Arbor Update

Ann Arbor Area Community News

Allegations of Extreme Hazing Plague Greek System

22. October 2004 • Brandon
Email this article

Less than two weeks after the University announced it was dropping proposed changes to the Greek System designed, among other things, to curb such practices, officials are looking into allegations of recent hazing in several Greek houses:

Certain houses in the Greek system are facing allegations of extreme hazing practices on their pledges, and the University has begun looking into those claims.

Interim Dean of Students Susan Eklund, who took over for former dean Ed Willis in early August, said the University is investigating hazing claims from this month’s pledging activities that involve at least five fraternities and two sororities. She said resident advisors familiar with the Greek system had brought forward some of the reports from pledges living in residence halls.

Eklund said the Office of Student Conflict Resolution is investigating the incidents and police have been notified.

Although she declined to name the Greek houses included, she said incidents brought to her attention were confined to the Greek governing bodies Interfraternity Council and the Panhellenic Association, with none in the councils that oversee minority fraternities and sororities.

Eklund described a variety of hazing abuses, all involving heavy drinking. Included among the incidents was one which Eklund described as “very disturbing,” in which members of a sorority were summoned to a fraternity chapter house and were “strongly recommended” to drink heavily. Clothes were allegedly torn off the women, who were then led into a cramped room with intoxicated members of the fraternity’s pledge class. Eklund said that what followed reportedly included widespread sexual activity.

Another incident involved 15 members of a fraternity pledge class forced to drink excessively and then wrestle with older members of the fraternity. Reports say the pledges were then forced to strip to their underwear and stand in a room with open windows on a cold evening. Eklund said that one pledge required medical treatment after the incident.

Other allegations Eklund mentioned included obscenities written on drunken pledges in permanent marker and drunken fraternity members paddling their pledges.

Links:

>Michigan Daily: ‘U’ looks into reports of hazing
>Michigan Daily: Binge drinking rampant in hazing allegations
>Michigan Daily: Greeks take tougher stand against hazing
>Ann Arbor News:Hazing charges investigated