The University of Virginia has booted another fraternity from Grounds in light of a new details regarding unlawful hazing rituals at the school, rituals ranging from disturbing to dangerous.
Theta Chi has had its fraternal organization agreement, or FOA, with the university terminated and the fraternity suspended from Grounds for at least four years. It joins Pi Kappa Alpha, which had its agreement terminated in April after brothers were accused of similar hazing activities.
Two more fraternal orders at the school, Pi Lambda Phi and Sigma Alpha Mu, are now under investigation and will have their cases adjudicated this coming fall, according to the the procedures of the student-run University Judiciary Committee. If the committee finds the claims against the fraternities have merit, they too could see their chapters pushed off Grounds.
An investigation conducted by UVa Office of Student Affairs found that new members of both Theta Chi and Pi Kappa Alpha were subjected brutal hazing during the spring semester: Pledges were verbally harassed, slapped across the face and told to consume a "mixture of heinous/unknown items and habanero peppers” causing students to vomit, lose sensation in their limbs and injure themselves.
Perhaps investigators’ most shocking discovery was found at Pi Kappa Alpha. Those seeking to join the fraternity had their bodies, including their genitals, doused in hot sauce. And in early April, one new recruit was hung with tape from a wooden cross and "force-fed a mixture of cottage cheese and hot sauce and had hot sauce placed on their body, including their genitals.”
Even more troubling, Theta Chi and Pi Kappa Alpha brothers were discovered attempting to deceive the university during the course of the investigation, according to the report.
Those individual members will be referred to the University Judiciary Committee and Honor Council "as appropriate," the report reads.
Justin Buck, executive vice president of Pi Kappa Alpha national, issued a strongly worded rebuke of his UVa brothers when the chapter’s agreement was terminated back in April. In a video posted to YouTube on April 17, Buck called his brothers at UVa an “embarrassment” and said they have “sullied and degraded” the organization’s good name.
Pi Kappa Alpha was founded at UVa on March 1, 1868.
“For the first time since March 1, 1868 … the Pi Kappa Alpha chapter at the University of Virginia had its charter suspended and revoked,” said Buck. “This action was taken following the confirmed abhorrent and detestable hazing activities by individuals.”
While UVa does not comment on hazing allegations, university spokeswoman Bethanie Glover told The Daily Progress the school “takes the allegations of such misconduct seriously and acts swiftly to investigate them.”
But the school is not acting swiftly enough for some.
David Bianchi, a lawyer specializing in hazing cases, told The Daily Progress he found it “so troublesome” that, even two months after the investigation concluded, chapter officers who oversaw the hazing and failed to cooperate with investigators have faced little to no personal consequences, particularly those who just graduated in May.
The first Theta Chi incident was reported to have occurred on March 17. The investigation lasted from March 22 to May 15, with the results released on June 12. The drawn-out process means that any fourth-year fraternity brothers involved in the hazing rituals could have graduated and received their degrees at Final Exercises in May.
“Did they get their college degree despite the fact that they failed to cooperate and the hazing was taking place on their watch? That should not happen,” said Bianchi. “If you really want to stop hazing on college campuses, you have to be swift and tough with the consequences.”
"Swift and tough" is so necessary, he said, because universities must "cause everybody to think twice before they do it."
According to Bianchi, 70 fraternity pledges have died by hazing since 2000.
It could have been 71 back in March, after a second-year transfer student at UVa pledging Kappa Sigma was hospitalized after he fell down a set of stairs and hit his head on a wall. Days after the fall, students told The Daily Progress the student was comatose.
Due to his age and condition, The Daily Progress has withheld his identity.
Glover said Kappa Sigma’s agreement with UVa is still suspended as the university awaits more information from local law enforcement, which is pursuing a criminal investigation.
“[The university] expects to be able to post relevant information on the Hazing Misconduct Report in the coming weeks,” said Glover in a statement.
Kappa Sigma may not be the only UVa fraternity facing criminal charges.
In his April video, Buck said that the national Pi Kappa Alpha organization will be “pursuing civil legal action against individuals involved for violating the terms of their membership agreement, financial loss, and reputational damages.”
The organization did not respond when The Daily Progress requested an update on this process. Should the national organization continue to pursue such legal action, it might be the first suit of its kind, according to Bianchi.
“If the national fraternity thinks that the behavior of the Phi Kappa Alpha members was so bad that it has caused damage to the national fraternity — and as a result, they’re going to pursue a civil lawsuit against the individual chapter members — that would be a first, as far as I know,” he said. “It would be an interesting thing to do.”
While the content of the recently released misconduct report may be harmful to UVa’s reputation, particularly in the eyes of prospective students and their families, Bianchi said it likely barely scrapes the surface of the behavior taking place on Grounds.
“These reports are probably just the tip of the iceberg. … You can be sure that there are other hazing activities taking place that never get reported,” he said. “This is not everything that is taking place at the university; these are just the handful that actually got reported. There’s undoubtedly more that we don’t know about.”
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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