According to Webster’s Dictionary, ‘Hazing’ can be defined as “Humiliating and sometimes dangerous initiation rituals, especially as imposed on college students seeking membership to a fraternity or sorority.”
Hazing has become the forefront of many conversations about Greek life on many campuses and has caused a negative light to be shed on Greek life. Anything from the standard horror stories of beatings and blindfolds, to the more ridiculous claims of not allowing new members to come to certain events can be labeled as hazing. But, is hazing necessary?
Many have argued that “a little bit” of hazing is good for new members to teach them their place and to challenge them to find out if they are truly in the organization for the long run. Others, have argued that hazing cause not only mental harm to the recipients, but also physical harm.
According to University of Maryland’s website that reports statistics on hazing, 44 of the United States have anti-hazing laws. Also, there has been at least one death related to hazing on a college campus each year since 1970.
Many, however have reported that the horror stories of hazing are much more controlled than they seem. Many say that they hear multiple stories of all of the bad things that can happen, but once they get into organizations themselves they are only asked to go to certain meetings and that is all.
So is the question “is Greek life hazing necessary?” Or is the question “Is Greek life hazing truly a problem?”
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