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Fierberg and Crane: clean up the alcohol culture in houses a key to death prevention

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“I believe the fraternity industry has known the shortcomings (of its risk-management policies) for a long time and has done nothing to fix it,” said Douglas Fierberg, a Washington, D.C., attorney who has represented numerous victims of hazing and alcohol-related deaths nationwide.

There is a “duck and cover” mentality among universities and fraternities when an alcohol- or hazing-related death occurs, Fierberg said, and for that reason little has changed.

In an effort to deal with liability issues, a group of 47 national fraternities and sororities has banded together in an organization known as the Fraternal Information Program Group. According to the FIPG Web site, the organization’s goal is “to be the one-stop resource for risk-management education …” for the entire campus community.

By 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 and Best Humorist, second place.

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 Warsaw, Poland and 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 and in his weekly column "Far from Randolph" in the Winchester Star-Gazette of Randolph County, Indiana.

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