I was reading an article on the worst college hazing acts ever recorded. According to Tru TV online, a student at the University of Tennessee was arrested after she covered a pledge in ice, chocolate, and eggs. She then kicked and punched the girl repeatedly causing internal bleeding and a concussion.
Ten male students from Louisiana's Tulane University were arrested after two male pledges wound up in the hospital with second and third degree burns. The students poured boiling water on at least ten pledges and covered them with wasabi, cayenne peppers and flour. The chapter was also slapped with a wrongful death suit when a student die as a result of alcohol poisoning after he was forced to drink excessively by the older students.
After reading a few more stories, I realized that a majority of the problems were directly due to drinking. Older students have adopted these ridiculous drinking parties that require pledges to drink a disgusting amount of alcohol to strengthen their bonds with the members. Of course, this isn’t a problem for all sororities or fraternities, but it is a problem for some. Most of these kids are away from home for the first time and given a large amount of freedom that they are not used to. They look up to older students and are struggling to fit in to a new place. It is such a waste to end your life in such a horrible way. It seems that all these frats and sororities that are accused of participating in these acts already have long lists of behavior problems. It seems that someone should have had an eye on them.
I’ve seen this one too many times in the news. It’s really too sad when this hazing crap ends up in death. I really look down on the fraternity and sororities that implement such methods.
ReplyDeleteOne of the ones that I saw didn’t even include drinking beer; it was just a shit load of water. I don’t even remember how many gallons of water, but ultimately one of the kids getting hazed drowned himself. He had drunk so much water that he passed out and the older kids there left him collapsed supposedly to recover. Unfortunately, he didn’t, he has so much water that it had filled his lungs and drowned himself.
This just goes to show that even hazing that seems innocent, isn’t, and can end up with fatalities as much as dangerous ones. I mean who would expect that someone would drown from drinking water?
Ultimately, hazing upsets me most because it is supposed to be some sort of initiation right, some sort of brotherly/sisterly devotion to bond members closer. But what sort of friend ships do you get out of making someone drink a ridiculous amount of anything? What sort of friendship do you get out of getting beaten horribly?
I’ve never heard of anyone making friends that way, let alone create some sort of strong bonds this way. I wouldn’t think being accepted would be worth loosing or taking a life. There are plenty of ways to create long lasting and strong sisterly/brotherly bonds, and I hope that those that implement harmful initiations realize this and find a new and appropriate way to create bonds.