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American University celebrated National Hazing Prevention Week from Sept. 22 to 26, hosting community activities, learning sessions and a keynote speaker who shared her personal experiences with hazing.
The Budget Advisory Committee oversees a new Student Engagement Impact Fund, which provides additional resources for prevention efforts. The University mandated online training modules for all first-year students covering hazing recognition and prevention. AU is clearly committed to addressing hazing in Greek life.
But in practice, these efforts are fundamentally ineffective.
AU’s hazing prevention process appears fairly comprehensive. The Fraternity and Sorority Life team hosts orientation sessions for every Greek council, including Meet the Interfraternity Council Community, Wanna Go Greek and Panhellenic Orientation. The Division of Student Affairs website lists extensive resources from the Anti-Hazing Coalition to Stop Hazing.
New members are required to attend the opening and closing sessions, which cover hazing prevention and submit reflections on campus events. The University has aligned itself with national organizations’ anti-hazing statements and complies with both D.C. and federal law.
But the heart of AU hazing prevention is deeply flawed. The University required three groups to complete hazing prevention training on Canvas: all incoming first-year students, all members of social fraternities and sororities and the leadership of all registered student organizations.
Although this appears to be a comprehensive approach that reaches many students, the problem is that all three groups receive the same generic training module.
A chapter president responsible for preventing hazing in their organization watches the same video as a freshman who has never attended a Greek life event. A sorority member whose organization faces different hazing risks than fraternities receives identical content as her male counterparts. Student organization treasurers and secretaries, who are not involved in Greek life, must complete training designed for a completely different context.
The training itself is a vendor-created module featuring fictional characters named Emma and Zach. Emma gets woken up at 2 a.m. for taco runs. Zach sings barefoot in the snow. Their friend Ted witnesses this and files a report. These sanitized scenarios bear little resemblance to the actual hazing that occurs nationwide or the specific risks that students face in various types of organizations.
The module is not tailored to AU’s campus culture, does not address how hazing manifests differently across organizations and provides no practical skills for chapter leaders trying to make a change. It is generic compliance training that students can click through without actual engagement.
According to the Hazing Prevention Network, 55 percent of college students involved in clubs, teams and organizations experience hazing, yet only one in 10 students recognizes they have been hazed. Students need help identifying hazing when it happens to them, not generic online videos featuring hypothetical taco runs.
The keynote speaker of National Hazing Awareness Week, Lorin Phillips from the National Chapter of Tri Sigma, offered exactly the kind of impactful education students need, sharing personal experiences with hazing and discussing how to break harmful cycles. But a single powerful speaker cannot compensate for ineffective year-round training.
Sigma Chi and Beta Theta Pi are on disciplinary probation for hazing as of November 2025. The violations continue a pattern that includes Chi Omega’s 2017 suspension for conduct that threatened health and safety. Hazing persists despite the University’s prevention programming.
The response has been to add more training and awareness weeks, which are good, but the approach also needs to be rethought.
This begins with eliminating the one-size-fits-all approach, which relies on a single online training module. The University should develop its own, AU-specific programming that recognizes the needs and risks of various groups.
First-year students need to understand what hazing is and how to recognize it, whereas chapter leaders need more advanced training on how to identify and interrupt hazing within their organizations.
These differentiated programs should be delivered through mandatory, in-person sessions held at the beginning of each semester and facilitated by professionals who understand trauma-informed education.
Sessions must be specific to AU’s campus culture and acknowledge the realities of where and how hazing occurs, including off-campus, where the University has less direct oversight.
The Center for Student Involvement must develop organization-specific hazing prevention plans that recognize the different risks in fraternities versus sororities, social Greek life versus professional fraternities and historically white organizations versus cultural Greek organizations like the Divine Nine.
Generic approaches overlook the nuanced ways in which hazing occurs, making it easier for members to dismiss messages as irrelevant to their own experiences.
The University must also establish effective reporting mechanisms that genuinely protect students. A confidential hotline where students can report concerns without fear of retaliation would provide an avenue for those who feel unsafe but do not know where to turn.
Clear amnesty policies will protect students who speak up when they witness hazing, especially in situations involving alcohol, where students fear consequences.
AU has an opportunity to become a leader in hazing prevention by genuinely listening to students and implementing concrete solutions. It’s clear that FSL and the University as a whole are committed to fighting hazing; it’s just a matter of the effectiveness of the strategies they are employing.
This piece was written by Alana Parker and edited by Quinn Volpe and Walker Whalen. Copy editing done by Sabine Kanter-Huchting, Arin Burrell, Paige Caron and Andrew Kummeth. Fact-checking done by Aidan Crowe.
