FRATS CONTINUE TO HOUSE JERKS

Despite its outlawing, college fraternities continue hazing pledges, sometimes with disastrous results

Lately the mews has been occupied with the death of Penn State student Timothy Piazza who died as the result of a Beta Theta Pi fraternity hazing prank gone bad on the night of February 2.

The 19-year-old sophomore and 13 other Beta Theta Pi pledges were made to run ‘The Gauntlet,’ a cute little hazing prank in which the pledges were required to stop at several ‘stations’ and chugalug large quantities of vodka and beer. Piazza died in a hospital February 4 because fraternity brothers refused for 12 hours to call for medics after he had tumbled twice down a set of stairs. He had been tanked up with booze and had a blood-alcohol level of 0.40 percent.

Texas and every other state has banned hazing in any form of public and private school students, and of college and university students. Despite the ban, the illegal practice goes on unabated. Every college administration is aware that fraternity and sorority pledges are being hazed and turn a blind eye to the practice until the shit hits the fan as it did at Penn State.

When I attended the University of Texas in Austin back in I think it was 1949, I pledged a fraternity and was subjected to hazing on a daily basis. The hazing consisted mostly of getting the shit swatted out of you by leather belts and wooden paddles. And you were made to do pushups at the drop of a hat with some asshole frat brother pushing down on you with his foot.

I remember one freezing night, we were stripped down to our skivvies and forced to hike through Austin neighborhoods. Several of the frat brothers followed us in a nice warm car. During the hike a police car stopped us and the officers warned us we would be jailed if we continued the hike. We told the cops, “please take us to jail!” They said, “We can’t do that, we don’t have enough room in our jail.” And so we went on our merry way. When we got back to the frat house the brothers paddled the shit out of our frozen asses for asking the cops to take us to jail.

I quit the fraternity, not because of the hazing, but because as a military veteran I came to realize I did not want to be associated with a bunch of young jerks.

It was common knowledge all over the UT campus that fraternity and sorority pledges were being subjected to one form of hazing or another. The UT administration was aware of it then and the Penn State administration had to be aware of it when Piazza met his untimely end.

18 members of the Penn State Beta Theta Pi chapter have been charged in Piazza’s death. Eight of the fraternity brothers and the chapter were charged with involuntary manslaughter. Other charges include aggravated and simple assault, evidence tampering, alcohol-related violations and hazing.

Some of those jerks could transfer from Penn State to State Pen where they will experience hazing like none they could have imagined. Some of them will be forced to suck dicks and be punked, leaving them with a bad taste in the mouth and a good case of the red ass.

There are already calls for the charges to be dropped so that the 18 frat brothers won’t have their young live ruined by a criminal record resulting from a college prank gone wrong. Have their young lives ruined? What about the life of Timothy Piazza? His young life was not ruined, it was snuffed out by 18 jerks who knew better but wanted to hush up what happened within the fraternity by refusing to call for medics when Piazza was obviously injured by falling down the stairs.

Not all frat members are jerks. And in addition to hazing and sex orgies, fraternities are known for doing good deeds. The problem is that enough of the brothers are jerks, making it appear that they dominate the fraternity.