September 4, 2012

Research by a Franklin College professor found at least one student has died from hazing each year since 1970.

In November of 2011, Robert Champion Jr., 26, a member of FAMU’s famed “Marching 100” band, collapsed and died after a football game. An autopsy showed he died of internal injuries from a hazing ritual.

Brandon Hoff, Xavier University senior in business and president of the local Gamma Alpha Iota Chapter of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity, will facilitate a free anti-hazing workshop on Xavier’s campus in the Kennedy Auditorium at 7 pm on Sept. 6. Chapters all through the country will be doing something similar that day, which is National Anti-Hazing Day.

Xavier is the host site for the University of Cincinnati, Miami University, and Northern Kentucky University.

National Anti-Hazing Day is a part of an anti-hazing campaign entitled “Let’s Not Beat the Life Out of a Beautiful Legacy.” Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. and the National Action Network are taking the lead in this effort, aimed at ending the practices of hazing and pledging which have infiltrated Greek-lettered organizations.
“We no longer can treat [hazing] as a series of isolated and unrelated sets of unfortunate incidences,” said Jimmy Hammock, president of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc., which heads up a coalition of black fraternities and sororities who have joined with civil rights leader Al Sharpton and others to end hazing. Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla, introduced a bill in which students would permanently lose eligibility for financial aid if convicted of hazing under state law, or if officially sanctioned by a college or university for hazing. The bill also would require states to enact felony criminal hazing statutes or lose transportation funding.