In compliance with Pennsylvania’s recently-passed Act 80 of 2018, also known as the Timothy J. Piazza Anti-Hazing law, Drexel University released a report detailing all hazing investigations and violations that occurred between January 2014 and January 2019. The report included six known incidents from fraternities, sororities and academic fraternities.
The first incident mentioned in the report occurred November 2016 during an academic fraternity’s “new member education program.”
“During the … program, prohibited behaviors included degrading or humiliating games or activities, line-ups and/or berating, and sleep and/or food deprivation”, according to the report.
An investigation into the incident concluded the fraternity had violated university prohibitions on hazing and were sanctioned with a two year deferred suspension, in addition to bystander intervention education and a new member education review.
In the next month, a sorority and two of its officers were under investigation for similar prohibited behaviors in its new member education process, including degrading games/performances. The sorority and two officers were found in violation of Drexel’s anti-hazing policies. The sorority received a five year suspension of recognition, while the officers received permanent deferred suspension and had to write reflection papers.
There were four other incidents involving greek organization new member programs detailed in the report.
“A report was made that new members were seeking out free condoms to add to kits that were kept by brothers of the organization,” according to the report of a fraternity in fall 2017.
After an investigation, the university found that all members of the fraternity kept these kits and was therefore not a violation of hazing policies since the new members were not treated differently.
The most recent incident listed in the report was from the fall 2018 new member induction. In this incident, it was described that a new member had to be transported to a hospital due to intoxication. An investigation revealed the members of the fraternity encouraged new members to attend the event at a different group’s house and consume alcohol.
“Alcohol education for all members, fine, 2 year deferred suspension of recognition, 1 year social suspension, 1 year loss of recruitment privileges, audit and review of the new member education process,and implementing two educational programs for the greek community related to alcohol and hazing,” the report stated, listing the sanctions for the fraternity.
In addition to the initial report, Act 80 requires Drexel and other Pennsylvania schools and institutions to publicly report all hazing incidents moving forward. The new law also outlines stricter punishments for hazing, defines additional types of hazing and will hold both individuals and organizations responsible for hazing violations.
The Office of Student Life has also made changes to student code of conduct to reflect the new regulations in Act 80. These changes include revisions to the Responsible Dragon Amnesty Policy, alcohol policy, hazing policy, posting policy and the student organization conduct policy. An email detailing the updates was sent to students Thursday morning.