuwer says that researching hazing proved challenging at the time because very limited information existed on the topic. Now, his database that tracks yearly hazing-related deaths in the United States since 1959 continues to grow.

“It's just mind boggling to think that it's going on for 60 years,” Nuwer says. “And it's only been in recent years that there's been this outcry against anything. It was not accepted, but it wasn't fought against the way it is now.”

According to Nuwer’s research, an estimate of six to eight out of 10 hazing-related deaths in his database also have to do with alcohol.

In the article “Why Colleges Haven’t Stopped Binge Drinking,” The New York Times reports, “More than 1,800 students die every year of alcohol-related causes. An additional 600,000 are injured while drunk and nearly 100,000 become victims of alcohol-influenced sexual assaults.”

While hazing is most commonly associated with universities, Nuwer says that hazing can also occur at the high school level, and even in prison. According to his research, high school hazing can be as intense as the prison hazing that occurs between inmates and can even be considered sexual assault.

“[Prison hazing is] often done with a broomstick or fingers. So it's very dangerous,” Nuwer says. “There's rectal tearing, there's humiliation for the victim, stigma. There’s a good chance if it's not caught, that the victims will be the [hazing] perpetrators in the next year.”

Similar to many traumatic events, hazing can result in decreased self-esteem for the victim. Counselor Stephanie Maccombs, M.Ed. from the Department of Counseling and Psychological Services at OU, says side effects can impact any hazing victim in a number of ways.

"When it comes to hazing, there are several emotional and physical consequences that can arise for a person who has experienced hazing,” she says. “Some consequences include a decline in academic performance, sleep deprivation, physical illness or hospitalization, depression, withdrawal from social activities or school and suicide or death. In some cases, a person who has experienced hazing may also develop acute stress disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder.”

Those consequences can also act as warning signs that a student has experienced some form of hazing or trauma.

“Additionally, a person who has experienced hazing may begin to lose their sense of empowerment and ability to trust others, feel embarrassed or shameful, struggle in relationships with friends and family and lose respect for the individual or group that initiated the hazing,” Maccombs says.

Some may argue that hazing is a necessary, historic tradition among student organizations and that it is not meant to physically or emotionally harm anyone.

“Any student organization can have really proud traditions that bond you as an [organization]. The difference is, once you become a member of the [organization], you are a full member and you have all the rights and privileges of being a part of that,” Hall-Jones says.

Hall-Jones clarifies that the difference between traditional activities and hazing is the fact that with hazing, only the new members are pressured to partake in certain activities.

“If you want to participate in that tradition, that's great. But also if you don't want to participate in it, you don't have to,” she says. “If only the new people, if only the first year students are being made to do certain things and they have to prove their worth before getting to the next level, then that's part of the problem.”

Another part of the problem with hazing could be that victims sometimes accept it as positive reinforcement of their commitment to an organization.

Maccombs believes that everyone can do their part in hazing prevention and education. “Students, faculty, staff, administrators and anyone else who is interested in preventing hazing can learn what it is and what the warning signs are, educate others about hazing and familiarize themselves with campus, local and state laws about hazing.”

Although OU has taken the first major steps in preventing hazing on campus, Hall-Jones believes that the university still has some more ground to cover. “We have a stance that every report that we get, we're going to look at, even if it's ‘small h’ hazing,” Hall-Jones says. “We mentioned hazing as a part of that bystander intervention, but I don't think it's quite getting through. What I've learned through this is that we need to do a lot more education about the levels of hazing and why it's problematic.”

Maccombs agrees, “Hazing also persists due to underreporting and potentially due to having hazing policies and laws that are not yet fully refined.”