20 Things You Didn’t Know About Hazing

Despite this being the end of the regular school year, fraternity hazing (which traditionally happens at the beginning of the school year) cases are popping-up all over the country, from UW-Madison to Alabama State.

Add to the list yesterday’s report from Tulane that 10 students were arrested for felony battery after burning their pledges with hot water and spraying them in the face with pepper spray.

In light of such news, here is COED’s 20 Things You Didn’t Know About Hazing.

20 Things You Didn’t Know About Hazing after the jump!

1 – Hazing has been part of the Greek system in the U.S. since 1830.

2 – Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, New Mexico, South Dakota and Wyoming are the only states without anti-hazing law.

3 – In states that have anti-hazing laws, frats CANNOT claim that victims consented as a defense in a civil suit.

4 – There are three categories of hazing, according to the site stophazing.org: subtle (ridicule or embarrassment), harassment (verbal abuse, sleep deprivation or threats) and violent (forced alcohol or drug consumption, water intoxication and more).

5 – Hazing become widespread after World War I, when soldiers returning home re-entered college, and used “discipline” techniques, learned in boot camp, on their peers.

6 – Because of hazing, some schools, such as Bates College in Maine, started banning fraternities as early as the mid-1800’s.

7 – According to an Alfred University study, roughly 48-percent of high school students have reportedly been subjected to hazing.

8 – Sigma Nu was founded after the Civil War by three underclassmen at the Virgina Military Institute who opposed the school’s extreme hazing rituals.

9 – Purdue University suspended Delta Tau Delta after some DTDs stripped a member down to his boxers, bound him in duct tape and left him out in sub-zero weather.

10 – In 2003, FoxNews.com reported that a 20-year-old pledge at Plymouth State University was killed after being thrown from a car in a hazing incident.

11 – Membership at the Farmhouse Fraternity International at the University of Minnesota may be contingent on pledges having sex with animals in livestock pens.

12 – Five Kappa Alpha Psi members at Florida A&M were arrested for allegedly beating a pledge for four consecutive nights during Hell Week.

13 – Hazing affects the smart ones, too: In 1997, a fraternity pledge at MIT died after being forced to drink copious amounts of alcohol.

14 – Roughly, 30 years ago, Sigma Epsilon pledges at Syracuse had to live in a dark locked attic for a week.

15 – At the University of Minnesota-Morris, some frats reportedly covered pledges in honey, tied them to trees and cover them in ants.

16 – 160 Some sororities practice the “circle of fat” ritual, during which all “sisters” circle the fat parts of a pledge’s body with a magic marker.

17 – Police officers found a goat in a storage room at the Alpha Gamma Ro house at Western Kentucky University. It’s purpose? Never determined.

18 – According to Wikipedia, some students at Indian and Asian colleges are forced to chant sexually-charged limericks and masturbate in public.

19 – Hazing has been associated with more than 50 deaths in college.

20 – During his frat days, President George W. Bush used red-hot coat hangers to brand pledges.

If you have any to add to the list, let us know in the comments!