Just a few weeks into the new school year, both FAMU and Clark Atlanta have suspended student organizations due to allegations of recent hazing incidents.
Of course, the sheer knuckleheadedness of anyone at an HBCU who would be hazing at this point, post Robert Champion, is simply breathtaking. It also goes to show, as we’ve said often on this blog, that people who are courageous enough to speak out when they know hazing is going on should be applauded, not shunned or discouraged. Ultimately, bringing these incidents out is helpful as a curative to a real problem, even if the medicine is bitter in the short term.
Thankfully, this message seems to be catching on in some corners of the alumni community more and more. In one of its posts on Clark’s recent suspension of its band, the site HBCU Digest wrote in praise of the as-yet anonymous student who blew the whistle:
Someone was man enough or woman enough to recognize the lunacy of hazing at an HBCU after all of the tragedy and controversy at FAMU, and wanted to spare the band and the university the humiliation of being the next HBCU popped on hazing allegations. That student saved the school millions of dollars in legal fees and lost recruitment revenue, hundreds of thousands in marketing and rebranding efforts to remove the stigma of hazing, and more importantly, someone’s life.
Amen to that! Here’s hoping more students who are unfortunate enough to encounter hazing firsthand take a similar path, bucking peer pressure and PR fretting.
The FAMU Hazing Blog 