On December 11, 2024, the U.S. Senate passed the Stop Campus Hazing Act after years of efforts to protect students on campus spearheaded by the families of students who died because of such misconduct in college. It is a historic day for these families, the lives and memories of their beloved children, and for the countless lives that will be protected from brutal traditions that have caused deaths and injuries for decades.

Now, the rights of students and families have been strengthened, expanded, and equalized across the country. Among its many important provisions, the law requires educational institutions to openly disclose hazing policies and identify student organizations that have been found responsible for violating those hazing policies. This will prevent student groups – primarily fraternities – from hiding their record of misconduct from the public. Such transparency may compel reforms by these organizations that they have thus far refused to enact because the public has remained unaware of the dangers they pose. To be sure, the public has never been fully aware of the fact that fraternities posed such a great risk to students and others in the 1980s that commercial insurance companies declined to insure their activities.

One possible reform is to abolish fraternity pledging. There is no good, safe reason to permit fraternities to continue “pledging” as a subjective means of determining whether students merit admission. This process immerses new students in activities required by the organizations’ members to demonstrate their “worthiness” for membership. With the lack of supervision over these organizations, the required activities often become dangerous and deadly. When a university reviews and approves a student’s qualifications for admission, that student should be deemed generally qualified to join any student organization that is recognized by the university. Universities convey substantial benefits to recognized student organizations, and such organizations should be prohibited from discriminating against students on the subjective measures embedded in a pledge process.

The Fierberg National Law Group thanks these families for their tireless efforts and entrusting the firm to review and revise drafts of the legislation to ensure that their goals were accurately reflected in the law.