Hazing Legislations: State by State

After four hazing deaths in 2017, The Parents Anti-Hazing Retreat, and formation of the Anti-Hazing Coalition in 2018, nine states have enacted strong anti-hazing laws. A positive sign that the parents' message to stop hazing is getting through is legislation passed in Louisiana and Ohio, and bills pending in Indiana and New York, require hazing prevention education for students and employees. 

Ohio: Collin's Law

On July 6, 2021, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed Senate Bill 126, known as "Collin's Law," which is a comprehensive hazing bill that Governor DeWine said he believes "will help change the culture surrounding hazing and save lives." This new  law increases penalties for hazing, creates new hazing offenses, and requires schools to post reports on their website that provide information of all violations of the institution's hazing policy.

The law also broadly defines hazing as doing

• any act or coercing another to do any act of initiation into any student or other organization;
• or any act to continue or reinstate membership in or affiliation with any student or other organization;
• that causes, or creates a substantial risk of causing, mental or physical harm to any person, including coercing another to consume alcohol or drugs. 

Individuals may be criminally liable for recklessly participating in the hazing of another person. Additionally, administrators, employees, or faculty members, teachers, consultants, alumni, or volunteers of any organization—including any public or private educational institution—may be criminally liable for recklessly permitting the hazing of any person associated with the organization, or recklessly failing to immediately report hazing to local law enforcement. 

Collin's Law also requires public and private colleges and universities to provide mandatory hazing prevention and awareness education for

• administrators, faculty, and other employees;
• staff and volunteers who advise or coach an organization recognized or sanctioned by the institution; and 
• all enrolled students. 

Finally, the new law prohibits organizations from accepting or initiating students who have not attended the prevention and awareness education program.

The law takes effect on October 7, 2021.

New Jersey: Timothy J. Piazza's Law

On August 24, 2021, New Jersey's governor signed SB 84 into law, which creates serious hazing crimes and requires public information about hazing violations:

• Creates the following three categories of criminal hazing that involve initiation into a student or fraternal organization whose membership is primarily students or alumni of an institution of higher education (IHE):
  • disorderly persons offense
  • crime of the fourth degree if the hazing "creates a reasonable likelihood of bodily injury to another person"
  • crime of the third degree (aggravated hazing) if the hazing "results in serious bodily injury to another person"
• Defines hazing as causing, coercing, or forcing someone to:
  • consume food, liquid, alcohol, drugs, or other substances that subjects them to a risk of emotional or physical harm
  • endure brutality of a physical, emotional, or sexual nature, or any other activity that creates a reasonable likelihood of bodily injury
  • commit a crime
• Defines aggravated hazing as any of these acts which results in serious bodily injury to another person
• Imposes penalties on a student, fraternal organization, or an IHE that "knowingly or recklessly promotes or facilitates a person to commit an act of hazing or aggravated hazing" that includes a fine of up to $5,000 for hazing, or up to $15,000 for aggravated hazing, and forfeiture of property used for hazing activity
• Grants immunity from prosecution for anyone who seeks emergency medical assistance for someone who has been hazed
• Requires public and private colleges, universities, high schools, and middle schools to:
  • Adopt anti-hazing policies, an enforcement program, and appropriate penalties for policy violations that include:
    • imposing fines, probation, suspension, dismissal, or expulsion;
    • withholding diplomas or transcripts; and
    • rescinding the organization's permission to operate on campus or  recognition of the organization.
  • Post information on the school's website about all violations of the anti-hazing policy that are reported to the institution over the past five years, and update that information annually. 

The law takes effect on March 11, 2022. 

Georgia: Max Gruver Act

In March 2021, Georgia enacted the “Max Gruver Act” to reduce and prevent hazing rituals in the state’s colleges and universities. Max Gruver, a Roswell, Georgia native, had attended Louisiana State University for one month when he passed away in September 2017 from acute alcohol intoxication as a result of a hazing incident.

This legislation bans dangerous hazing to gain status in school organizations, such as fraternities, sororities, athletic teams, and any other club or a student group living together at Georgia’s public and private colleges and universities, or units of the Technical College System of Georgia. The Act expands the definition of hazing to include an activity which endangers, or is likely to endanger, the physical health of a student, or coerces a student using social or physical pressure to to consume any food, liquid, alcohol, drug, or other substance which subjects the student to a likely risk of vomiting, intoxication, or unconsciousness.

Georgia’s Max Gruver Act makes hazing “a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature” that is punishable by up to one year in prison, a fine of up to $5,000.00, or both.

Effective July 1, 2021, Georgia schools must also establish policies for reporting and investigating hazing incidents, and publicly disclosing administrative adjudications or related hazing or other criminal convictions. Additionally, information about the hazing incidents (name of the school organization involved, dates the hazing occurred, and a description of the findings, adjudications, and convictions) must be posted on the school’s website for a minimum of five years after final adjudication or conviction. However, the report must not include personal identifying information of the individual students involved, consistent with the requirements of the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

Oregon

Effective January 1, 2020, Oregon colleges and universities must adopt a written hazing policy and provide annual policy training for students that covers the harmful effects of hazing and the relevant laws and institution's policies that prohibit hazing. In addition, institutions must submit annual reports to the Legislative Assembly on the number of hazing incidents reported and the number investigated during the previous academic year (Educ. and Culture Code §350.259).

Oregon law defines hazing as a student organization or one of its members (includes volunteers, coaches and faculty advisers) subjecting someone to:

• physical brutality, or 
• an activity that creates an unreasonable risk of harm or affects the physical health or safety of an individual, such as consumption of alcohol, drugs, or other substances, or 
• making someone commit a crime or an act of hazing (Oregon Crimes and Punishment Code §163.197).

Florida: Andrew's Law

In November 2017, Florida State University President John Thrasher suspended activities at all 55 fraternities and sororities after Andrew Coffey died from excessive alcohol consumption during a party at Florida State’s Pi Kappa Phi fraternity chapter, where he was pledging. 

Florida's "cutting edge" anti-hazing law (SB 1080) became effective on October 1, 2019, and provides that:

• Good Samaritans, even if they helped orchestrate the hazing, will not be prosecuted if they see a hazing victim who needs medical attention and they’re the first to contact 911 or campus security, and remain at the scene and cooperate with first responders, or if they provide assistance to stabilize or improve the victim’s condition while waiting for first responders
• Persons may be prosecuted for hazing if they solicit a person to commit, or are actively involved in the planning of, any act of hazing upon another person who is a member or former member of any type of student organization and the hazing creates a substantial risk of physical injury or death

Peter Lake, director of the Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy at Stetson University, said that this new law will likely test whether officials who sign off on a Greek life event would be immune from criminal charges or a civil case, "is definitely a new frontier for hazing prevention.” 

Louisiana: Max Gruver Act

In September 2017, Louisiana State University suspended all Greek activities after the hazing death of Maxwell Gruver, who was forced to drink alcohol during a fraternity ritual. The autopsy found that he had a blood alcohol level of 0.495. In 2018, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards signed four hazing bills into law to address hazing on Louisiana campuses after Max Gruver’s alcohol-related hazing death:

• HB793 requires universities and colleges that receive state funding to provide hazing prevention education to all incoming students, and fraternities and similar organizations to annually provide at least one hour of hazing prevention education to its current and prospective members.

• HB78 — the "Max Gruver Act" created the crime of hazing — regardless of whether the person voluntarily allowed himself to be hazed or consented to the hazing — which is punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 and up to 5 years' imprisonment if the hazing results in death. This law also imposes fines of up to $10,000 on fraternities, sororities, associations, social clubs, athletic teams and similar groups on college or high school campuses that knowingly allow hazing.

• • HB 270 protects the identifying information of students who report code of conduct violations.

• HB 446 makes it a criminal offense for a person at the scene of an emergency fails to seek or report the need for medical assistance for someone who has suffered serious bodily injury. 

Pennsylvania: Timothy J. Piazza Anti-Hazing Law

After the hazing death of Timothy Piazza in 2017, Penn State's Board of Trustees announced new rules that transfer control of disciplinary action against its members from Greek organizations to the university. Eight members of the fraternity were also charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with Piazza's death.

Tim Piazza's parents worked with legislators on the “Timothy J. Piazza Anti-Hazing Law" (SB1090), signed into law by Governor Wolf on October 19, 2018, that

• creates the crime of aggravated hazing, a third-degree felony; 
• creates the crime of institutional hazing if a fraternity or other organization "intentionally, knowingly or recklessly promotes or facilitates" a hazing event, punishable by fines and forfeiture of property involved in the hazing; and
• provides immunity from alcohol violations if evidence of the offense was revealed because the person sought emergency services for someone who needed medical assistance.