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. Read his musings in his blog at Real Alaska Daily--http://realalaskadaily.com
Fraternities have rarely been prosecuted after the hazing death of a student, and experts described the sentencing as one of the most stringent punishments handed down in such a case.
The student, Chun Hsien Deng, had traveled in December 2013 from New York City to a rental house in the Poconos where he was supposed to finish the pledging process for Pi Delta Psi, an Asian-American fraternity. Early on a frigid morning, Mr. Deng — blindfolded and wearing a backpack weighted with sand — was tackled and pushed around by fraternity members before he fell unconscious, the authorities said. He never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead the next day.
“This has proved to be the most troubling case to me in 19 years,” Judge Margherita Patti-Worthington said while issuing her ruling on Monday, referring to the details of Mr. Deng’s death and her time as a judge. She also noted the continued threat posed by hazing, pointing out another case in Pennsylvania, where a 19-year-old student died last year after a “pledge night” of drunken partying. “You only need to look at Penn State these days to understand,” she said.
Pi Delta Psi was also ordered to pay $112,500 in fines, and it was forbidden from operating in Pennsylvania as a condition of 10 years of probation imposed by the judge. The fraternity has two chapters in Pennsylvania, its lawyer said.
The fraternity plans on appealing, arguing that prosecutors had unfairly conflated the actions of individual members with those of the national fraternity. Prosecutors had described the rituals Mr. Deng had participated in as widely used by the fraternity, but Wieslaw Niemoczynski, the fraternity’s lawyer, said on Monday that the brutality of the hazing Mr. Deng faced was a “deviation and departure” from the usual ritual.
The fraternity, in a statement issued after the sentencing, described Mr. Deng, who went by Michael, as “the type of pledge who would likely become a model fraternity brother.”
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Chun Hsien Deng
“Michael Deng’s death was a loss not only to the family, but also to the fraternity and the community at large,” the fraternity said. Its members “feel shame and dishonor that fraternity brothers could be so callous and inhumane.”
The case has been noted as an example of prosecutors increasingly taking a more aggressive stance in pursuing criminal charges after college students are killed while being hazed.
But in Mr. Deng’s case, prosecutors took the unusual measure of charging the fraternity, which has had mixed results in previous cases. Hank Nuwer, a professor at Franklin College who tracks hazing cases, described the decision to prosecute and the outcome as noteworthy. Universities and student organizations have instituted educational programs and tightened rules to combat hazing. Yet, as students continue to die, Mr. Deng’s case could have broader implications.
“I think it’s a strategy that may work,” Professor Nuwer said, calling the amount of the fine and limitations implemented by the judge “not common at all.”
Five men and the fraternity were charged with third-degree murder, among other charges. Four of the men, who are expected to be sentenced later on Monday, pleaded guilty in May to reduced charges of voluntary manslaughter and hindering apprehension after reaching an agreement with prosecutors. The fraternity was acquitted of the murder charge in November.
Mr. Deng, an 18-year-old from Queens, collapsed while taking part in a ritual known as the “glass ceiling,” a gauntlet meant to represent the plight of Asian-Americans. He was the most defiant of the pledges, riling other fraternity members by kicking one of the men lined up to tackle him and not saying things he was supposed to, according to a grand jury report released in 2015. The others reacted forcefully, knocking him to the ground and one of them ran toward him from 15 feet away with his head lowered, the report said.
The members carried him inside; Mr. Deng’s body was stiff and his breathing became labored. They changed his clothes and tried unsuccessfully to revive him; one searched the internet for answers and another sent text messages to a friend asking about when his grandfather died after falling.
One of the fraternity members later told investigators, according to the report, they had resisted calling for an ambulance because one of them had looked up the cost and they thought it was expensive. A national fraternity official told members over the phone to hide anything bearing the fraternity’s logo, the report said.
About an hour later, Mr. Deng was driven to a hospital, where doctors found that he had sustained severe head trauma and his body head was covered in bruises. He died the next day.
The outcome of the Pi Delta Psi case could also have an impact beyond Pennsylvania, said CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson, who predicted a “chilling effect” on universities and fraternities nationwide.
“I think there’s a reckoning here,” Jackson said, comparing the attention placed on recent hazing deaths to last year’s #MeToo movement, which became a “tipping point” in how the public addresses sexual misconduct.
“For whatever reason, this has reached a crescendo, and we’re focused on it now,” Jackson said. “I think you will see forceful prosecutions in other jurisdictions and I think they can learn a lot from prosecutions in Pennsylvania.” Universities, he said, will pay attention.
Hank Nuwer, a journalist and professor at Franklin College in Indiana who has been tracking and writing about hazing deaths since the 1970s, agreed with Jackson’s assessment.
Nuwer said the verdict against Pi Delta Psi and looming sentence “strengthens the arsenal” for cases like Piazza’s and others involving hazing.
Parents of victims and activists “don’t think there’s enough being done” in these cases, Nuwer said, and are pressuring courts to take a harder look at hazing deaths than they have in the past.
“Judges are taking it more seriously,” said Nuwer, adding that lawyers who didn’t know how to bring a case against fraternities in the past now have greater understanding of how to handle such cases.
“I’m seeing huge changes from 1978 when my first article appeared,” he said. “These are important cases right now. That’s going to be interesting to see how magistrates and juries look at fraternities now.”
Hopefully, Jackson said, whatever sentence Pi Delta Psi receives, “it deters other fraternities” and ensures they enact policies to protect members and pledges.
“They’ll learn from the lessons of Pennsylvania,” Jackson said. “You’re going to see aggressive prosecutions until this stops and that’s the way it is.”
