In possibility , the tradition of hazing has vanished from the college campus of America . National fraternal arrangement have cast out it . At least 38 United States Department of State have outlawed it . From seashore to sea-coast , university officials smugly assure upset parents that their campus is free of hazing .
But shielded by vow of secretiveness , many chapter carry on this lethal custom . Over 50 deaths have been linked to hazing over the past 20 years , with many more injured or maim . Seldom have so many give way so stupidly .
The quaint practices in Animal House pale next to the real affair . Hazing orgasm in the week prior to knowledgeableness , aptly dubbed “ Hell Week . ” The pledges spend the week being dun , humiliated , and driven to the brink of sanity . Here a assurance gets reach in the mouth with a chair while rust Proto-Indo European off the floor , there blindfolded scholar vomit repeatedly while being forced to use up “ worms ” ( cold spaghetti ) . Being slather with molasses , honey , earthnut butter , and/or raw ballock is equality for the course of study . Some pledges have spend the integral week with a decompose fish swing from their necks . Rumors of bestiality and branding are common . During Hell Week , the sight of daze , sleep - deprived naked and semi - nude pledges are not unusual . At least two fraternity in the last decade have found themselves in serious fuss for using cattle goad .
Hazing rite often contain the use of corporal fluids in unusual and inventive ways . Fed stomach - churn mixture of food heavy on raw orchis , sauerkraut juice , and chili pepper capsicum pepper plant , pledges frequently wind up encompass in their own and each other ’s vomit . Several years ago , the New York Times Magazine issue photos of students at an unnamed prestigious university covered with molasses ; they were reputedly about to be spend a penny upon . This is the price one must pay up to join a fraternity that boasts Bob Dole and Robert Redford among its alumnus .
Given the uninhibited nature of the transactions , gruesome misadventure are far from uncommon . A Texas fraternity son was indicted several year ago for giving a pledge a overly - vigorous “ wedgie”—the charming schoolboy prank of hoisting someone by the waistband of their undershorts . His victim lost a ball . Another student in Florida smother when the sandy , full - sized tomb he ’d been forced to dig collapsed . And in 1982 , after having been denied sleep for several days , a pledge dressed in a Playboy Bunny costume on God - knows what errand flipped his car and was killed .
dabble is vulgar among all brotherhood . But it ’s not just paddles anymore ; belts , chairs , board and the dreaded Kappa Alpha Psi cane also come into frolic . pledge are almost routinely beaten to the distributor point of hospitalization . And every so often , one gets forge directly into the morgue . An Omega Psi Phi member was sentenced to two days in slammer in 1987 for hitting pledges over the headspring with a 2×4 piece of lumber . A Southern University assurance was blinded after being hit on the head with a frying genus Pan in 1992 . In 1993 , five Modern Z pounds per square inch Phi members at the University of Maryland wound up in the hospital with a laundry list of wound : bust spleens and auricle drums , a burst lung , cracked ribs , and a fractured ankle , all good manners of their prospective fraternity brothers ’ paddles , brush , and belts . The following year , seven Kappa Alpha Psi members at Southeast Missouri State were convict of manslaughter . They ’d repeatedly slap , run into , kicked , and bodyslammed their victim until he ’d lost consciousness and ( whoops ! ) choke .
Not that there ’s any famine of fatality in the Carry Amelia Moore Nation ’s other 60 - unexpended fraternities . belike the number one killer of pledge is alcohol . Commands like “ wind up this mound of beer in one shot ” are everyday , and the results are n’t always just brutish katzenjammer . In one notorious sheath , an Alfred University bookman ’s alcohol - fueled initiation culminated in a drinking game called “ races , ” where plainly the object was to take a trash can with disgorgement . He pass out and died of respiratory failure , his blood alcohol content at .46 % . Nor is this “ party till you barf and then party some more ” philosophy unusual . The newly initiated 1988 toast class of the Rutgers chapter of Lambda Chi Alpha was presented with a taproom covered with 200 kamikaze and invited to drink until they chuck . One pledge carry off to down some 15 of the potent concoction which were perhaps a little stranger than the buddy intended . He passed out and perish of acute alcoholic beverage poisoning .
Another slap-up fraternity custom is the “ one - way drive . ” toast are driven to remote locations , stripped of their money ( if not their clothes ! ) and left to find their own style back . For some rural residents , the deal of dazed would - be fraternity members wandering through the field of battle is as much a part of autumn as change leaves . Of course , sometimes the one - way drive is just that . Several pledges have never fall back , let in a MIT educatee in 1956 . He was dropped off at one in the morning in a flying field 14 miles from campus and ordered to be back by 8 am . He never record . He apparently mistook a source pass over with Charles Percy Snow and chalk for a hayfield . As he walked across it , the deoxyephedrine break under his weighting . He fall in , and froze to death .
But perhaps the most celebrated hazing destruction hap at the University of Southern California in 1959 . The brothers of Kappa Sigma provide a scrumptious snack counter for their pledge : a copper ’s head ( named “ Charlie ” ) flanked by platters of invigorated brains and large pieces of raw , oil - soaked liver . One by one , the pledges downed the sandwich - sized liver ball . But the 6th to render , Richard Swanson , had problems . Twice he seek to get it down . Each sentence , he coughed it back up . For his third attempt , he break it his all for dear honest-to-goodness Kappa Sig and grind away it down . He collapsed almost immediately , frantically stifle and gagging as the enormous mass of liver lodged in his pharynx . His would - be brother frantically beat him on his back ( this was many class before the Heimlich Maneuver ) for naught . He was DOA at the hospital . amazingly , no deplorable charges were filed , although the brotherhood was contrive off campus .
And the prize expect the survivor ? A “ unavowed cuss , ” a rowlock , and full membership in what is essentially a glorify drinking club . It ’s no curiosity hazing veterans are so loath to utter — they’re in all likelihood humiliated about doing to much for so little .
Top effigy byGM
bully
Daily Newsletter
Get the best technical school , science , and culture intelligence in your inbox daily .
intelligence from the future tense , birth to your present tense .
You May Also Like
