Author: Hank Nuwer

Dear Congresswoman Wilson:  Hazing is one behavior problem in a school.  Plagiarism or the using of another person’s creative or research efforts without sourcing or attribution is another.

I support fully your attempts to get a federal law passed.

I do have to ask you why your poster with my hazing death list that I began so painstakingly in 1978 for Human Behavior magazine and updated just this month to 163 deaths was so cavalierly used by you without credit?

Please cease and desist in using information from my site without credit.

I put it up free of charge at great labor to myself for the public good.

I admire and acknowledge the work against hazing you are doing for the public good.

Now that I have given you credit, please grant my research equal measure of respect. — Respectfully, but insistently noting a “public cease and desist” request. Hank Nuwer, Moderator.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-09-20/news/fl-wilson-hazing-bill-20120920_1_robert-champion-pam-champion-congresswoman-frederica-wilson

Excerpt: She and other grieving relatives of hazing victims stood with Wilson behind a banner that depicted rows of tombstones and the words: “Hazing kills – 163 deaths to date. If you want to haze, lose your financial aid – not for days, but for LIFE!”

As a SUNY alumnus, I decry the letter to the New York Times written by head SUNY trustee H. Carl McCall to the New York Times. Dear H. Carl McCall, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kvetching.  In other words, say what positive steps have been taken but explain why hazing went on so long at SUNY Binghamton. How do you explain the near death in women’s volleyball at SUNY Geneseo? The deaths over time at Plattsburgh and Geneseo? http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/22/opinion/field-reports-the-hazing-at-binghamton-u.html

Saginaw Valley State’s President Eric Gilbertson hasn’t clue on definition of hazing; lets players return after alleged sexual hazing http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/20295825/saginaw-valley-prez-calls-sexual-assault-claim-a-case-of-bullying/rss

Thank you, Mr. Dobson–Moderator

A’im Akbar, a Tallahassee native and nationally recognized clinical psychologist, bluntly reminded the crowd that brutal hazing is an offshoot of what slaves endured and how that practice has misconstrued perceptions about power and dignity.“We let someone else define (our) worthiness by that person’s standards,” he said of the abusers.

Hank Nuwer, one of the country’s leading researchers on hazing and author of four books on the subject, called it a human-rights abuse and an “equal-opportunity disgrace” perpetuated today by influential pro athletes to fraternities and sororities, including those at other elite universities. He ran down a list of predominantly white universities that have struggled with hazing. He drew strong applause when, in responding to a Twitter-submitted question on what FAMU could do about it, he declared Thursday’s forum a milestone as the “largest gathering of anti-hazing speakers in the world.” http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20120923/OPINION05/309230009/Byron-Dobson-FAMU-freshmen-get-message

Excerpt:

Months or years go by, and another student drowns, overdoses or is savagely beaten. And we repeat ourselves all over again.

Remember Chad Meredith?

The 18-year-old pledge at (Miami) drowned in 2001 after fraternity brothers told him to try to swim across Lake Osceola on the UM campus. Meredith had been drinking. It was cold. And he never made it.

His death inspired state legislators to pass in 2005 the toughest hazing law in the country. Hazing convictions suddenly carried the potential of prison time.

“There is an incredible arrogance with these fraternity guys,” David Bianchi, the attorney who represented the Meredith family, told the Sentinel in 2005. “If they find out that the law in Florida has changed, they will not want to subject themselves to a felony. Going to jail — that will stop them.”

If only it were that easy.

“We thought that at the time,” Bianchi told me last week. “Yet these incidents continue … I think it’s worse today than ever.”

Since Meredith died, more than 30 other people have also died in hazing or pledging-related incidents across the country, though Champion’s is the only death in Florida.

The tough new law in 2005 was accompanied by tough talk. Consider this Democrat article that year about hazing, which reported: “Florida A&M University will declare an assault on hazing this fall, and students will be expected to attend seminars on the subject twice a year.”

That was in reaction to a band member paddled so hard he had kidney failure.

Last week, in response to Champion’s death, FAMU suspended classes to hold a meeting on hazing for students. The same day, a congresswoman proposed denying federal financial aid to students who haze.

And so the scenes play out again.