Penn State blamed in alcohol abuses
BELLEFONTE, Pa. — In a report released Friday, a grand jury said that after a fraternity pledge’s drinking death Penn State officials displayed “a shocking apathy” to dangers from excessive drinking and that its inaction allowed criminal acts to occur.
Penn State strongly objected to that characterization in a 144-page report released by a district attorney in Pennsylvania, saying the university made extraordinary efforts to curb drinking and hazing.
The report recommends a series of changes that the school should undertake in the wake of the death of 19-year-old Tim Piazza in February.
It pointed to numerous assaults, injuries or alcohol-related emergencies in the last several years involving fraternities, and said it is unreasonable for Penn State to disavow all accountability for its failure to overhaul the fraternity system.
Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller said the grand jury found that Penn State officials knew enough about the abuse of drinking and hazing in the fraternity system to have been more proactive to stop it.
“If they didn’t know, it was a deliberate, like, ‘don’t want to know,’” Parks Miller said.
As far back as 2009, Penn State officials were “remarkably undisturbed” by allegations of heavy alcohol consumption at one particular fraternity and showed a “shocking apathy to the potential danger associated with doing nothing.”
In a 70-page response to the report submitted to the judge, Penn State said it has aggressively promoted safety and accountability in the fraternity system, in 2009 and before that, and should not be criticized for not doing more.
However, Penn State said its efforts are limited by the unwillingness of national fraternities, their associations, undergraduate members and alumni “to challenge behavior that has been accepted for years across the nation.”
It said parents have at times aided fraternity efforts to violate school rules and state laws over underage drinking. State hazing and underage drinking laws are weak, Penn State said, also contending that the grand jury had struggled to provide a single recommendation to help the university fight dangerous student drinking and hazing.
Parks Miller called Penn State’s response to the report “defensive and somewhat demeaning.”
Penn State permanently banned Beta Theta Pi in March, saying its investigation after Piazza’s death found a persistent pattern of excessive and forced drinking, hazing and drug use and sales. Piazza’s death occurred two days after he suffered a series of falls and consumed a dangerous amount of alcohol on a pledge bid night.
The report calls on state lawmakers to pass stronger laws to deter hazing and underage drinking. It also calls on Penn State to regulate drinking itself, rather than make a fraternity council responsible, and for the university to expel students involved in hazing after they are “afforded full due process rights.”
“Anything less will fail to operate as a truly effective deterrent,” the report said.