32 CommentsKiller reporting from Spec‘s Abby Abrams confirms: the field hockey team was responsible for the hazing at ZBT.
Writes Abrams, “The field hockey team was welcoming its new first-year players with an annual tradition: a fraternity crawl. The last stop of the night was Zeta Beta Tau.” Says one connected ZBT alumnus,“The women’s field hockey team had one of their annual rituals, which was typically that they have new freshman members, they have a day of carousing and heavy drinking and then make visits to the fraternities.”
Spec tells what happened there that didn’t at the other frats:
The women on the field hockey team instructed the ZBT brothers to ask the first-year women five questions.
“Three were innocuous and two inappropriate,” the alumnus said. “Things like, ‘What’s your favorite sex position?’ and ‘Do you swallow?’”
At this point, according to alumni, the evening took a turn for the worse.
“One unnecessary thing happened. One of the guys in ZBT, he threw water on [a girl] for some unknown reason, and she began to cry,” John Prudden, CC ’78 and another ZBT alumnus, said. “All the other guys shouted at him and threw him out.”
An angry neighbor filed a noise complaint over that ruckus, which led to the University investigation that unearthed the hazing. So it went in front of the tight-lipped InterGreek Judicial Board, where brothers judge brothers. The IGC recommended they lose their their charter. ZBT alumni think that’s pretty hypocritical, considering their house was only the last stop in the field hockey team’s night of hazing.
“Whatever ZBT did, every other frat did. All these guys on the InterGreek thing, they do this,” Prudden said, referring to the hazing incident. “So ZBT is now a hazing frat, which is a joke.”
You know the rest: K-Sho interceded on ZBT’s behalf, before they lost the house for leaving kegs after the party after the Ivy champ party. Mulls Prudden:
“Columbia was never in the mommying business. Nobody cared whether you drank beer or smoked pot,” Prudden said. “When you’re in college, you’re given a great deal of freedom. … This is the time you get to work stuff out, this is your four years to do it. What are we teaching these kids, holy mother, it’s like a prison. I’m not used to Columbia telling me what to do on my own free time.”
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32 Comments
@You're drunk John Prudden, go home.
@Anonymous This is still a story?
@Love that What got Columbia angry at first was a noise complaint. Typical Columbia practice of freaking out over the little stuff and letting big stuff slide for the sake of favor.
Noise complaint: big deal investigation, serious hazing: slap on the wrist because its public now, celebrate a championship: oh hell, no. you’re out of the house
@Anonymous it is odd that humiliating and degrading a girl is “frowned upon” but having a keg is grounds for losing your entire house
@Yeah This isn’t investigative journalism. Se only asked alumni of zit, and not even recent alumni. These are completely biased accounts and is probably zbt trying to save face, maybe ask some field hockey girls
@Van Owen Did you NOT get the whole part about the University forbidding people in ZBT or Athletics from talking?
@No but seriously why is there an alum there? wtf is this? Who are you people?
@scout Andrew Lohse, from Dartmouth, wrote a story a while back about the Greek hazing he encountered there, where sorority/fraternity membership is around 66% (vs. 10% at Columbia). We’re really, really lucky not to go to a school where stuff like this takes place (or does it?). NYT linked to it today: http://thedartmouth.com/2012/01/25/opinion/lohse
I don’t know all the details of our hazing story; they’re still sketchy. This – “One of the guys in ZBT, he threw water on [a girl] for some unknown reason, and she began to cry” – makes me doubt the strength of character/mental fortitude of some of our student body. The ZBT guy should have not engaged in this demeaning hazing. The girl also should have the stomach not to cry. Am I missing important context?
@Anonymous If men have been asking you about your sexual behavior all night, having water thrown on you by one of said men can be pretty damn upsetting.
@scout Upsetting, sure. But both parties display the same weakness: failure to master themselves and see the larger picture in an admittedly difficult situation, then direct their actions according to what they find right. The people engaging in hazing were bullies. The victim in this situation was unable to put her position in perspective and realize that having water thrown on you by a frat boy is a slight hardship to face, even among the privileged (see the Dartmouth article).
It has nothing to do with how deserving someone is to be a member of our student body. But there’s a good lesson, which is that we have a responsibility to control ourselves and think, not emote, in complex and upsetting contexts. People unable to do this are likely to become bullies themselves in rough situations. Yes, these girls were wronged, but what did getting upset in the moment solve? Does showing how upset you are ever really help matters, especially when you are in a situation where it’s obvious that no one cares if you are upset?
@tell me why the above comment has so many downvotes. seriously.
@explaining the down votes you are defending hazing. People, especially freshmen, or forced into these situations because 1) they have very little social networks and want to keep what few friends they have 2) they want to play a sport they love. Saying no, on the girl’s part, would be hard with a freshmen’s mentality.
@scout Read it again. I didn’t defend the hazing – in fact, I denounced the hazers as bullies, and said they shouldn’t have done what they did. Again: what they did was wrong, and they shouldn’t be defended. Nor were they.
I also said was that people who can’t quickly contextualize their experiences, and people who can’t control their emotions, are often responsible for nasty behaviors. What I think people didn’t like was that I interpreted the victim’s tears in the situation as evidence of a lack of fortitude, and speculated that people who don’t have the skills I extolled are more likely to perpetuate the cycle of hazing – which is a deplorable behavior.
Yeah, saying no to hazing is hard. Mastering emotions in the face of hazing is hard. Coming forward afterwards with a “j’accuse” – also difficult. I’m not saying which is the right decision – folks make their own decisions. College, starting with freshman year, is a great time to do hard things.
(this is supposed to be a response to “explaining the downvotes”, which doesn’t have a reply button in chrome. bwog?)
@Anonymous I’m curious about your word choice here when you say she should have had the ‘stomach not to cry’ – should she not have reacted to show she was upset, or should she just not have been upset at one of a group of guys hazing her all night suddenly throwing water on her for no reason?
I’m curious to know how you understand ‘strength of character/mental fortitude’, and how that in turn validates someone’s place in our student body.
@scout You’re right – unclear. I mean, there’s no purpose in getting upset enough to cry in the first place. Make a decision: you want to be there and therefore buy into the system with LIGHT hazing for the social/athletic benefits, or becoming a part of something that involves systemic bullying isn’t for you and, since you’ve made that decision, this is the last night of LIGHT hazing and there’s no need to get upset – it’ll all be over in a few hours. I would argue that the hazing described here is humiliating, but not dehumanizing.
Crying seems to be a reaction that shows that the person hasn’t decided that what’s going on is wrong, just that the individual is in pain. Thinking through pain is a really, really good life skill, that helps avoid cycles of bullying like those that exist in hazing systems.
And it’s totally possible that the girl did think the situation through later – in which case, good for her!
@Sad Alum For reference:
humiliate |(h)yoōˈmilēˌāt|
make (someone) feel ashamed and foolish by injuring their dignity and self-respect.
That sounds pretty ‘dehumanizing’ to me.
Also, crying doesn’t imply anything except that a person is upset– nothing about the legitimacy of their feelings. Odds are the girl knew she was being humiliated and that it was wrong, but couldn’t do anything about it because the situation she was in deemed it ‘wrong’ if I may, for her to do so. That sounds pretty unfair to me. (See also: Milgram experiment)
Also, do you want this girl to stand up to bullying as youve indicated in the same paragraph I’m referencing above, or go along with the hazing as you said before that? You don’t seem to take a definitive stance on whether you think the act of throwing a cup of water on a girl for no reason other than to haze is right or wrong.
@anon Bwog gives us the questions the ZBT bros asked but not the answers to them. I’m very disappointed by the lack of investigative journalism.
@GDI Perhaps we can now move a special interest group into the unoccupied brownstone formerly known as the ZBT house: maybe a V-Day house? Only those self identifying as women of color may apply, though.
Great job Columbia! Let’s continue to stratify our campus and kick groups like ZBT out of their houses for celebrating athletic accomplishments. No doubt, CU ought to promote safety and academics, but the crusade against fun needs to end.
@Anonymous Amazing you could type, what with your sight being obscured by bitter tears
@Tastemaker OOOOH KILL ‘EM
@sour so…very…sour. I’m sorry. This was a systematic abuse. “It was around 11 p.m. on a Friday night last fall. The field hockey team was welcoming its new first-year players with an annual tradition: a fraternity crawl. The last stop of the night was Zeta Beta Tau.
“
@u are sour “Columbia was never in the mommying business. Nobody cared whether you drank beer or smoked pot,” Prudden said. “When you’re in college, you’re given a great deal of freedom. … This is the time you get to work stuff out, this is your four years to do it. What are we teaching these kids, holy mother, it’s like a prison. I’m not used to Columbia telling me what to do on my own free time.”
Drinking is illegal for about 2 years and pot is outlawed period. Columbia is in the business of education, not fun. Everything should be streamlined towards that goal.
@Van Owen Right on! This school’s collective lack of social life and disdain towards those who pursue it has NOTHING to do with the high levels of stress and poor mental health. But after all, education comes first, right?
@sooo sour suuuure, let’s just hide our problems by getting high and smashed. Cause that solves problems and has always worked. Let’s do that instead of going to comiccon or comedy clubs or paintball or sports or the 1000’s of other things to do in nyc. No, no. Let’s go chill in the brownstones of get wasted.
You can’t seriously thing drinking with fix Columbia’s problems.
@Anonymous You seem to forget that fixing problems with drinking is exactly what adults do.
@Anonymous lol why was comiccon one of your first examples of fun
@Anonymous Well this clears things up. It’s nice to get a good view on the situation, instead of all the facts being…hazy.
I’ll leave now.
@More Accurately... Field Hockey Did Haze at ZBT (whose bros helped just a little by doing the hazing)
@Confused What was an alumnus of cc78 doing at a ZBT party?
@seriously http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCMs8dUWZus
@free-lance editor “You know the rest: K-Sho interceded on ZBT’s behalf, before they lost the house for leaving kegs their after the party after the Ivy champ party.”
@Alexandra Thanks, love ya