In January 2019, Elizabethtown College updated its anti-hazing policy in accordance with Pennsylvania’s Timothy J. Piazza Antihazing Law, 18 Pa. C.S. § 2801. This update, as Director of Student Rights and Responsibilities Susan Asbury said, follows “the same spirit as the old policy,” but it creates more specificity in the definitions of hazing and adds two new categories: aggravated hazing and organizational hazing.
Asbury has been in this position for the past five years, and she said that the policies about hazing at the College have not changed that much. It was never allowed and there was always policy against hazing, but now, the policy is more in-depth than ever before.
Under the “Prohibited Conduct” subheading of the Policy Regarding Hazing, hazing is defined as when a “person intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly, for the purpose of initiating, admitting, or affiliating a minor or student into or with an organization, or for the purposes of continuing or enhancing a minor or student’s membership or status in an organization, causes, coerces, or forces a minor or College student to [do any of the listed prohibited acts].”
This definition and the specific prohibited acts can be found on the College’s website under the College Policies and Procedures heading. The Policy Regarding Hazing also outlines the definition of aggravated hazing as hazing that results in the injury or death of a minor or student and describes the definition of organizational hazing as an organization promoting or facilitating hazing policies. The addition of these policies follow the PA government signing the Timothy J. Piazza Antihazing legislation into law Oct. 19, 2018. According to Penn State News, this legislation was created to hold individuals accountable for hazing that interferes with others’ safety.
This legislation follows what Asbury considers to be “too much hazing recently” and the death of Penn State student Timothy Piazza, who died in Feb. 2017 following a night of hazing for Beta Theta Pi, his fraternity, as Penn State News described.
Asbury explained that part of this new legislation required that higher education institutions, such as Etown, had to review and report all hazing incidents from the previous five years. She said that Etown had no reported violations of hazing, although there have been some reports that did not end up constituting hazing. The institutions must also report all reports of hazing every two years, whether the case ended up being in violation of the hazing policy or not.
At Etown, there are many ways to report hazing which Asbury wants students to know so that they can feel comfortable reporting these problems. Students can report to Asbury herself, use the anonymous E-Tip line (this can be found on Campus Security’s website), report to Campus Security directly, use the LiveSafe app or report to Residence Life Staff members.
“At Etown, we want what all institutions of learning want to happen: students make meaningful connections,” Asbury said. “Just not in a way that is harmful to themselves or others.”
