DAVID GREENE: And let’s turn, now, to the story at Florida A&M University. That school’s Marching 100 Band has traditionally been a great source of pride for the historically black institution. But that changed dramatically on November 19, 2011. On that day, in a brutal hazing incident, 26-year-old drum major Robert Champion was beaten to death by fellow band members. This past Wednesday, charges were brought against 13 individuals, putting a fresh spotlight on that case. Now Florida Public Radio’s Lynn Hatter reports that the incident has put the future of the university’s marching band in question.

LYNN HATTER: The hazing death of Robert Champion has brought the band’s storied performances to a screeching halt. The university placed the band on an indefinite suspension immediately following Champion’s death. The Marching 100 used to perform at bowl games and presidential inaugural parades. But no more. Pam Champion, Robert’s mother, says the group needs to remain suspended until hazing has been completely eradicated from campus.

PAM CHAMPION: You cannot go on as usual, business as usual, with that band and the functioning of that school.

LYNN HATTER: Florida Governor Rick Scott expressed sympathy for the family. But he stopped short of saying the Marching 100 Band should go away forever.

RICK SCOTT: I think that we ought to finish and make sure that there’s not going to be anything that’s like this happen again. I don’t think we’re that position yet. The band’s got a great history, but we can’t afford to have – lose another individual like Robert Champion.

LYNN HATTER: Florida A&M University has been in embroiled in controversy since Champion’s death. And the Florida state school has struggled to respond to public concerns about the persistence of hazing within the marching band.

HANK NUWER: There is a kind of belief that hazing is still necessary in order to keep the status quo in a group, in order to add a certain cache or prestige to the group. And those beliefs die hard.

LYNN HATTER: That’s hazing expert Hank Nuwer. He teaches at Franklin College. Champion’s death resurfaced a long history of hazing within the band. In 1989, eight members were jailed for hazing. In 2002, a hazing lawsuit resulted in a $1.8 million civil judgment.

FAMU psychology professor Dr. Seward Hamilton has surveyed students about hazing. And of those surveyed, he found a significant minority said even advisors and coaches participated.

SEWARD HAMILTON: We have to be careful about who we put in leadership positions.

LYNN HATTER: Following the announcement of criminal charges, University Board of Trustees Chairman Solomon Badger said in a written statement the university is vigorously trying to eradicate hazing. FAMU’s 13,000 students are now required to report incidents within 24 hours. Students must now also sign an anti-hazing pledge.

And the university board of trustees created a task force. However, that group has broken apart due to internal disagreements. But those measures still aren’t enough for Pam Champion.

PAM CHAMPION: You have to clean house in order to get that mess out of there.

LYNN HATTER: The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is actively looking into additional cases of hazing within the Marching 100.

Read another view of the tragedy here

Link to the story

President Henry Pritchett, MIT

President Pritchett, fairly new to his office at MIT, attended a cane rush, which he later said was even more dangerous than football, the sport that had then claimed many victims due to a play called the flying wedge. Hugh C. Clarke died and another participant was seriously injured in the deadly class fight. –Hank Nuwer, Hazing: Destroying Young Lives author

I kind of knew it was a fun time turning into an anger driven time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: So how could girls or anyone, for that matter, do this to their own classmates?

Hank Nuwer is the author of three books on hazing. The most recent is titled “Broken Pledges.”

He’s joining us now this morning from Indianapolis.

Thanks for being here, sir.

HANK NUWER, AUTHOR, “BROKEN PLEDGES”: Thank you.

COLLINS: I want to ask you, let’s put in perspective for a moment this incident. We know this has been going on for a long time at this school, but how widespread is this sort of violence?

NUWER: Well, we know that publicly by tracking incidents we can get anywhere from 35 to 50 incidents a year. But that’s sort of a tip of the bucket as to what’s really occurring in numbers. Studies by Alfred University show that among athletes, for example, about 44 to 46 percent will tell you that their hazing started in high school or junior high school.

COLLINS: And we’re kind of used to hearing about it at the college level and between men. But the high school level and between girls, why is that happening? Is this a trend?

NUWER: Well, I think more than a trend. I think we’re seeing societal activities that are shifting and changing. In the ’80s, you rarely heard about cases of hazing incidents or hazing deaths. There were two hazing deaths in sorority reported up to the year 2002. And there were two reported in 2002, and a lot more incidents involving paddling or actually branding by young women and so forth.

I think as women gain parity in the workplace, gain status with men, we have to watch out and be aware as educators that some adverse rituals may be creeping into our initiations.

COLLINS: Hank, we’ve been talking this morning a little bit about the fact that the incident did happen off school property, so we’ll hear, I’m sure, in days to come statements from the school officials about their responsibility.

What about the responsibility of the parents?

NUWER: Well, it’s interesting, in terms of the school first, in that a lot of attorneys tell schools to distance themselves if they have too much of a duty to care, if they get too involved, that they may be responsible.

In terms of the parents, it’s a whole lot of responsibility to work through the PTA, to be aware, to have educational programs that try to head this off. And if parents see their son or daughter heading off in a football shirt with paraphernalia, a pellet gun, for goodness sakes, then they need to step in and halt it. It should have never gotten to this stage.

COLLINS: All right, Hank Nuwer, we certainly appreciate your insight.

NUWER: Thank you.

COLLINS: Author of “Broken Pledges,” coming to us from Indianapolis this morning.

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COOPER: Hey, there. Good evening. Thanks for joining us. We’ve got a lot ahead tonight.

COOPER: They called it water torture. It’s not just this one underground fraternity that hazes, not by a long shot. Remember the girls on that Chicago high school football team, the powder puff team they called it. Well, it’s average, ordinary young men and women who do it. The question is, why?

Hank Nuwer is the author of “The Hazing Reader.” He joins us tonight from Indianapolis. Hank, thanks for being with us. I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances.

You know you heard from the pledge in that piece who said, “I wanted to walk away, but I didn’t.” Why don’t pledges just say, this is ridiculous.

HANK NUWER, “THE HAZING READER”: Well, we live at a time where status and wanting to belong would be very, very important to a young person, and that person is seen others of status get into the group and supposedly they have endured a lot of rituals. So this person goes through an ordeal and expects to get respect and status by going through it.

COOPER: Remember that powder puff football game, or whatever it was they called it. I think we have some video of that. You know, there were plenty of people just standing by on the sidelines watching this.

You know we talked about the pledges. Let’s talk about the people, the fraternity members and the people who were around them who were watching it. Why don’t they at some point step in and say, enough is enough?

NUWER: Well, in my new book, “The Hazing Reader,” we talk about group think, and people that are the bystanders tend to watch it because they either, number one, think that the group members are good people and they wouldn’t injure anyone or, number two, they’ve bought into the system and allowed these people to haze for them as sort of representatives of them. In terms of fighting this then, that 80 percent or so of bystanders would be the people we have to reach in early education programs so they do step in.

COOPER: But how do you reach these people? Because I mean this school in particular, where this young man died from this so-called water torture, you know they had a hazing hotline, they had education programs. This fraternity was apparently underground, but it wasn’t as if they had stuck their head in the sand. They were out there talking about hazing. That doesn’t seem to be enough.

NUWER: No, it isn’t enough. And I think that I would like to see people, in my opinion, reach into bullying programs as early as the first and second grades. What we are seeing…

COOPER: You’re saying it starts with bullying?

NUWER: Yes, I believe it does. I think that students are very, very aggressive, do not learn how to play at the early age. And so they turn to crime and violent behavior and sort of rituals like hazing in order to belong. And we are seeing that it kind of escalates over time.

COOPER: Yes, it certainly does escalate. And I think of this other video from Las Vegas, this gang or so-called gang, the 311 click (ph), who were basically videotaping themselves beating up somebody. I mean, it does veer into illegal behavior.

NUWER: It is totally into illegal behavior, and I think part of the frightening thing is that certainly police who work with gangs and so forth are not surprised by this. The point is, unless it gets on a video, we tend to overlook it. We have this sort of, we love a gladiator mentality in this country.

We have it in the media. We encourage it by the kind of shows that we have on television. And it’s certainly — these younger people are coming into it. The fights in Las Vegas came after something called the bum fights, in which bums were paid to engage in fights.

COOPER: Yes, I certainly remember those. Hank Nuwer, appreciate you joining us. I’m sorry we only talk about this stuff when there’s death. But I do appreciate you shedding some light on it. Thanks very much.

NUWER: Thank you very much.