No police action taken on hazing

University officials have not contacted police about a student injured in a Zeta Beta Tau initiation ceremony days after the fraternity's national chapter took action about the incident and months after administrators learned about it.

A state anti-hazing law prohibits putting students at risk of injury during school-related initiations. The university has identified activities that it considers hazing more broadly than state law.

Two high-ranking student leaders within the fraternity have also declined to comment on the incident, which the Zeta Beta Tau national organization determined violated the organization's risk-management policy this week.

Student Government Association President Andrew Friedson condemned the act of hazing, but he would not comment specifically about his fraternity. Interfraternity Council President Arkady Gelman also declined to comment, saying he was waiting for the university to finish its investigation.

According to an Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life memo, in October, new members of the fraternity were seated in a circle and forced to chant the names of Zeta Beta Tau's founders. If they misspoke, senior fraternity brothers poured water over their heads. At one point in the night, the water mixed with the Shout gel placed in a new member's hair, injuring him.

Both OSFL and Zeta Beta Tau declined to specify the nature of the injury.

As the university conducts its own investigation into the incident, officials have not contacted police.

Although hazing is illegal in Maryland, Assistant Director of the Office of Student Conduct Tamara Saunders, who is leading the investigation, said the university only brings police in on a "situational" basis when investigating hazing.

Lt. Bernard Snowden of the Prince George's County Police said in hazing cases it is traditionally the individual's responsibility to contact the police.

Saunders said the university received new information about the incident this week, but could not say when the university will officially wrap up its investigation.

Earlier in the week, OFSL Director Mike Hayes said the university will sanction Zeta Beta Tau, with possible punishments ranging from probation to being kicked off the campus.

The fraternity's national organization has placed the members of the university chapter's executive board on probation for the rest of their undergraduate careers and forced the chapter to pay for an anti-hazing pamphlet and an anti-hazing speaker.

Zeta Beta Tau National Executive Director Jonathan Yulish acknowledged the incident known as a "waterfall" had occurred in the past, but said it was not a tradition.

However, hazing experts said tradition and history are often used to downplay hazing incidents.

"It gets normalized as part of an initiation or tradition," said Elizabeth Allan, an associate professor at the University of Maine who is leading one of the largest national studies of hazing at colleges and universities.

In a preliminary 2005 study of 1,800 students at four universities, Allen found many students who had been hazed did not realize they had been, and that 40 percent of fraternity and sorority members reported being forced to play drinking games. More said they were subjected to other types of hazing.

Zeta Beta Tau has been in trouble elsewhere in the nation recently. Their chapter at Rider University in New Jersey was shut down this fall due to repeated violations of the school's regulations.

At George Washington University, administrators recently launched a crackdown on the school's Zeta Beta Tau chapter, which had been shut down a few years before. The fraternity also recently lost a lawsuit against Johnson & Wales University, which they had sued for mentioning ZBT in a police report.

Zeta Beta Tau's history at this university is not flawless, either. An earlier chapter at the university was shut down in 1991 after new members were forced to steal property during a hazing incident.

robillarddbk@gmail.com