Exterminating the Frat Rats:

Why Greeks Need to Expel Hazers in Their Midst

essay by Hank Nuwer

When I belonged to a fraternity in college and was hazed and hazed others, I hated the term "frat rat." Now, I try to exterminate frat rats. It's my job.

First, an explanation why that pejorative term "Frat rat" applies here to hazers. I do not apply the term to those who do not haze or are part of the growing Greek anti-hazing movement. I've learned in my reading that a "rat" in farming communities is a laborer hired to nibble patiently at an old barn's beams and supports with a small tool until the whole structure collapses -- just as he escapes.

Thus, "frat rat" describes all Greek members who abuse, degrade, and humiliate pledges -- then graduate. Metaphorically, these few chew away at the foundations of Greek houses and threaten to bring the system crashing down on the heads of all. They leave, but their hazing practices stay.

My new book Wrongs of Passage opens with the 1993 death of Chad Saucier, a community college student from Mobile, Alabama. Auburn University's Phi Delta Theta allowed Chad to pledge even though he was academically ineligible by local and national rules. He died grotesquely, dressed in a goofy elf suit, after swilling liquor during a traditional Christmas party in which members "encouraged" new "men" (all under 21) to drink. Having swilled enough whiskey and Jagermeister to flatten four strapping males, Chad's intestines twisted inside him as he convulsed on the fraternity house floor. He may or may not have heard a hammering against his own chest. A brother slammed Chad's heart with his fists in a futile effort to bring him around.

Right up to the minute Chad died, the Auburn members and pledges were laughing. For them, hazing was a commonplace behavior without consequences. Others even argued that what Chad went through failed to meet their own personal definitions of hazing. In contrast, Chad's parents and Auburn administrators expressed horror that he died trying to please those fraternity brothers; they agreed that the bottle exchange was a dangerous custom in need of abolishing.

Longtime Auburn student life professional Deborah Shaw Conner, an outspoken critic of hazing, could offer no assurance that the death would not be repeated. "I have dealt with five hazing cases in the last three months, all at Auburn University, all with some of our older, traditional chapters," said Conner, Director of Foy Student Union and Student Leadership, in an e-mail interview for Wrongs of Passage. "One in particular sounds so similar to what the Phi Delts were doing the night Chad died: a Christmas party with lots of alcohol, pledges getting drunk, pledges performing for the actives, etc. Why are things not different after Chad's death? I wish I had the answer."

Here is the answer. Hazing is endemic in American schools from junior high through graduate and professional schools. It is also rampant in the military and a hidden cancer for oil riggers, firemen, and others in the workforce. For example, an 18-year-old female ambulance driver died from a booze binge her new male colleagues asked her to endure as an initiation.

Initiation rites have been an important part of different cultures throughout history. Few of us go through life without taking part in some sort of rite of passage. I have no problem with the validity and value of certain initiation rituals; the majority of people who take part in fraternal initiations are "normal" individuals, not sociopaths. What I am referring to are rituals that exhibit cult-like characteristics - monopolizing someone's time, robbing them of space, forcing them to accept an all-or-nothing group mentality. In short, I am opposed to rituals of a pathological nature - hazing as we've collectively come to call these wrongs of passage.

To stop the problem of hazing in society, it will take large-scale, directed strategies by the public, legislators, educators, and Greek groups. Past fraternal solutions such as "Greek Week," "Help Week," bans on pledging and dry houses were well-intentioned (and may even have saved some lives), but they have failed to kill the roots of hazing. The problem -- and student deaths -- continue.

Hazing History

Although hazing is mostly associated in the media with athletes and Greeks, the finger pointing in the U.S. goes back to 1657, when Harvard fined upperclassmen for freshman hazing. Many early college presidents, preferring absolute order to the flourishing of individual identities, encouraged hazing. They saw it as a way to teach precedence, build school loyalty and assimilate students from all economic classes.

Class hazing resulted in hundreds of serious injuries and some deaths. (Other 19th century presidents at Amherst, Michigan, Miami of Ohio, and Indiana University condemned hazing.) With a few exceptions, until the mid-1920s, most campus hazing deaths (Amherst, MIT, Kentucky, Colgate, Hamilton, Franklin and Marshall, Northwestern, Purdue, etc.) occurred in freshman-sophomore class scraps. But after 1928, hazing deaths in fraternities began to eclipse the total of class hazing deaths.

Attitudes haven't fully changed for the better since the 19th century. Too many college administrators have turned their heads while hazing goes on -- performed by fraternity chapters whose members show unbridled school spirit and who contribute big bucks as alumni. These presidents and deans instituted the right policies, but students knew they could haze so long as they didn't rub things in an administrator's face.

Until the 1970s, hazing deaths occurred infrequently enough that college presidents who suffered one could lament them as "isolated" accidents. But the presence of alcohol in the initiations of local and National Interfraternity Conference fraternities contributed to a documentable rise in initiation deaths. Likewise, serious beating injuries and occasional deaths in African-American fraternities also began in the mid-70s (although alcohol has been a factor in few deaths of black pledges). Sororities had two hazing deaths in the 1970s (one in a local group and one in a national) but none in the last 20 years. However, alcohol-related deaths of sorority women in the 1990s have raised the vigilance of national sorority headquarters.

High School Hazing

The Alfred University/NCAA survey last month revealed that nearly half of all collegian athletes say they were first hazed in high school or even in middle school. Thus, hazing -- a ritual that gives hazers a sense of power, entitlement, and occasionally sadistic pleasure -- must also be addressed by educators who work with teens and preteens. Unfortunately, high school educators lag far behind collegiate Greek administrators and the heads of Greek headquarters when it comes to an awareness of hazing problems. In the last decade, high school hazings include acts of sodomy, sexual assaults and coerced sexual simulations, forced drinking, paddlings, coatings with foul or vile substances, and the eating of repulsive substances.

Why does hazing flourish in many high schools? It may have something to do with the fundamental drawbacks of the U.S. educational system, which is charged with serving the needs of a great many young people. Some teenagers are brilliant introverts who reject the hero worship of athletes and beautiful people rampant in high school. The students who attack these "outsiders" sometimes act on overt cues from some teachers and administrators. Often, these adults' words and actions teach the students that nonconformists have two choices -- assimilation or isolation. High school hazing of freshmen and rookies can be particularly vicious when directed toward nonconformists struggling to find an identity. In fact, hazing is part of a larger culture of violence and destruction.

Could it be that school shootings are just part of a destructive, self-fulfilling prophesy? That the Columbine High School trenchcoat mafia shooters acted from a misguided sense of revenge when they opened fire? If so, all the more reason to end hazing and bullying.

Hazing in U.S. Culture

Ending hazing in U.S. secondary schools and colleges would be an important step toward ending the wider acceptance of casual violence in our culture today. Before that occurs, educators, legislators, journalists, parents, students, and the public at large must examine the issue of hazing intellectually and unemotionally. A constant goal must be the desire to create civility in U.S. classrooms. Educators err when they call for a return to the values of founders and old-time students. Records of early schools show that our forefathers were inclined, as children and young adults, to partake in hazing acts few parents today would want their children to emulate. In fact, many fraternity chapters that haze rationalize their actions by calling them a part of tradition. They ignore the best of what these national fraternity founders strove to accomplish: a sense of community, a system of honor, the courage to live one's ideals, and a respect for the academic life of the mind and the benefits of exercise.

So why don't college presidents and trustees simply end hazing? The reality is that while academe contains some of the country's finest minds, they have not, as an Alfred University professor I interviewed remarked, shown themselves to be a very heroic bunch. Too many people in academe (uninvolved faculty, overworked administrators, and students looking for a ticket to a future job) act like members of a dysfunctional family. According to alcohol abuse expert Jim Arnold, "addictive organizations" like fraternities thrive in such a climate. They are unlikely to change the behaviors they think give them status on campus. It's only when a hazing death or disgusting incident occurs -- something shocking that arouses the press' wrath and shames administrators -- that there is likely to be widespread campus acknowledgement that hazing is insidious and harmful.

In spite of dozens of hazing deaths, only Alfred and Auburn Universities have shown remorse by inviting the mothers of deceased pledges to come to campus and speak of their grief. Why don't the mass of students change their behavior even when more Chad Sauciers die? Our larger culture has become inured to violence. It elevates anyone who survives an ordeal like hazing. It hates the "wimp" who says, "no, I'm outta here" or "tattles."

People Who Defend Hazing

I'm aware that many people despise my stand against hazing made more than 20 years ago. These people tell me they want hazing to continue -- despite its being illegal in 41 states, including Indiana. I have received several e-mail messages defending hazing:--"America is the land of the free [with] the freedom to join whatever group that you want," wrote David O'Mara, 23. "If I want to join a group that beats the crap out of me every day, I can. If I want to join a group that requires me to drink 6 gallons of wine in a day to join, I can. Pledging my fraternity was the best thing I did." "I think this is much ado about nothing," Suellen Shea of Vista, California, wrote last night. "No wonder there are so many wimps in society today. EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE A VICTIM! Unless there is extreme physical harm being done then hazing amongst teams, social clubs/groups, etc. is good and a bonding experience. Once you've 'been there, done that' you're proud of yourself and it is a brotherhood-bonding thing. I am the wife of a Marine officer (former college football player & frat guy) and mother of 3 sons -- all athletes, in frats., college grads, etc. AND ALL HAVE BEEN THRU THIS STUFF MANY TIMES/ NO BIG DEAL!!!" "You are making a federal case out of nothing. I bet you a case of beer that more people are injured playing sports...than ever got hurt from [athletic] initiations," said fraternity alumnus Mike Modde who urged me to get a life. "Are you in a make-work program to find something to write about? Figure out how many people went down the road and got drunk but graduated and now have become successful, raised a family, pulled pranks and even survived an initiation."

Even many members of the media defend hazing. Writers for Sports Illustrated, Rocky Mountain News, and other publications praised the hazing which 80 percent of all surveyed NCAA college athletes say they have experienced." We're all for college and pro hazing," said SI's Richard Hoffer, saying it builds camaraderie, teaches humility. "All" presumably includes the two New Orleans Saints rookies hospitalized after a 1998 gang-like beat-in and the family of Nicholas Haben, a Western Illinois Lacrosse Club rookie who died of drink during his initiation.

"I would laugh were I the Douglas County (CO) district attorney who gets handed the report on this so-called crime," wrote Bill Johnson, a Rocky Mountain News columnist, after some high school students were busted for taping first-year students with duct tape and making them kiss shoes. "I would remember my freshman and senior years of high school, when I got and gave what those kids received," wrote Johnson. "I would tell the police to bring me real crimes."

If Mr. Johnson wants "real" crimes, high school hazings in the 1990s involve sodomy, sexual assault, and physical abuse. Such media critics who extol the pleasures of collegiate team hazing trivialize the death of Nicholas Haben and others like him. And while few people want to see kids who haze (with the exception of pledge deaths or serious injuries caused by negligence, beatings, sadistic acts) packed in jails with sociopaths and hardened criminals, ignoring them is equally wrong. Charging hazers with a crime is an important step toward getting them into awareness seminars and community service-related programs where they can rethink their actions. What's also needed is nationwide reform that allows middle schools and high schools to hold back the diplomas of hazers and other students guilty of uncivil behavior -- unless they can show evidence of remorse, such as the performance of meaningful community service.

Death of Hazing

All is not hopeless. Indianapolis, which has the country's highest number of international fraternity and sorority headquarters, is also a center of Greek idea-sharing and reform. In part this is because several executive directors have personally attended the funerals of pledges. These individuals say they realize that Greek life may be fun, rewarding, and worthy in its mentoring -- but it is not worth dying for. These leaders are sending undergraduates a no-nonsense message: Eat and be merry, but drink responsibly or tomorrow you -- and your chapter -- will die. Hundreds of chapters nationally have been shut down for hazing or alcohol violations. Many chapters that choose to go alcohol-free get rewarded with foundation dollars to help them maintain their fraternity houses. Also tightening the screws are local universities, with Purdue, Indiana, Ball State, DePauw and Indiana State (among others) getting much tougher on hazing and alcohol violations in 1999 than in the 1980s.

Dave Westol, chief executive of Indy-based Theta Chi, has seen what happens when chapters endanger their pledges. Since 1997 three pledging and/or alcohol-related deaths have occurred in New York and New Jersey chapter houses of Theta Chi. One wrenching case involved 17-year-old Theta Chi pledge, Bini Oja, in a 1997 alcohol-related hazing at Clarkson University (New York). "The death at Clarkson was a terrible experience for everyone involved. Not a day goes by that I don't think about it," said Westol. "But, I also know that if we don't respond to it with education and emphasis, we are not acting in a responsible fashion. "Westol visits chapters and repeats the message that hazing is wrong and that alcohol can kill you if you abuse it. His former career as a Michigan assistant prosecutor gives him a hard-edged approach to enforcement when a chapter deceives him or shatters rules. He says he gives a grace period to a chapter really trying to clean up its act, but his patience erodes "with groups whose members don't get it."

Of all the issues, alcohol has caused the biggest problem for Greek headquarters. In spite of educational forums, research, and speakers (which do persuade some to avoid the pitfalls and dangers of alcohol), the problem continues to escalate, according to studies conducted by the College Alcohol Studies Program at the Harvard University School of Public Health." This is a complicated issue," said alcohol abuse expert Jim Arnold. "For better or worse, alcohol and the life of the traditional age college student have gone hand in hand for ages. Many, if not most, traditional age college students believe that college life and alcohol use are synonymous." Arnold's dissertation, sold on the Internet by Amazon.com, discusses the role of alcohol in what he terms an addictive system. "Generation after generation of fraternity-chapter members (in the group I studied) are indoctrinated into the ways of the group, including the pervasive use of alcohol," said Arnold. "And the group I wrote about was not a 'bad' group. They were identified on campus, by administrators and other in the know, as the 'most responsible' fraternity there."

Dave Westol broods on finding ways to change the culture of drinking. He said that his job is made harder when older fraternity alumni and even parents view alcohol and hazing as romantic, college "fun-things" to do. Alums and occasionally the fathers of members come to chapter houses to relive their student days by popping brews, giving undergraduates an unfortunate example. "One of the challenges we face these days is alumni and parents who say, 'Gee, I drank in my day....,'" said Westol. "I answer, 'Yes, but not like they're drinking today'... It's a different culture."

In 1997, many National Interfraternity Conference fraternities (with the support of the National Panhellenic Conference sororities who all had alcohol-free house policies) decided that fraternities would abolish alcohol in chapter houses by 2000. The historically African American groups (with an umbrella group headquartered in Bloomington) theoretically banned pledging in 1990 in a similar reform effort. Unfortunately, not all undergraduate chapters voted to accept the ambitious NIC/NPC Select 2000 (dry house) plan, just as many black chapters continue to illicitly conduct hazing in so-called "renegade" pledging activities. Some NIC member fraternities voted to delay acceptance until 2003 or later. Outgoing NIC head Jonathan Brant (he's taken a job with Beta Theta Pi Foundation in Ohio) stressed in an interview that the dry house movement has been delayed but remains alive. "There is still a desire to address systematic change from entertainment-based chapters to purposeful [chapters] on campus," said Brant.But some observing the Greek scene are less than enamored with plans to make houses alcohol-free.

Activist Rita Saucier, whose son Chad died at Auburn, fears that some chapters that signed on to be "dry" will break their vows. She wonders if reforms are designed more by fraternal lawyers to stop litigation than they are to stop pledging deaths. "I believe dry houses are yet another way that fraternities protect themselves in lawsuits," said Saucier. "It is just another means of not being held accountable for hazing."

Dave Westol insists that draining alcohol from the fraternal bloodstream is only a start. The real job of reform ahead means changing the student culture chapter-by-chapter -- working in tandem with others hoping to make changes in society as a whole. Instead of serving as the nation's bartender and recruiting potential alcoholics, fraternities need to recruit members who find other, positive ways to assert their maleness and individuality. "If we change the culture, we change the type of men who join," said Westol.

Westol knows full well the bright and dark sides of the young people he mentors. A former hazer as a collegiate undergraduate who changed as a matter of conscience, he is a fiery speaker who crosses the country to speak before fraternity and sorority audiences. He minces no words, hides no secrets. "...If I have just one undergraduate walk up afterwards and say, 'You made me rethink what we do and I'm going to make some changes,' then it's been a success," said Westol. "Part of my motivation is drawn from my personal experiences on both sides of the hazing fence; part of it is, I am sure, feeling guilty about what I did in the name of my fraternity; part of it is a response to the arrogance of hazers -- the people who sit in the back of the room, arms folded, muttering to themselves."

Hazing's End

Unfortunately, no reforms can bring new hope to the dead. Chad Saucier and Chad's dreams will always be dead. He won't receive an Auburn degree. He won't marry and father his own children. He won't live the long, productive life of promise that his mother and father saw ahead of him. He won't experience anything positive the Greek system has to offer. To put it bluntly, that stinks.

While Chad remains in his grave, the frat rat species continues to haze. That's unacceptable. One positive outcome, however, is that the national Phi Delta Theta organization has taken an unrelenting position toward fraternal alcohol misuse since Chad's death.

During my own fraternity days at Buffalo State College this is what I experienced besides hazing: camaraderie, the introduction to my lifelong writing mentor, leadership skills, a million laughs, and those post-midnight discussions about getting jilted, the meaning of life, the death of buddies in Vietnam.

In short, the Greek system introduced me to many quality people. I hope quality Greeks won't rest until frat rats are extinct.

Copyright Hank Nuwer: First published in Nuvo Newsweekly -- November 1999

hnuwer@hanknuwer.com

http://www.hazing.hanknuwer.com/