Those three college assholes made a “pledge” drink himself to death, or helped him end his life in some other foolish way. Nice.
An Arizona college student was found dead over the weekend after attending a fraternity rush event the previous night. The 18-year-old student couldn’t be revived at a residence near the campus of Northern Arizona University, even after bystanders in the home had performed CPR on his lifeless body. The student was pronounced dead at the scene despite their efforts.
Interviews with witnesses revealed that the student was a pledge candidate at Northern Arizona University’s Delta Tau Delta fraternity. Police arrested three students who were members of the fraternity’s executive committee: Carter Eslick, 20, the chapter’s “member educator” (that pledge sure learned his lesson, right?) Ryan Creech, 20, the fraternity vice president; and Riley Cass, 20, its treasurer. They were booked and charged with hazing.
Northern Arizona University issued a statement announcing that it had suspended Delta Tau Delta and pledged to support the police investigation.”We want to be clear: The safety and well-being of our students remain our highest priorities,” the university said. “Violence hazing or any other behavior that endangers others has no place at NAU. The university has robust hazing prevention training and requirements, and has high standards for the conduct of all NAU-associated organizations and individual students.”
Not “robust” enough, though, right? This is garbage. Where there are fraternities there is a risk of hazing. (Sororities engage in hazing too, but it’s usually not fatal. Only two verified sorority hazing deaths have been recorded. That’s still two too many.) The latest death means that therehas been at least one hazing death every year from 1959 to 2026, and more than one in many of those years. 2026 is a good bet now to be a multiple death year. That’s more than 87 needless deaths.
The all-time total is, counting from the mid 19th Century, is believed to be more than 330 deaths from hazing.
Delta Tau Delta International also issued a statement, saying,”The Fraternity is aware of an ongoing investigation into the incident and encourages its members’ cooperation with local law enforcement.Our position on hazing is clear: it is the antithesis of brotherhood and a violation of the values of Delta Tau Delta.” The organization “vigorously supports the implementation of anti-hazing legislation” in Arizona and federally.
Well, legislation wouldn’t be needed if fraternities voluntarily accepted that they are archaic and dangerous relics of a more ignorant time.
Harvard has done a lot of things wrong, but it was astute enough to get rid of fraternities in the 1850s. There is no record of any Harvard student ever dying from hazing, which strongly suggest that the solution works. What benefits do fraternities confer on an educational institution and society to justify sacrificing one or more young lives every year?
Isn’t the clear answer “None”?
Ethics Alarms 
I’d have to know more of the particulars and the definitions the authorities use. “Hazing” usually implies intent to inflict some small level of harm, usually either minor physical discomfort or embarrassment, or both. From my own checkered past, my guess is that there’s negligence here, coupled with probably excessive and unmonitored alcohol consumption, particularly by those with little to no experience in such binging (though I never heard of a deadly outcome). …Not that it makes any difference to those involved or their friends and relatives.
Useful questions for the commentariat-
1) Define “hazing”.
2) Is hazing wrong, partly wrong, always wrong, not wrong…?
Google’s bot says: “Hazing is any humiliating, degrading, or dangerous activity expected of someone joining or maintaining status in a group, regardless of their willingness to participate It occurs in contexts like fraternities, sororities, sports teams, and clubs, involving physical, mental, or emotional abuse.” Wikipedia: any activity expected of someone in joining or participating in a group that humiliates, degrades, abuses, or endangers them.
By definition hazing is an abuse of power, and thus intrinsically unethical.
Except men thrive, find camaraderie, and develop in organizations built around shared rigor, hardship and intimacy. Anyone denying this has some mega-self-imposed blinders on.
Used to be war and mere survival were those cauldrons. In comfort-society men have to recreate conditions that put men into deep trust of their fellows. From the outside some of those actions looks pointless.
I don’t think there’s a problem with hazing as a concept. I think the problem is what form hazing takes and to what extent hazing goes.
Proportional and thoughtful levels of mental and emotional and physical distress are, believe it or not, actually good for people. And in a community context are very good for people. And in the absence of those things occurring naturally, we have to recreate them in contained and controlled environments.
We used to know this as a society.
Hazing is a problem because those executing it are males with half-formed brains, and are untrustworthy by nature.
Except you’ve identified a different problem. That’s not a problem with hazing. That’s a problem who manages, plans and supervises hazing.
Sounds similar to Law School’s use of the Socratic Method.
-Jut
Or Boot Camp.
-Jut
You’d never be able to ban fraternities. You might be able to ban fraternity managed/owned properties or sites on a campus. But a fraternity is 100% in first amendment territory.
I’m not sure what you mean. Schools have dormitories, and students who want to live off campus can, unless staying on campus is a requirement of admission. Harvard has a house system—every student is assigned to a freshman house first year, then applies to an upper class house for the next three years. Again, you can live off campus, but you still have to pay the same tuition plus room and board. Frats have individually been banned for misconduct: if schools can do that, then they can ban all of them. Students can start clubs, which is what they did at Harvard and elsewhere. But there’s no right to have an on-campus fraternity. Among other things, it’s the school’s land.
My college purchased all the frats’ houses and turned them into dormitories. The frats still exist but in a much-reduced configuration. The trustees concluded the frats needed to be defanged once the school started admitting girls. The dominance of the frats was running off smart girl applicants.
Organizations based on humiliating the people who want to join them are cretinous. I’m surprised they still exist. I guess kids are made to think they need to join one in order to get a good job after graduation.
Our granddaughter goes to NAU. Fortunately, she’s in the choir.
At the three universities that I attended with fraternities, none of them were on campus. They were campus organizations (so that could be taken away), but the land and houses were owned by the fraternities. At none of the schools did the frats hold events on-campus, so I am not sure the schools have much say in this other than removing the campus organization status. That would make them like the co-ops that existed.
The dumbest frat death when I was in school was the frat that decided to play ‘Russian Roulette’ with a semi-automatic pistol the day before graduation. That graduating senior died the night before graduation and Mother’s Day.
How do you play Russian Roulette with a non-cylinder pistol?
First up “wins” unless they are too ignorant to work the slide….
You put 1 round in the magazine. The ‘game’ ends really fast.
How the hell can someone go though 4 years of post-secondary education and arrive at the day before graduation and not know that playing “Russian roulette” required a revolver? The other “players” should have been prosecuted for murder.
Indeed. Details matter. Sheesh.
jvb
Leaving aside the matter of the type of pistol defeating the point of the game, why on Earth were they playing Russian roulette in the first place? Mentally and emotionally healthy people don’t do that. Now I’m wondering if it was a half-baked coverup for something else.
A university can say frats are banned and can deny frats access to university facilities. Yet frats still exist even at Harvard. You can’t ban free association of people.
Also saying“You can have a club but not a frat” is like saying “you can have a car but not an automobile”
It’s like when countries ban certain political parties as if the people who want to have that political party don’t exist and can’t find other ways to associate.
How many Harvard students have died of alcohol poisoning since 1850? It’s called hazing when it happens in a fraternity, it’s called tragic stupidity when it happens outside one. The label isn’t the important bit. Young men encourage one another to do stupid things because they are young men, no fraternity required. I would need more evidence that fraternities are actually the critical element to agree with this.
The pro-fraternity impulse runs deep.
I think I see your point. I went to a private university for college. We had social clubs. Once a year, they had something akin to rush week. They’d do things like make us speak in the third person or cover us in cookie ingredients. The group I was part of wanted me to eat random things. I said no, and I don’t think they quite knew what to do with that. I had just gotten back from Iraq, and I suspect, mostly, they didn’t want to push me. I imagine a lot of people feel like they can’t say no.
There may be benefits to what you’re arguing, but the article reads a lot like an “if it just saves one life” argument.
Three hundred and thirty deaths across two centuries, thousands of colleges, and millions of students hardly seem statistically significant. In fact, your own argument appears to suggest the opposite: that, for the most part, people are doing the right thing.
Finding the argument lacking, I asked GPT to list some of the downsides of fraternities and sororities. These were the examples it gave:
1. Time drain
Mandatory meetings, events, socials, philanthropy, recruitment every year.
This is the strongest argument. A student’s priority should be academics. If there’s a compelling case against Greek life, it’s that it can be a poor use of time.
2. Financial cost
National fees, chapter dues, housing, apparel, events.
I didn’t even realize there was a cost associated with these organizations. Housing makes sense, but beyond that, why is a student paying to participate?
3. Hazing risks
Even when banned, hazing still happens.
4. Party and alcohol culture
Heavy drinking, social pressure, risky situations—especially for women.
This easily folds into the hazing argument and connects directly to Jack’s example above.
5. Loss of autonomy
Social media scrutiny, behavioral expectations, punishment for personal mistakes.
This cuts both ways. From the outside, it looks restrictive. From the inside, people often find meaning and belonging in it.
6. Social bubbles
Same people, same viewpoints, reinforced cliques.
Again, this doesn’t strike me as inherently bad. Many people want to be around others like themselves.
7. Stress and internal politics
Drama, power struggles, favoritism.
This describes nearly every organization ever created.
8. Reputation baggage
Stereotypes, collective punishment, guilt by association.
That seems true enough—though I imagine if you’re the kind of person who enjoys Greek life, it doesn’t weigh heavily.
9. Values mismatch
Stated values don’t match behavior.
Can you leave? I don’t know the process, but I imagine it’s not especially difficult.
To me, points 1–4 carry the most weight, which is likely why the article leads with them. Points 5–9 feel less like arguments against Greek life and more like warnings that it isn’t for everyone. I’m still not convinced either way.
I have a fifteen-year-old son who wants to join the military. The military, incidentally, checks at least eight of these same boxes.
We even have sayings that map almost perfectly:
I’m not arguing against banning the military. I’m pointing out that culture produces subculture, and subculture produces tight-knit communities—often with rough edges. The presence of those edges should not automatically invalidate the whole.
Then there’s “For the good of the order,” a favorite of the guy who ran the medium-sized firm I toiled away in allegedly as a partner. (He was a big frat guy in his undergraduate years and went on to become the head of the trustees over-seeing the state university system.) “For the good of the order” always meant “For the good of me.”
Like all rules, “If it just saves on life” is sometimes a valid argument. It is persuasive when there is no utilitarian argument for the thing being forbidden. Can anyone argue that having fraternities convey such benefits on individuals and societies that they were worthy the price of of over 300 young lives? What would that argument be?
Hazing deaths are particularly galling because they’re so damned stupid and unnecessary. And pathetic: young kids willingly doing stuff they probably know they shouldn’t be doing just to please others so they’ll be accepted into a group they think will confer something upon them for the rest of their adult lives.
Flounder certainly comes to mind, although the only thing the Deltas killed was Flounder’s brother’s Lincoln Continental.
I shared the article on Google AI and here is a response.
So, statistically, fraternities are safe. Far safer than illegal aliens. Far safer than construction work.
The responsible students are being prosecuted in accordance with the law. There is no wider, systemic problem revealed in the article.
No new rules are needed to address this.
They are NOT safe! 330 students have died in them. How many have died in chess clubs? Science clubs? Camus newspaper staffs> A college activity shouldn’t kill anyone.
330 students in 175 years.
So what? That’s over 330 students sacrificed for nothing. Literally nothing that could not be achieved with no deaths at all.
So punish the hazers after the fact.
Locking the barn door…
Given the rarity of this type of event, retrospective remedies are the only possible remedies now.
Given the statistical rarity of “hazing” deaths, doing otherwise seems like creating an unnecessary category of “pre-crime” for proactive punishment.
How many alcohol poisoning deaths unrelated to fraternity involvement occur each year at colleges?
This is a good point. Prospective policies restrain conduct that has no imminent or immediate victim. This is certainly not a basis for banning fraternities.
If retrospective remedies are inadequate, it is not apparent in this case where three members are facing manslaughter charges and the university suspended the chapter.
Really? Did those measures re-animate the dead kid? Wow. I’m impressed!
So you feel punishing manslaughter (let alone murder) is pointless?
Huh?
In the Netherlands where I studied and graduated we do not have fraternities and sororities, but we still have hazing. There are other things that are different in the Netherlands, e.g. we do not have dormitories at campus. In many university towns there is subsidized housing for students but not enough for all students, so many students have to rent a room with a landlord or landlady. Not all universities have campuses, the buildings of the university are often distributed across town.
There are student associations, and some of these subject aspirant students to hazing. These are typically the oldest ones with the most traditions. The oldest one is Vindicat in Groningen, founded in 1815. Full name is Groninger Studenten Corps Vindicat atque Polit. Another famous one is Minerva in Leiden at Netherlands oldest university, in full Leiden Student Association Minerva. Please notice the Latin in their names, plus the word “Corps” in the full name of Vindicat. These two student associations are elite organizations, and in most university town have one such elite organization known as the “corps” (as in Marine Corps). There are many other student associations that have a different atmosphere, e.g. those organized on a Catholic or Christian basis.
Many of the rich, famous, and powerful in the Netherlands have been affiliated with a “corps” type student organizations, including most members of the royal family. This is one of the reason why students join these organizations as you build friendships for life, plus many important connections that will help you later in building a career; law and medicine com to mind.
In order to join the corps, the aspirant students (or “foetuses”) have to pass an introduction week of “hazing”. The opening scenes of the movie “Soldier of Orange” give a good impression of how hazing works at Minerva in Leiden. (I watched this movie last year at Amazon Prime; it the the most famous WWII movie of the Netherlands.)
The ultimate purpose of hazing, and any form of initiation, is to bring new members into a group and develop unity in the group. Bootcamp for military recruits involve hazing; the hazing is done by drill sergeants who are constantly in your face, yelling with the brim of their hats touching your forehead spit flying in your face, and making you feel uncomfortable and do uncomfortable things. The purpose of this ritual is to make you a soldier, upon whom fellow soldiers can depend on. Hazing for a student corps has a similar function, it forges friendship and solidarity between members of the same year. Withstanding hazing also demonstrates and builds character. (Student corpses are internally organized in year clubs).
Once in a while a a hazing incident involving a fatality hits the newspaper, Vindicat is infamous for these incidents. This illustrates the difference between the USMC and student associations: the USMC uses professionally trained drill sergeants to lead the initiation, while in student organizations this is handled by amateurs who do not necessary have the maturity and skill to do it right.
I do not think that abolishing fraternities is a good solution. The benefits of a vibrant social life at a university, plus the connections and friendships forged in fraternities are too important to forego. There are too many power hungry Dean Wormer types out there who would love to see the student body atomized in order to better control and manipulate the sheeple, which also given the intellectual monoculture at college is highly undesirable.
I am also aware of the “If it saves one life” fallacy rationalization to ban phenomena that have a net positive for society based on a number of unhappy incidents. The impulse to ban hazing based on a hazing accident is no different than closing children’s playgrounds and cancelling recess based on an accident. This is how you end up with safety culture, helicopter parenting, and a society full of lonely and anxious people (please read Jonathan Haidt’s book “The Anxious Mind”). Tolerance for risk allows for the development of people who are sturdy, antifragile, and social.
As Jack Marshall himself conceded:
I do not think that abolishing fraternities is a good solution. The benefits of a vibrant social life at a university, plus the connections and friendships forged in fraternities are too important to forego.
That conclusion is unwarranted. There are no fraternities or sororities in law schools or graduate schools, and those students manage to have vibrant social lives. Colleges have sports teams and clubs where students of similar interests meet. But I would never join a club that required “hazing.”
Here is a POV from google AI.
It’s not “punishment” to eliminate a useless, archaic system that reinforces bad instincts of immature young men. It’s called “accumulated wisdom.” Fraternities are just gangs for the elite. The AI’s logic is flawed. I’ve seen it before: why punish moderate users of recreational drugs because the abusers end up addicted or dead?
That’s a stronger argument than “all fraternities, by their nature, unnecessarily slightly increase the risk of death.” I’d like to hear more about the bad instincts and gangs for the elite.
“There are no fraternities or sororities in law schools or graduate schools“
There are in universities where those schools are on the same campus as the undergrad programs. There are many of those. You don’t “age-out” of your fraternity when you start grad school.
I was misinformed, as Ric tells Claude Rains.
Sure there are: My law school has at least two legal fraternities, one is Phi Alpha Delta – I was the treasurer and brought the chapter back from the brink of insolvency. There was no hazing involved and most used its membership as resume padding. Delta Theta Phi and the Orders of Barristers and Lytae are also fraternities at my school.
jvb
Never heard of a law firm frat. I stand corrected. Presumably they would be more responsible, since the students would be afraid of the character requirements of state licensing boards. And law students are theoretically a cut above the average college student. Theoretically.
Indeed. Our fraternity hosted conferences, inviting practitioners or judges to our school to give their insights into the practice of law or evolving issues0. We also hosted meet and greets for students to gather, consume tasty libations, and mingle between and betwixt ourselves as we lamented how hard law school was.
jvb
The exception that proves the rule. I have no doubt that there are fraternities that do wonderful things, all of which could be accomplished with other on-campus organizations that do not tempt males with a culture that brings out the worst of the sex, and encourage tribal, clannish, exclusivity-embracing behavior and power abuse.
Nor would I. I was more interested in getting a girlfriend than getting paddled. I didn’t see how hanging out with a bunch of guys would assist in that mission. I’d had enough of camaraderie in four years of Catholic boys’ high school.
Most of the commenters plus the host assume a typical American context with fraternity and sorority houses owned by the university and located at the campus. I presume this means that a university in the USA typically has the right to close a fraternity. In the Netherlands the situation is different as student organizations are most often off campus, have an independent legal status, but may get subsidies. Independent of this, hazing may play a role for the more elite organization (in the Netherlands: the “Corps”).
What appears to be common between the USA and the Netherlands is that everyone involved with a university, student and academics, seem to have very strong black and white views about them. You either love them or hate them. Similar to the New York Yankees and the New England Patriots.
Minerva (then Leidsch Studenten Corps or LSC) was forced to disband by the Nazi’s in 1940. This followed a speech by Prof. Mr. A. Cleveringa as Rector Magnificus (Dean?) of the University of Leiden given as a protest to the forced firing of Jewish professors. Prof. Cleveringa was fired by the Nazi’s. This was followed by a student strike. The Nazi’s then disbanded L.S.C., arrested the board and took possession of the buildings of the club house Minerva. Many of the members of L.S.C. stayed in touch and were active in the resistance against the Nazi’s. And here I am going to recommend the movie “Soldier of Orange” that gives a good picture of this.
So let me make a comparison between an immune system and association life, as I believe there is a similar function. Both systems are antifragile; what does not kill you makes you stronger. Both show incidents of derailment: people die of sepsis all the time, and sepsis is basically our immune system going haywire.
I am more afraid of the totalitarian climate at colleges where the administrators engage in censorship and cancel culture, and disaccredit student organizations they do not like. This may include fraternities, but it definitively includes TPUSA, College Republicans, Young Americans for Freedom.
I am more concerned about the intellectual monoculture at colleges, and the impoverishment in social life at colleges in the last decades, as this creates fragility. I am more concerned about this than about 300 deaths at over 6,000 colleges in the last 200 years. There is no justification for closing a fraternity with zero incidents based on these numbers.
Cees, a few years ago I was stunned to see a bunch of Dutch guys submitting to being hazed in front of their house on Willemsparkweg around the corner from our house on Cornelis Schuyt Straat in Amsterdam. It just seemed so not Dutch. I did become aware that Harvard is the Leiden of the U.S. (and Leiden, the town, had a huge influence on the original Mayflower settlers).
I presume those were pledges related to A.S.C./A.V.S.V. (Amsterdamsch Studenten Corps/Amsterdamsche Vrouwelijke Studenten Vereeniging) which is a recognized student corps, with about 2,700 members. In 2021 they made the choice to reform the introduction period culture due to many complaints about hazing related violence. In 2022 there was another scandal, where at a dinner for males members a Senator of A.S.C. called women sperm buckets and whores. As a result A.S.C./A.V.S.V. lost subsidies, and the alumni organization also came into action in order to force a culture change. In 2022 Crown Princess Amalia decided against becoming a pledge because of the misogyny scandal, but later in 2024 decided to become a pledge.
This would have been back in 2016. The pledges were just eagerly humiliating themselves out on the sidewalk. Those are big membership numbers.
More from Google AI
aviation, medicine, or civil engineering are comparable to fraternities? Boy, AI really does need some work….
It is undeniable that fraternities have an outstanding safety record.
I deny it. Chess clubs have an outstanding safety record: no fatalities at all. The Harvard House system has an outstanding safety record: no fatalities. 350 deaths from an activity that should have no health or safety risks AT ALL is not an outstanding safety record.
350 deaths spread out over 170 years.
And I shared this with Google AI.
I think you can write your own arguments, Michael.
As opposed to none in the Harvard House system that replaced it in that school. 350 death premature, needless can have a massive effect on the future. Watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” Who knows what the cost has been for allowing thesse things on campuses?
New Mexico stats for 2023 indicate that 5 people die here every day of alcohol related causes. Nearly 8% of middle schoolers and 16% of high schoolers drink alcohol, and of those at least 40% binge monthly. Alcohol use at all age levels is a serious medical issue in this country. So I’m wondering, Jack, with respect, why the profound antipathy for Greek clubs?
I don’t see the nexus. if it were possible to ban alcohol, I would advocate it. Alcohol was too embedded in the culture by the time that prohibition was tried. My wife died of alcoholism. At least alcohol has some social and consumption value—not nearly enough to make up for all the pain, death and economic harm it causes, but there some counterbalancing benefits. Fraternities by their nature are exclusive organizations that have to find way to enforce the exclusivity. Because they are run by college age students who are not fit to have the power the system gives them, they abuse the power, and people are hurt or die.
And let us not forget the meaning of “exclusive.” Exclusive does not mean “elegant” or “well turned out” or otherwise “admirable” or “desirable.” It’s an adjective that says the noun it modifies “keeps certain people out.” The noun it modifies “discriminates against certain types of people and elevates others.”
My youngest son was in the emergency room 10 days ago. He is a diabetic alcoholic who has had hepatitis C (from a total blood transfusion when he was a day old), so his liver is already compromised. I really can’t stand the idea that he might not make it to 50 if he doesn’t stop drinking. It is excruciating to be so powerless in this, but I know he has to decide his own fate. My grandson is getting him to meetings.
I understand your loathing of alcohol, I was just wondering why hazing is a particular gripe when there is so much alcohol abuse around us – hence the NM stats about deaths and underage drinking …. not really a nexus, but an illustration that the problem is so widespread. Would I be correct to think that the pointlessness of hazing and its occasional fatal or damaging results triggers you?
There is literally nothing we can do about alcohol. There is no need for fraternities. The Harvard system works because the “Houses” have faculty members overseeing them. How hard is that? And Harvard hasn’t lost a student to hazing since 1850.