Hazing-related Scholarship: Journal of the Canadian Historical Association; Visual Interpretations, Cartoons, & Caricatures of Student and Youth Cultures in University Yearbooks,
1898–19301
Authors: E. Lisa Panayotidis et Paul Stortz
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
Why do groups haze new members?
Excerpt:
The list grows ever longer: Names like Harry Lew, Chucky Stenzel, Chad Saucier, Gabe Higgins, Donna Bedinger, J. B. Joynt…and now Robert Champion. Its the list of people killed by hazing. Champion died of “blunt force trauma” that occurred during the FAMU marching band’s “Crossing Bus C” ritual, when his classmates punched and slapped him as he walked down the aisle of the band bus. He suffered so many injuries, inflicted by so many hands, that prosecutors charged 11 members of the band with felony hazing.
Hazing should never happen, but it does. Hank Nuwer’s Wrongs of Passage documents in excruciating detail the way fraternity pledges at some universities are ritually beaten, ridiculed, harassed, and coerced into abusing alcohol and drugs. New members of sports teams are subjected to physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. The recent suicide of Marine Lance Corporal Harry Lew has been linked to hazing. Marching bands, clubs, schools, businesses, even churches: they psychologically and physically harm their newest members.
Hazing is an entrenched group practice, and has been documented in ancient and modern societies and in all parts of the world. It’s a remnant of the modern-day group’s origins in the primal horde, designed to humble newcomers, remind them of their lowly status, and teach them to respect the group’s chain of command and traditions. Hazing legitimizes the abuse of power by group leaders, who claim the practice will unify the group, weed out the weak and uncommitted, and give newcomers a chance to prove their worth (Cimino, 2011).
But hazing is the wrong way to achieve any of these outcomes. Research in social psychology, including the classic study conducted by Eliott Aronson and Jud Mills in the 1950s, suggests that individuals rate positively groups which cause them to suffer, but other research indicates people like groups that support and reward them even more (Lodewijkx, van Zomeren, & Syroit, 2005). When Raalte, Cornelius, Linder, and Brewer (2007) examined the effects of two type of initiations—ones that involved group outings, swearing an oath, performing in skits, and doing community service and ones that involved kidnapping and abandonment, verbal abuse, physical punishment (spankings, whippings, and beatings), degradation and humiliation, sleep deprivation, alcohol abuse, running errands, and exclusion—they discovered the positive forms increased group unity. The negative forms backfired, creating tension and disunity in the group.
Here’s the full transcript of the call:
Dispatcher: 911. What is the address of your emergency?
McCann: Uh, 220 West Burrowes Street.
Dispatcher: You said 229?
McCann: 220. Two. Two. Zero. West Burrowes Street.
Dispatcher: OK, what’s your name?
McCann: Ryan McCann.
Dispatcher: And what’s going on today?
McCann: Ah, we have a friend who’s unconscious, he’s…hasn’t moved…probably going to need an ambulance.
Dispatcher: Ok, how old is he?
McCann: He is 19?…19 years old.
Dispatcher: And was he breathing?
McCann: He is breathing.
Dispatcher: Was there any alcohol or anything involved, do you know?
McCann: Yes, there is.
Dispatcher: Alright, we’ll get somebody over there, OK? If anything changes, call back and let us know.
McCann: Thank you very much. Buh-bye.
Dispatcher: You’re welcome. Buh-bye.
Here is the link to story and audio podcast
From the Minnesota Public Radio page of Kerri Miller
Some argue that hazing in college fraternities and athletics promote group cohesiveness and bonding.
But according to data compiled by Bloomberg News, there have been more than 60 fraternity-linked deaths in the past eight years.
Recent incidents include a student who died at Penn State. And at Carleton College in Minnesota, there was an alleged sexual assault following a hazing incident.
So why does hazing persist? How dangerous is it, and what can be done to stop it?
MPR News host Kerri Miller talked to hazing prevention advocate Lianne Kowiak who lost a 19-year-old son due to fraternity hazing, and journalist Hank Nuwer, who’s written many books on the subject of hazing.
Use the audio player above to hear their conversation.
Link to my story for Campus Safety
here have been more than 170 hazing deaths in collegiate fraternities, sororities, a band, ROTC and sports teams all told. A survey of large and small public and private institutions conducted by University of Maine researchers Elizabeth Allan and Mary Madden found that around half of all students in fraternities, clubs, teams and other organizations reported that they had been hazed.
Among the hazing practices uncovered by the researchers were forced or coerced drinking, physical abuse, screaming in so-called lineups, being abandoned in the countryside, nudity, improper touching, paddling and beatings. Deaths at Chico State University and Plattsburgh State University were caused by pledges being forced to drink many gallons of water, an act that severely upset the body chemistry of Matt Carrington and Walter Dean Jennings, the dead pledges.
The 32 National Campus Safety Initiative (32 NCSI) defines hazing as any activity expected of someone joining a group that humiliates, degrades or risks emotional and or physical harm, regardless of the person’s willingness to participate.
Significantly, punishments for criminal hazing have been historically mild, and in many cases, defendants get no jail time or a very small fine and community service at most. Male fraternities have by far been the most deadly of all groups that haze. To put it into perspective, according to my research, there has been at least one hazing death on a college campus every year from 1970 to 2015. (NOW 2017–Moderator