Student Union
Tragedies Highlight Dark Side of Greek Life
Greek life communities on campuses across the U.S. are again facing a reckoning after recent student deaths due to alleged hazing.
Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) freshman Adam Oakes died February 27, and Bowling Green State University (BGSU) sophomore Stone Foltz died March 7 after both consumed large amounts of alcohol at fraternity events.
Oakes was at an event at Delta Chi in Virginia, and Foltz was at an event at Pi Kappa Alpha in Ohio. In statements that expressed sympathy for the loss of Oakes and Foltz, the national organizations of Delta Chi and Pi Kappa Alpha announced that the chapters involved in the hazing allegations have been suspended.
"Regardless of if it's a fraternity or a sorority, it's absolutely despicable that these life-threatening actions are still carried out — often, with little to no accountability," Schanelle Saldanha, a junior at American University in Washington, told VOA.
"That, coupled with the accusations of racism and sexual assault, only reinforce why Greek life is such a toxic community for so many," she opined.
According to Inside Hazing, an anti-hazing website, while 65% of respondents in a survey of fraternity and sorority members said the primary goal of an initiation is to bond:
57% said it is important to tolerate psychological stress.
31% said humiliation is a significant element in an initiation.
29% said extreme consumption of alcohol is often part of an initiation.
29% said it is important to tolerate physical pain.
29% said they are concerned with the overuse of alcohol during pledge activities.
25% said paddles are usually used during initiation.
Not all the 12,000 chapters of 123 fraternities and sororities on U.S. campuses experience extreme violence or mayhem. Many of the 750,000 undergraduate members on the more than 800 campuses in the U.S. and Canada said they enjoyed being part of a community and gaining leadership skills.
Living in a house with other members offers support, socialization and even proximity to campus, students at Missouri State University told the student-run newspaper The Standard in 2018.
But, according to the Addiction Center website, while most agree that heavy drinking and partying is a big part of Greek life, driving pledges into harmful behavior is not.
"While the circumstances surrounding these deaths are still under investigation, we must be clear that hazing is a betrayal of the fraternal vows to which every member commits and has no place on campus. When hard alcohol is added to the mix, it is a formula for tragedy," the North American Interfraternity Conference (NIC) wrote in a statement to VOA.
Regrets and apologies have followed injuries and death at fraternity initiations since 1959, said Hank Nuwer, a professor emeritus at Franklin College and author of Hazing: Destroying Young Lives.
But each year, young men pledging for admission to a fraternal organization turn up dead or gravely injured. They have been poisoned by excessive alcohol and have choked on their own vomit, like Max Gruver, who died at the Phi Delta Theta house at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge in 2017.
They have fallen down stairs and sustained traumatic brain injuries, like Tim Piazza, who died in 2017 at Beta Theta Pi at Penn State University. They have been found dead at the bottom of a gorge, like Cornell University freshman Antonio Tsialas, whose death was ruled an accident after he left a Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house in 2019.
"The goal is for something like this to never happen again and to build a national model that promotes health and safety and creates a climate of respect and inclusion that is conducive to academic success," wrote VCU President Michael Rao in the university's plan for a review of Greek life. He did not mention Delta Chi specifically in this statement.
BGSU has suspended Pi Kappa Alpha for alleged hazing and is working with law enforcement and pursuing its own code of conduct investigation, according to a message sent from BGSU President Rodney Rogers and Provost Joe Whitehead Jr. In addition, the university is halting new member initiations and all other events.
Before the pandemic, the Anti-Hazing Coalition — composed of parents of hazing victims — spoke at universities to educate students about bullying, forced excessive drinking and other potentially dangerous behaviors.
"They tell the stories of what actually happened to their sons, and the heinous behaviors of hazing that emerged on the campuses where their sons were attending college," said Dani Weatherford, CEO of the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC), which, with NIC, is part of the coalition.
And they "try to educate those students on the campuses where they're visiting, about what hazing looks like, how it can get out of control, and to urge them to make sure that these kinds of behaviors are not happening in their organizations and on their campuses," Weatherford said.
In a Zoom event on March 21, parent Rae Ann Gruver described how much her son, Max, drank at the fraternity, explaining that he took 18-20 "pulls" — or swigs — of a 190-proof grain alcohol called Diesel.
She said that the fraternity brothers made Max drink when he answered questions wrong, and that because he had been late to fraternity events, he was made to drink even more.
"They singled him out," she said. "The actions taken by these hazers resulted in my son's death."
Rae Ann Gruver and her husband, Stephen Gruver, have also worked to pass new hazing laws in Louisiana and founded the Max Gruver Foundation. Weatherford said NPC and NIC are also taking action at the legislative level.
While criminal accountability in hazing is under state jurisdiction, federal legislation addresses it through the END ALL Hazing Act and the Report and Educate About Campus Hazing (REACH) Act, Weatherford said.
The END ALL Hazing Act focuses on campus transparency and would require that universities post online any adjudications — formal judgments — of hazing incidents. The REACH Act aims to establish a federal definition of hazing and requires that hazing be a Clery Act crime, meaning that universities would have to include hazing in their crime statistics.
Weatherford recommends that hazing victims, at the least, report the acts to the university, but how things are handled and what resources are offered could differ according to the campus.
As for prospective students who are interested in Greek life but worried about the possibility of hazing, Weatherford advises them to be aware and know that both NPC and NIC — and the fraternities and sororities that fall under them — are anti-hazing organizations.
"We want to make sure that if there are bad actors, that those bad actors are held accountable and removed from our organizations," Weatherford said.
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International College Student Enrollment in US Soars
International student enrollment at U.S. schools has bounded back from pandemic lows, Forbes reports. It increased 12% in 2022-23, the fastest growth rate in more than 40 years. Read the full story here. (November 2023)
US Lawmakers Grill University Presidents About On-Campus Antisemitism
The presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were questioned by House lawmakers on Tuesday over whether their administrations are doing enough to combat the wave of antisemitism that has swept their campuses as the Israel-Hamas war rages.
Republican Representative Virginia Foxx said the three presidents were called to testify because “we heard in particular that the most egregious situations have occurred on these campuses.”
Claudine Gay, president of Harvard University, faced particularly difficult lines of questioning from congressional Republicans, including one fraught exchange with Representative Elise Stefanik, who demanded that Gay resign.
Stefanik, a Harvard alumnus herself, grilled Gay over whether the university would rescind admission offers to students who support Hamas’ murderous beliefs.
Gay pushed back, saying she would not commit to punishing students simply for expressing their views, even if she finds them “personally abhorrent,” apparently reversing university policy.
In 2017, Harvard reneged on admission offers for 10 would-be students after it came out that they circulated racist memes in a group chat.
The theme of Gay’s testimony was her dual commitment to “combating hate while preserving free expression.”
Gay said her administration would only punish “hateful, reckless, offensive speech” when it crosses the line into physical violence or targeted harassment.
Foxx, the panel’s chair, railed against Gay and the other university leaders, claiming that “institutional antisemitism and hate are among the poisoned fruits of your institutions’ cultures."
Republican lawmakers repeatedly criticized progressivism and tied it to antisemitism in higher education.
All three university presidents outlined their strategies for ensuring student safety and open discourse on the Israel-Hamas war.
"As an American, as a Jew, and as a human being, I abhor antisemitism. And my administration is combating it actively,” Sally Kornbluth, president of MIT, said, adding that “problematic speech needs to be countered with other speech and education.”
Kornbluth said free speech that promotes harassment or incites violence is not protected by the university, but those who try to shut down campus protests are essentially advocating for unworkable “speech codes."
Harvard and UPenn have struggled. Both schools found themselves under investigation by the Department of Education over complaints of antisemitism on campus.
“This is difficult work, and I know I have not always gotten it right,” Gay said of her efforts to promote free speech and inclusion. She noted the difficulty of balancing the concerns of different groups, including Harvard’s Muslim community, which Gay noted faces the threat of rising Islamophobia.
“During these difficult days, I have felt the bonds of our community strained,” Gay told lawmakers.
UPenn President M. Elizabeth Magill came under fire for the Palestine Writes Festival, an event hosted at her university in September that was a flashpoint of antisemitism, according to a complaint submitted to the Department of Education.
Magill condemned antisemitic rhetoric at the festival but maintained that measures had been instituted to ensure student safety.
The presidents made clear to the Republican-run House Committee on Education and the Workforce that their schools have taken steps to prevent harassment and bullying, including public announcements.
The president of Columbia was invited but did not attend, citing a scheduling conflict, Foxx’s office said.
November polling by the Anti-Defamation League and Hillel found that, since Oct. 7, 46% of Jewish students felt safe at their colleges, a marked drop from 67% before the war. Students across the nation said they were wary of walking around their campuses wearing a Star of David necklace, kippah or other emblems of Judaism.
In late October, an upperclassman at Cornell was taken into federal custody after allegedly making online posts promising to kill any and every Jew he saw on campus.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations and other advocacy groups reported that hate crimes against Muslim students were also on the rise.
Last month, a white man allegedly shot three Palestinian American college students in Burlington, Vermont. And, at Stanford, an Arab student was struck in a hit-and-run as the driver shouted, “F— you people!” according to witnesses.
Pro-Palestinian protesters have been doxxed — their names and pictures paraded around their campuses on mobile billboard trucks — in what activists say are attempts to intimidate them into silence.
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In the 2022-23 academic year, more than 1 million international students were in the U.S., and they contributed more than $40 billion to the U.S. economy, Forbes reports.
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Lacking Counselors, US Schools Turn to Booming Business of Online Therapy
Trouble with playground bullies started for Maria Ishoo's daughter in elementary school. Girls ganged up, calling her "fat" and "ugly." Boys tripped and pushed her. The California mother watched her typically bubbly second-grader retreat into her bedroom and spend afternoons curled up in bed.
For Valerie Aguirre's daughter in Hawaii, a spate of middle school "friend drama" escalated into violence and online bullying that left the 12-year-old feeling disconnected and lonely.
Both children received help through telehealth therapy, a service that schools around the country are offering in response to soaring mental health struggles among American youth.
Now at least 16 of the 20 largest U.S. public school districts are offering online therapy sessions to reach millions of students, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. In those districts alone, schools have signed provider contracts worth more than $70 million.
The growth reflects a booming new business born from America's youth mental health crisis, which has proven so lucrative that venture capitalists are funding a new crop of school teletherapy companies. Some experts raise concerns about the quality of care offered by fast-growing tech companies.
As schools cope with shortages of in-person practitioners, however, educators say teletherapy works for many kids, and it's meeting a massive need. For rural schools and lower-income students in particular, it has made therapy easier to access. Schools let students connect with online counselors during the school day or after hours from home.
"This is how we can prevent people from falling through the cracks," said Ishoo, a mother of two in Lancaster, California.
Ishoo recalls standing at her second-grader's bedroom door last year and wishing she could get through to her. "What's wrong?" the mother would ask. The response made her heart heavy: "It's NOTHING, Mom."
Last spring, her school district launched a teletherapy program and she signed up her daughter. During a month of weekly sessions, the girl logged in from her bedroom and opened up to a therapist who gave her coping tools and breathing techniques to reduce anxiety. The therapist told her daughter: You are in charge of your own emotions. Don't give anyone else that control.
"She learned that it's OK to ask for help, and sometimes everyone needs some extra help," Ishoo said.
The 13,000-student school system, like so many others, has counselors and psychologists on staff, but not enough to meet the need, said Trish Wilson, the Lancaster district's coordinator of counselors.
Therapists in the area have full caseloads, making it impossible to refer students for immediate care, she said. But students can schedule a virtual session within days.
"Our preference is to provide our students in-person therapy. Obviously, that's not always possible," said Wilson, whose district has referred more than 325 students to over 800 sessions since launching the online therapy program.
Students and their parents said in interviews they turned to teletherapy after struggling with feelings of sadness, loneliness, academic stress and anxiety. For many, the transition back to in-person school after distance learning was traumatic. Friendships had fractured, social skills deteriorated and tempers flared more easily.
Schools are footing the bill, many of them using federal pandemic relief money as experts have warned of alarming rates of youth depression, anxiety and suicide. Many school districts are signing contracts with private companies. Others are working with local health care providers, nonprofits or state programs.
Mental health experts welcome the extra support but caution about potential pitfalls. For one, it's getting harder to hire school counselors and psychologists, and competition with telehealth providers isn't helping.
"We have 44 counselor vacancies, and telehealth definitely impacts our ability to fill them," said Doreen Hogans, supervisor of school counseling in Prince George's County, Maryland. Hogans estimates 20% of school counselors who left have taken teletherapy jobs, which offer more flexible hours.
The rapid growth of the companies raises questions about the qualifications of the therapists, their experience with children and privacy protocols, said Kevin Dahill-Fuchel, executive director of Counseling in Schools, a nonprofit that helps schools bolster traditional, in-person mental health services.
"As we give these young people access to telehealth, I want to hear how all these other bases are covered," he said.
One of the biggest providers, San Francisco-based Hazel Health, started with telemedicine health services in schools in 2016 and expanded to mental health in May 2021, CEO Josh Golomb said. It now employs more than 300 clinicians providing teletherapy in over 150 school districts in 15 states.
The rapid expansions mean millions of dollars in revenue for Hazel. This year, the company signed a $24 million contract with Los Angeles County to offer teletherapy services to 1.3 million students for two years.
Other clients include Hawaii, which is paying Hazel nearly $4 million over three years to work with its public schools, and Clark County schools in the Las Vegas area, which have allocated $3.25 million for Hazel-provided teletherapy. The districts of Miami-Dade, Prince George's and Houston schools also have partnered with Hazel.
Despite the giant contracts, Golomb said Hazel is focused on ensuring child welfare outweighs the bottom line.
"We have the ethos of a nonprofit company but we're using a private-sector mechanism to reach as many kids as we can," Golomb said. Hazel raised $51.5 million in venture capital funding in 2022 that fueled its expansion. "Do we have any concerns about any compromise in quality? The resounding answer is no."
Other providers are getting into the space. In November, New York City launched a free telehealth therapy service for teens to help eliminate barriers to access, said Ashwin Vasan, the city's health commissioner. New York is paying the startup TalkSpace $26 million over three years for a service allowing teens aged 13 to 17 to download an app and connect with licensed therapists by phone, video or text.
Unlike other cities, New York is offering the service to all teens, whether enrolled in private, public or home schools, or not in school at all.
"I truly hope this normalizes and democratizes access to mental health care for our young people," Vasan said.
Many of Hawaii's referrals come from schools in rural or remote areas. Student clients have increased sharply in Maui since the deadly August wildfires, said Fern Yoshida, who oversees teletherapy for the state education department. So far this fall, students have logged 2,047 teletherapy visits, a three-fold increase from the same period last year.
One of them was Valerie Aguirre's daughter, whose fallout with two friends turned physical last year in sixth grade, when one of the girls slapped her daughter in the face. Aguirre suggested her daughter try teletherapy. After two months of online therapy, "she felt better," Aguirre said, with a realization that everyone makes mistakes and friendships can be mended.
In California, Ishoo says her daughter, now in third grade, is relaying wisdom to her sister, who started kindergarten this year.
"She walks her little sister to class and tells her everything will be OK. She's a different person. She's older and wiser. She reassures her sister," Ishoo said. "I heard her say, 'If kids are being mean to you, just ignore them.'"
