DEADLY INVITE
Young men have died in fraternities every year for two decades. But the Greek organizations are slow to change.
As first-time students settle in at college campuses each fall, Debbie Smith can’t help but feel dread. In 2005, her son Matthew Carrington started a similar journey at California State University in Chico.
He, like many young men, found himself pledging for a fraternity. That was odd, Smith said, because he had never expressed that much interest in Greek life. But his friend wanted to join Chi Tau, and he persuaded Carrington to join him.
They expected collegiality, a place to call home away from home. The virtues of Greek life are supposed to include higher grades and a sense of camaraderie that lasts a lifetime.
But you have to be alive to benefit.
Carrington and others were forced to endure months of hazing rituals in the process of pledging. Their initiation culminated in a series of strenuous calisthenics in a basement. Pipes in the house “You know it’s going to happen to somebody. We don’t know who, we don’t know where, we don’t know when. But we know what’s going to happen.”
Debbie Smith, whose son Matthew Carrington died at California State University in Chico in 2005
had backed up, spewing sewage. Fans blew cold air onto them as their wouldbe brothers had them drink water repeatedly from a 5-gallon jug. They soiled themselves but kept going. For Carrington, it proved too much for his body to handle.
He died.
The words “In the basement, no one can hear you scream” were scrawled on the subterranean walls.
Few may have heard Carrington as he suffered, but Smith has been speaking for him since in the hopes of preventing another hazing death.
“You’re on pins and needles, you know, all through the school year,” Smith said. “Because you know it’s going to happen to somebody. We don’t know who, we don’t know where, we don’t know when. But we know what’s going to happen.”
Every year for the past two decades, at least one young man has died in connection with fraternity hazing. Whether it’s alcohol poisoning or physical injuries, dozens of lives have been lost in the name of fraternal kinship. Yet rush continues, pledge classes carry out antics, and Greek initiations roll on. In 2018-19, the North American Interfraternity Conference, an organization with 66 fraternities, expects to have more than 300,000 members.
Supporters and active members of fraternities say the deaths are isolated incidents that do not represent the whole of the Greek life experience. Greek organizations get young people involved in public service, they point out, and they connect college students with a built-in network of successful and supportive alumni.
In 2017, four young men died at fraternities, reviving an old discussion: Are the benefits of fraternity membership worth the lives of young adults?
There have been more than 250 hazing deaths at schools in America since the 1800s, according to Hank Nuwer, a journalism professor at Franklin College in Indiana. Nuwer says he triple-checks details and conducts interviews to maintain his database of hazing deaths in America.
With such risks, why join at all? New college students are willing to forgo fraternities’ toxic reputations for a ready-made network of friends in a setting where they may know few people. And many active members insist their experiences don’t align with the popular perception made ubiquitous thanks in part to films like “Animal House” or, in more recent years, “Neighbors.”
Archit Dhar, a 20-year-old junior studying systems engineering, is president of Sigma Alpha Mu at the University of Pennsylvania, though he started college thinking he wouldn’t join a fraternity. He wasn’t thrilled about joining what seemed to be “this very toxically masculine environment.” He worried about hazing and if he would fit in with a culture that was mostly white.
In spite of those fears, he said, he found himself drawn to the rushing experience. “If you find the right community of people who are embracing the fact that you’re different, and that everyone has their own unique diversity to them, it is a very healthy environment to be in,” he said.
Recent deaths have increased pressure on fraternities to change – and they have, a little.
The North America Interfraternity Council recently adopted a policy that prohibits hard liquor from fraternity houses, said Judson Horras, the group’s president. Horras stressed it was students who voted to adopt that policy. The group also has worked with parents to push anti-hazing laws, he said.
Horras said fraternities do err. He called the death in 2017 of Timothy Piazza, a 19-year-old Penn State University student, “tragic.” (Piazza died after a hazing ritual that had him consume a “life-threatening” amount of alcohol. He later fell down a flight of stairs.)
But Horras said the attention-grabbing incidents mask the positive experiences of Greek life. “It’s certainly not perfect,” Horras said. “We’re dealing with college students.”
Some fraternities have made more significant changes. Sigma Phi Epsilon may have adopted the most extensive measures after the death of Clemson University student Tucker Hipps in 2014. The fraternity’s CEO, Brian C. Warren Jr., said there are antiquated practices in fraternities that Greek organizations should rethink.
To start, the fraternity’s members in 2017 voted to ban alcohol in its houses.
They’ve also overhauled their process for recruiting members. Many fraternities encourage members to join during a set period of time near the beginning of the school year known as rush. The recruiting period, which involves visits to many Greek houses to meet their members, is often associated with binge drinking.
The process isn’t inviting to students who may be shy or wary of partying associated with fraternities. And rush is more attractive to people who are more prone to risky behavior, Warren said.
So, Warren said, the fraternity has done away with rush. It now encourages year-round recruiting. The fraternity also says it no longer allows pledging, a sort of trial period in which new members prove themselves to the fraternity.
But that’s just one fraternity. Activists look at dozens of Greek organizations and warn more deaths are ahead.
One of those activists is Cindy Hipps, mother of Tucker Hipps. She believes his death was tied to hazing while pledging for Sigma Phi Epsilon. (Officially, the case is unsolved. The fraternity declined to comment.)
“If you talk to the fraternities, they think they have made a lot of changes,” she said. “But if you look at the statistics ... I don’t really see that much change.”
Parents such as Hipps and Smith have gone to state legislatures to push for changes, but such efforts often come only after someone has died. What’s more, states don’t have the appetite to regulate fraternities directly, so most new laws simply make hazing a more serious criminal offense. Matt’s Law in California, named after Smith’s son, made it a felony to participate in hazing that resulted in death. The Tucker Hipps Law in South Carolina required universities to publish reports that document fraternities that have broken rules.
Colleges have a long history of trying to eliminate hazing without success, through sanctions against fraternities or by asking Greek members to help change their culture, said Kevin Kruger, president of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, an organization of college staffers.
In recent years universities have been quicker to act against fraternities that step out of line, Kruger said. That might include revoking a fraternity’s charter or recognition on campus, or the more drastic option of shutting down Greek life altogether.
Some schools do ban or otherwise try to prohibit fraternities. Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania banned Greek life after it was found that a fraternity on campus had written misogynistic messages in a group document.
For parents who have lost their children, the solution remains elusive.
“Too many kids are being tortured and killed,” Smith said. “And for what?”