Throughout my years as a student, my fellow classmates and I have sat through many assemblies that reject the act of bullying. Myself and young people in our society have been left with no choice but to deal with this as a “childhood rite of passage,” somehow believing it is a milestone for kids to endure abuse. The victims evidently must go through each day with severe anxiety, because the bullying is guaranteed to “make kids tougher.”

My passion about mental health awareness has opened my eyes to the lack of help and support society shows in regards to bullying. I have recently been infuriated and disappointed because of an overlooked form of bullying in our society- hazing.

In September 2017, just over a month ago, I read a devastating news story about a freshman fraternity pledge, Maxwell Gruver, who was brutally hazed in the Phi Delta Theta house at Louisiana State University. The pledges at the LSU fraternity were forced to participate in “Bible Study,” a game that included excessive drinking. Gruver was singled out by being forced to recite the Greek alphabet, and having to drink each time he messed up.  

Although some pledges were fortunate enough to withstand the intake of excessive alcohol, Gruver was not able to endure the abuse. The fraternity pledge’s fight came to an end on September 14, after being found “highly intoxicated” on the house’s couch.

This is not the first time society has seen brutal hazing take place at colleges and schools. Last February, Penn State University student and fraternity pledge Timothy Piazza died after excessive alcohol intake. The PSU college student was also taken to the hospital the morning after the hazing, after falling down a flight of stairs and hitting his head on a metal railing.

These are terrifying incidents that are beginning to increase and surface more and more into news headlines. Why does our society consider hazing an innocent act, and a “ritual” that will prove a human being’s worth? Why did those two innocent college students have their lives taken away far too early as a price for wanting to “fit in?”

I am outraged at the severity of these hazing cases, especially during a time with numerous anti-bullying campaigns. If parents were to properly educate their sons as much as their daughters about the devastating effects of bullying, the number of hazing death cases in fraternities would dwindle into nothingness.

Society must end this blatant disregard of one of the most secretive and fatal forms of bullying. I hope that society can learn from these two college students’ tragic deaths, in order to spark a change in our young men. America’s young men, as well as women, should be taught not to be so exclusive, but to be more accepting towards everyone.

Sources:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-arrest-10-on-hazing-charges-in-death-of-lsu-frat-pledge-maxwell-gruver/