IUC Anti-Hazing Principles

Hazing is intolerable and presents a serious risk to the health and safety of students. The Inter-University Council of Presidents adopts these Anti Hazing Principles toward the shared purpose of eradicating hazing at Ohio universities.

These principles, including the zero-tolerance approach, were inspired by the promise made to Stone Foltz by his parents as he lay in the hospital bed on March 4th, 2021—a promise that they would do everything needed to prevent another human from being hazed and to forever make sure Stone and no other individual is left behind due to horrendous acts of hazing.

Principles that apply to all student organizations including fraternities and sororities:

Zero-tolerance approach: Universities will impose severe sanctions against student organizations and individuals that engage in hazing. Consistent with each institution’s student conduct disciplinary process, each university will have a comprehensive anti-hazing policy that provides minimum sanctions that are specifically designed to deter hazing. The policy will include penalties for organizational and individual violations of the hazing policy, including minimum sanctions, fines, the withholding of a diploma or transcript, probation, suspension, and expulsion. Each university will post its policy on its publicly available website and distribute it to all students and student organizations.

Debarment: No university will admit a student convicted of criminal hazing for at least one year from the date of the conviction. Universities will encourage the Ohio General Assembly to amend Ohio Revised Code 3345.22 and 3345.23 to include hazing as a qualifying offense so that students convicted of the crime of hazing will be automatically dismissed from the university in which they are enrolled and debarred from attending any other Ohio public university for a minimum of one year from the date of the conviction.

Investigatory rigor: Universities will engage law enforcement as a vital partner in combatting hazing.

In addition to a university investigation, each university will share reports of alleged criminal hazing with campus and/or local law enforcement and will work closely with law enforcement in the investigation of such reports. Universities will also notify the student organization’s national organization, if applicable.

Advisor Oversight: Universities will strengthen the role of advisors to student organizations. Each university will require all university advisors to student organizations to agree in writing to a mandatory reporting policy that requires any advisor who has actual knowledge that members plan to participate, are participating, or have participated in any hazing activity to promptly report that knowledge in writing to the university’s designated office for receiving reports of hazing and their respective national organization headquarters, if applicable.

Parent-family/community engagement: Universities will engage with families and alumni as vital partners in efforts combatting hazing. Each university will engage parents, family, alumni, and the broader community through a webpage and additional media to educate families about hazing, including where and how to report alleged hazing.

Education and Reporting: Universities will assess and strengthen the substance and delivery of anti-hazing education. Universities will focus the educational program on enabling students to recognize hazing if they witness or experience it. The program must be designed to improve the reporting of hazing to ensure all members of the campus community know where and how to report hazing. All students will be required to complete an anti-hazing educational program developed and implemented by the university before participating in student organization activities.

Transparency: Universities will provide data to inform student decision-making about student organizations. Each university will report all violations of its hazing policy. Each report will include:

• The name of the student organization identified in the report or in which the students named in the report are members or recruits;
• The date the organization and/or student was found responsible for violating either university policy or state law regarding hazing, whichever happened first;
• A general description of the policy and/or law violation and any investigative findings;
• Any penalties imposed on the organization;
• The final results of a related student disciplinary proceeding, to the extent permitted by university policy and applicable law.

Purposeful relationships: Universities will provide a personal outlet for reporting. Each university will designate an office or person by title to whom hazing should be reported and publish that information on its publicly available website. Universities will employ strategies to build early, one-on-one relationships with students/new members joining organizations in an effort to establish trust between university staff and students who may witness or experience hazing and encourage reporting.

Principles that apply only to fraternities and sororities (Interfraternity Council, Multicultural Greek Council, National Pan-Hellenic Council and Panhellenic Council Affiliated)

Eligibility: Universities will review their fraternity and sorority recruiting policies. Universities will review their fraternity and sorority recruiting policies to determine whether the university should make first-year students ineligible to join or seek membership in organizations during their first semester at the university.

External oversight: Universities will work to strengthen parent/affiliated-entity oversight of fraternity and sorority organizations. To the extent applicable, universities will amend their fraternity and sorority recognition agreements to require, as a condition of recognition, that each organization invite its parent/affiliated-entity to evaluate in person or virtually their respective chapters at a minimum of two (2) times each academic year.

Fraternity and sorority life organizational commitment: Universities will require each chapter to demonstrate trustworthiness on an annual basis. Universities will provide a framework with established requirements for each chapter to provide on an annual basis. This will document the specific steps the organization will be taking, in partnership with their advisors (and affiliated entity, if applicable), to operate safely, without any hazing activities or any ritual-based activity outside of the organizational mission. Such plan will focus on how the chapter will provide positive value to the university and the community in general.