Here is the link. Our sincerest sympathy to Mr. Allen’s parents, family, college and friends.
However, I believe press coverage of Kyle Allen’s death has been lacking. Here is why:
Author: Hank Nuwer
Journalist Hank Nuwer tracks hazing deaths in fraternities and schools. Nuwer is the Alaska author of Hazing: Destroying Young Lives; Broken Pledges: The Deadly Rite of Hazing, High School Hazing, Wrongs of Passage and The Hazing Reader. In April of 2024 and April 2025 , the Alaska Press Club awarded him first place in the Best Columnist division.
He has written articles or columns on hazing for the Sunday Times of India, Toronto Globe & Mail, Harper's Magazine, Orlando Sentinel, The Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Times Sunday Magazine. His current book is Hazing: Destroying Young Lives from Indiana University Press. He is married to Malgorzata Wroblewska Nuwer of Fairbanks, Alaska. Nuwer is a former columnist for the Greenville (Ohio)Early Bird and former managing editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in Alaska.
Nuwer was named the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists columnist of the year in 2021 for his “After Darke” column in the Early Bird. He also won third place for the column in 2022 from the Indiana chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He and his wife Gosia, recently of Union City, Ind., have owned 20 acres in Alaska for many years. “The move is a sort-of coming home for us,” said Nuwer. As a journalist, he’s written about the Alaskan Iditarod sled-dog race and other Alaska topics. Read his musings in his blog at Real Alaska Daily--http://realalaskadaily.com
Sad news from Clinton, SC. No word on circumstances.
Excerpt:
Some experts have suggested that hazing may promote loyalty to the group, as well as increase the attractiveness of joining the group for outsiders. Yet, even the possible truth of these claims should be used as an argument against permitting hazing. The fact that these heinous actions draw in new members and boosts their allegiance to leaders who are then abusing them only shows why it is so important that hazing be stopped. In this regard, world-renowned hazing expert and Buffalo State College graduate Hank Nuwer describes hazing as “addictive.”
Hazing is addictive in its ability to suck victims in and increase their dependence on the harmful group. Certainly, it is troublesome for victims to be lured into and become addicted to something that puts them in danger. Additionally, the group atmosphere of hazing has frequently led offenders to relegate the blame for their atrocious actions on the group, rather than recognizing their own responsibility for what had occurred. This reduction of moral responsibility is hazardous in its ability to empower hazers to act without the restraint of ethical standards. As such, developing a comprehensive sociological understanding of why groups haze is critical.
Moderator: disclosure. I also was interviewed. I thought the CBS producer and interviewer Tracy Smith did a professional job. Attorney Doug Fierberg as always made compelling advocacy arguments. The work of the Starkey Family and retired activist Eileen Stevens (Mother of Alfred University’s late pledge Chuck Stenzel) is indeed admirable. Here is the link in case video gets added.
short excerpt from a much longer story
It was a half-time show worthy of the Super Bowl, when Florida A&M’s legendary band, the Marching 100, took the field for a college football game last November.
Just hours later, 26-year-old drum major Robert Champion lay dying in the band’s bus . . . brutally beaten in an alleged hazing ritual.
Champion’s senseless death sparked a national outcry over hazing . . . the same outcry as earlier last year after the hazing death of George Desdunes at Cornell . . . and in 2010 after the hazing death of Samuel Mason at Radford University . . . and in 2009 after the hazing death of Arman Partamian at Geneseo State . . .
The same outcry that has come with chilling regularity every year, for decades.
Hank Nuwer, a professor at Franklin College in Indiana, has spent the past 40 years documenting every hazing death in the United States. Since 1975, he says, “there’s been a death every particular year. Would I be very surprised if 2012 goes by without a death? Yes.”
Nuwer says hazing is anything that is required of a newcomer by veterans in a group that you have to go through – it may be silly, demeaning or dangerous.
And the record of dangerous, even deadly hazing, stretches back more than a century.
“The first verifiable incident, clearly, is 1873 at Cornell University,” said Nuwer. “It’s the death of Mortimer Leggett, who was the son of a Civil War general and hero. Leggett fell over the cliff. What got controversial is that there was a blindfold found there.”
For the next hundred years, more deaths followed sporadically. But about 30 years ago, Nuwer noticed a disturbing trend.
The one constant in 82 percent of hazing deaths, Nuwer found, was massive quantities of alcohol – part of a growing culture of binge drinking that is all too common at college campuses across America.