The University of Maryland SGA passed a resolution Wednesday in support of a national anti-hazing bill.
The resolution comes after The Association of Big Ten Students — a network of student governments that promotes consistency among Big Ten schools — passed a separate resolution on Sunday also in support of the Stop Campus Hazing Act.
The Stop Campus Hazing Act requires higher education institutions to disclose hazing incidents and develop programs to prevent it. The bill, which would become the first federal law to address hazing, passed unanimously in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday.
The Student Government Association resolution defines hazing as activities during admission to a group that humiliate, abuse, endanger or degrade a person, regardless of their willingness to participate. In the U.S., 55 percent of college students involved in teams and organizations experience hazing, according to research and prevention firm StopHazing.
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The Association of Big Ten Students resolution is designed to promote awareness about hazing, create safer campuses, improve student well-being and develop trust between students.
This university in March placed a cease and desist order on all 37 Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Association fraternities and sororities. The order came after reports of activities that posed threats to community members’ “safety and well-being,” The Diamondback previously reported.
A university investigation found that several fraternities reportedly engaged in physical abuse and hazing, The Diamondback previously reported.
The SGA is striving to work closer with the sorority and fraternity life department to help alleviate hazing concerns, SGA president Reese Artero said.
Artero said the national bill and the SGA resolution will benefit campus communities outside Greek life.
“Greek life is not the only place in which hazing can occur,” the senior criminology and criminal justice major said.
Gannon Sprinkle, SGA’s executive vice president, said many students are surprised when learn about and endure hazing in new groups they join.
The federal bill will benefit a majority of this university’s undergraduate students, Sprinkle said.
After this university’s cease and desist order, four IFC fraternities filed a petition for a temporary restraining order against this university and several administrators, including university president Darryll Pines, The Diamondback previously reported.
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The petition named the university administrators as defendants and alleged that they violated students’ First and 14th Amendment rights, according to court documents.
Sprinkle believes the lawsuit was likely a factor in the resolution’s classification as an emergency bill, he told The Diamondback.
Chelsea Boyer, a senior communication major and the organization’s speaker of the legislature, said the SGA resolution will also help people become more aware of this university’s hazing issues and push students to advocate against them.
SGA will work to promote resources such as a form available through the student conduct office where students can anonymously report hazing and an emergency hazing hotline through the sorority and fraternity life department, Artero said.
“[We want to] make sure that students were aware that if it is happening to them, it’s not just them, and we should be making spaces for them to feel comfortable coming forward,” Artero said.
