This Week in CQ Researcher

Preventing Hazing: Can Tougher Laws Stop Violent Rituals?
by David Hosansky
 
"David Bogenberger and his fellow pledges were required to drink alcohol — a lot of it — as part of the initiation ritual at the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity at Northern Illinois University. During the hazing, 19-year-old Bogenberger and the other pledges were taken from room to room in the fraternity house, each time asked a series of questions and then told to drink cups of vodka and other liquor.

When Bogenberger's lifeless body was found in the house early the next morning, on Nov. 2, 2012, his blood alcohol content was about five times the legal limit for driving. The cause of death was cardiac arrhythmia with alcohol intoxication as a contributing factor.

'He wanted to be liked. He wanted to be accepted,' said Peter R. Coladarci, the Bogenberger family attorney. “It's a classic case of a kid who just wants to fit in with the group.

Such initiation rituals are hardly unusual. And hazing-related deaths, while infrequent, happen every year.

Studies show that hazing, although prohibited by most states and many schools, remains pervasive across the country — and not just at college fraternities and sororities. Professional sports leagues also celebrate the practice, with photos posted to the Web each year of rookies being hazed. In the U.S. military, a soldier and a Marine in Afghanistan committed suicide after being hazed in separate incidents, spurring a congressional outcry and prosecution of the perpetrators by the Pentagon. In high schools and colleges, male and female students continue to engage in the sometimes dangerous rituals, even as school administrators have stepped up anti-hazing campaigns. [...]

Hazing rituals have occurred since the days of ancient Greece and Rome, typically as a way for young people to prove their worth to a group they want to join. Rituals can range from seemingly innocuous activities, such as dressing up in silly clothing or singing a school song in front of the group, to physical or psychological brutality."

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