A little over a year ago, Governor Tom Wolf signed bill 1090, the Timothy J. Piazza Anti-Hazing law. The bill has increased penalties for hazing, and has assured safe guards to protect students from it.
Timothy J. Piazza was a 19 year old Penn State pledge for Beta Theta Pi who died in February, 2017, as a result of hazing activities for the fraternity.
Footage was discovered that proves the fraternity brothers waited hours before calling medical help. They are shown poking him on his face to assure he was still alive, and carrying him up the stairs onto a couch.
After the brothers called for medical assistance, they wiped blood off his face and dressed him to keep him warm. Some claim that this meant they had felt remorse, and concern for him.
After undergoing surgery on his swelled brain he was pronounced dead, on February 4th 2017.
The fraternity and its 18 members faced 850 criminal accounts.
The Anti-Hazing Law:
- Strengthened penalties for hazing with a tiered system that, for the first time, includes a felony for aggravated hazing that results in serious injury or death.
- Requiring schools to have anti-hazing rules, enforcement policies and preventative measures and provide information about hazing violations available to the public to help inform students and parents.
- Creates a safe-harbor provision, giving students immunity from prosecution for calling police or seeking assistance for someone in need of help.
- Holding organizations accountable for promoting hazing, which could include the confiscation of fraternity and sorority houses
Hazing is one of the oldest traditions, and it is most prevalent in male Fraternities in their ceremonies. Several colleges and fraternities have found ways to cover up deaths caused by hazing, but over 250 have been recorded since the 1800s. All of them are brutal, and several of them aren’t alcohol related.
The 1905 death of Stuart Pierson, a pledge for Delta Kappa Epsilon, at Kenyan University in Cambridge Ohio, cause of death was being hit by a train. This was after his brothers tied him to the tracks. And perhaps one of the most famous recorded deaths, was in 1873. Mortimer M. Leggett a pledge for Kappa Alpha for Cornel University in New York, was blindfolded in the woods, and fell off a cliff.
All of these sound barbaric, but to this day other causes of death included brutal beating, being set on fire, forms of sexual assault, and alcohol poisoning. Unfortunately many students are unaware of the severity of the hazing activities because they are kept secret by fraternities.
How To Protect Your Child/Young Adult From Hazing Or Being Involved:
- Assure your children are aware of the history, and current events due to hazing.
- Research the colleges that have harsh punishment for hazing, and educate on hazing dangers.
- Try to have transparency with them, or have a trusted family member or friend who does.
- Make sure there is a council on campus that they feel comfortable confiding in.
- It’s also important to assure your children who are already in a fraternity know the harsh punishment, and deadly outcome that can happen from hazing, if they are holding inanition ceremonies.
A National Study of Student Hazing reports that 55 percent of college students involved in clubs, teams, and organizations experience hazing.
Be Aware. Knowledge Saves Lives!
