What’s New in Hazing?
Female Deaths
More female students are dying due to hazing. Victims are not only dying on the couches of fraternity houses. Students of all ethnicity are dying due to negligence-physical pain and psychological suffering. Young women, Asian, Afro-American and others are dead due to the hazing traditions in their sororities.
Legal Loopholes
Greek organizations are renaming hazing rituals and elongating the hazing process, in order to skirt the legal definitions used by colleges and states. For example, they will initiate new members in a shorter period of time, but continue to haze them even after they have been identified as “full members.” In this way, the groups claim that the rituals were not hazing, and/or not illegal according to the letter of the law.
Sexualized Hazing
Hazing continues to incorporate sexualized events. From a psychological perspective, using sexualized hazing is the quickest method of humiliating a student. It immediately demonstrates the hierarchy and makes the victim feel completely helpless.