Above is the link and an excerpt. Hope you can read it all–Moderator.
……Likewise, the two new AKL members taken to the Pullman Regional Hospital caused WSU concern, MacKay says. Investigative notes reveal that on Aug. 20, the last night of Rush Week — when fraternities recruit students — one upperclassman at AKL heard about a new member who was sick. The upperclassman walked into the bathroom, according to the upperclassman’s account of the incident, and found the new member “flopping” around, “vomiting and throwing his upper body around while staying seated.”
The upperclassman took him to the hospital, and the new member was released by early the next morning. (In the records provided to the Inlander, in response to a public records request, names of students were redacted.)
In early October, days before WSU launched their investigation of hazing, a new fraternity member fell out of his bed after drinking and got a concussion, MacKay says. He was taken to the hospital.
Incidents alleged to be hazing took place in what the frat called the “party room.” There, records say, new members were forced to finish bottles of beer. When they did “Edward Forty-Hands,” one new member reported that his hand was taped to another member’s hand with a bottle in between. Each person had another bottle taped to his free hand. They were told to finish all three bottles between the two of them.
At least once, the upperclassmen dumped out bean bags and made the new members clean all of it up while taped to another person. In another incident, a new member had his finger burned by an upperclassman’s lighter used to illuminate the dark party room, according to records.
Yet upperclassmen interviewed said that these types of things happened when they were pledges, too. And, at first, they told the school it was character building. One member said it was “not meant with malicious intent,” and instead was supposed to be about teaching accountability. He said the “definition of hazing has become muddy.”
But Jeremy Slivinski, CEO of the fraternity at its headquarters, told the members at WSU that the incidents were “abusive and a demonstration as to why fraternities are viewed poorly in this day and age. Brothers don’t hurt each other to prove or receive a demonstration of loyalty.”
The individual students involved are facing charges through the university’s student-conduct process that could result in discipline, MacKay says.
“We take this stuff really seriously,” MacKay says. “Protecting the health and safety of our students is critical.”
NO CHOICE?
To prevent future hazing incidents, Nuwer says there needs to be a change in culture. Fraternities are founded on principles of camaraderie and loyalty to one another. When they get in trouble, they tend to cover for one another.
“There’s a lot of self-delusion after the incident,” Nuwer says.
Fraternity members don’t know when they’re hazed, he says, because often they can’t identify hazing behaviors. And when they try to reform the system, they often get pressure from alumni.
