Bloomsburg University Cracking Down On Fraternity, Sorority Hazing

The rising tide of intolerance of fraternity and sorority misconduct has led Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, one of fourteen universities in Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education, to place its twenty-five recognized “Greek Life” organizations on an eighteen-month probationary period while the school revamps its anti-hazing, alcohol, and sexual abuse policies. An unnamed source says that the school is acting proactively in response to the growing number of such incidents at other schools in the Pennsylvania system as well as at institutions nationwide.

According to a press release issued by the school, Bloomsburg plans to impose policies that will include:

a zero-tolerance for hazing of any form, including excessive alcohol consumption as well as physical/verbal abuse;
limiting new member recruitment to those students having at least 12 credit hours obtained from an institution of higher learning and a Grade Point Average (GPA) of at least 2.5;
requiring each fraternity and sorority to submit a written recruitment plan to the school before the beginning of the annual, and
requiring that each fraternity and sorority file an approved risk management policy with the school’s newly-created Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life as a condition of each organization’s continued official recognition by Bloomsburg University.

"Fraternity and sorority life can be a healthy part of a campus community, and we want to make it as healthy and as safe as we can for our students …" said Bloomsburg director of communications Tom McGuire.

Bloomsburg University is also subject to Pennsylvania’s Tim Piazza Law, an anti-hazing law which requires that all Pennsylvania secondary schools and institutes of higher learning have written anti-hazing policies, provide written records of all reports of hazing, and to make such records public on a regular basis. An online search failed to find a mention of such a report filed by Bloomsburg.

The school’s reexamination of its Greek Life organizations comes at the end of a year which has seen at least seven fraternity-related deaths, four of which have occurred since the end of October.

At The Doan Law Firm, we applaud Bloomsburg’s proactive position curbing the excesses that are known to be a part of fraternity and sorority activities. In doing so, it joins other institutions such as Syracuse and Ohio University that have also found it necessary to impose campus-wide moratoriums on some aspects of Greek Life while reviewing their own policies regarding misconduct in Greek organizations. However, we feel that these reviews are often a case of “too little, and too late.”

If your child was injured during a fraternity or sorority hazing ritual, we invite you to contact the fraternity hazing lawyer at The Doan Law Firm to arrange a free, no-obligation, case evaluation and a discussion of the legal options that may be available to you.

When you contact our fraternity hazing lawyer, your case review and initial consultation with our staff is always free and does not obligate you to hire us as your legal representative. Should you decide that a lawsuit should be filed, and that you would like for us to represent you in court, we are willing to assume full responsibility for all aspects of preparing your case for trial in exchange for a percentage of the settlement that we will win for you.