Injuries, threats from hazing chronicled in Miami U texts

CINCINNATI — The student had an exam on a Monday this past March. He needed to study but was expected at an event for new members of a Miami University fraternity.

He asked another fraternity member at the college in southwestern Ohio what time they would be done with an event. He was told it would last all night, there would be drinking and he needed to be there.

“Will I be sleeping in my room?” he asked in a text message. “Undetermined.”

In a group chat with other Delta Tau Delta fraternity members, one person told the pledges not to drink any alcohol before arriving.

“The worst is yet to come,” a student warned them, according to text messages in school records obtained by The Enquirer.

When the pledges got to the home near the Oxford campus, they were blindfolded and taken to the “war room.” Music considered scary by some was played for about an hour. They were told how important the night was and how important their fraternity was. One person said the point of the night was to turn boys into men.

Early Sunday morning, the student with an exam the next day was brought to the hospital with a blood-alcohol content of .231. He said he had been forced to drink at the fraternity, even after throwing up repeatedly.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” a Delta Tau Delta member texted him that afternoon, according to school records.

The student told him his parents wouldn’t pay his dues anymore because the hospital called them. He said he likely couldn’t return to the fraternity. He received the following texts:

“Can you come talk to me later today??”

“I just want to make sure we have a good standing and that everything is alright.”

“You’re always going to be delt and you’ll be able to come back if you need to.”

“Please do not say anything that would threaten the future of the fraternity either, this organization means a ton to me.”

Three days later, the student filed an anonymous complaint with Miami University. He later said in interviews with the school seven students hit him with a paddle, once with his pants down. He said he was thrown to the ground, slapped in the face and had beer spit on him. He said he was forced to do pushups while being kicked by multiple people.

The next day, new pledges began texting each other about their injuries from the initiation event. They sent pictures. Some said they winced when they sat down.

Miami University President Gregory Crawford called the conduct “brutal and deplorable.”

Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser told WKRC Local 12 he is considering charges against some of the students, including felony assault charges and misdemeanor hazing charges.

Delta Tau Delta, the fraternity former U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan attended when he went to Miami, is facing permanent banishment from the university. The organization is appealing, saying the punishment is excessive and unprecedented at Miami.

In 2016, university officials placed Delta Tau Delta on probation for a year after allegations of hazing — including paddling — and lying during the school’s investigation. The complaining student provided the school with messages from other students talking about swollen faces, concussions and internal bleeding resulting from the fraternity’s initiation.

This spring, several students implicated in the hazing incident refused to speak to school officials. Those who did acknowledged paddling and access to alcohol but defended their actions and said no one was held against their will.

In a letter announcing Delta Tau Delta’s punishment, university officials called out a “culture of normalized violence,” a “deep-seated and dangerous tradition of paddling” and brought up the frat’s 2016 violations of the student code of conduct.

“It seems that very little has changed in three years besides the identity of the individuals involved in the tradition of hazing,” the university said.