Video circulating from a November 7 gathering at a Sigma Alpha Epsilon house near Ohio State shows two men engulfed in flames while a crowd of onlookers in OSU gear watched nearby. Police are investigating whether the incident amounted to hazing, and the university has since suspended the fraternity while the probe continues. The disturbing footage prompted USA TODAY to reach out to our own David Bianchi for a piece examining why hazing keeps happening despite a wave of state and federal laws meant to stop it.
The Ohio State case is far from isolated. This school year alone has already brought fraternity hazing suspensions at Penn State, Drexel, Alabama, and Arizona, and just one day before the Ohio State video surfaced, North Carolina State pulled recognition from its Sigma Nu chapter over claims that pledges had been beaten. This is all happening despite a legal landscape that, on paper, looks fairly solid: according to the research group StopHazing, 44 states now have some form of anti-hazing law, Ohio itself made hazing a felony back in 2021 under Collin's Law, and a 2024 federal law added campus reporting requirements nationwide.
When asked why none of that appears to be working, Bianchi didn't hesitate. "The problem continues and in some ways is worse today than ever," he told USA TODAY, arguing that the legal framework to prosecute hazing already exists almost everywhere; what's missing is the will to actually use it. Six states (Alaska, Hawaii, New Mexico, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Montana) still have nothing on their books that defines or prohibits hazing at all. Our hazing attorneys have tracked that gap for years, along with the rest of the country's patchwork of hazing laws.
Other voices in the article echoed a version of the same concern. One researcher cited older survey data showing that more than half of students involved in campus clubs and teams had experienced hazing, and the tracking organization HazingInfo logged over 500 reported incidents at U.S. colleges in just the past year, a figure experts suspect undercounts the real total.
Our firm has spent decades representing families affected by hazing and pushing for stronger enforcement, not just more paper policies. Cases like the one unfolding at Ohio State are exactly why that work isn't finished.