The hazing files: LSU frats, some now shuttered, have amassed dozens of official complaints

[TexasTowelie]

An LSU student hid in an upstairs bathroom of a storied fraternity house after he finally cracked.

Hell Week was in full flower. Over the past few days, his fraternity brothers had paddled him, pressured him to drink and forced him to stop sleeping. He threw up for five hours straight after they demanded that he stuff a whole tin of chewing tobacco in his mouth.

“I cannot come forward publicly because I am afraid of the retaliation I will receive from active members of the fraternity, but can no longer go through this abuse,” the pledge wrote in a 2016 complaint to LSU. “If whoever is reading this does not believe me, come to the Kappa Sigma house at any point this week and investigate what is going on. … I don't want future kids to be submitted to what I have had to go through.”

The pledge’s anonymous, first-person account was one of more than 40 complaints lodged against 14 LSU fraternities between 2016 and 2019, according to public records the university provided in response to a request from The Advocate. The newspaper has compiled them into a database as LSU’s Interfraternity Council Recruitment — known as rush — starts Aug. 18.

Read more: https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/article_c4c88d82-c04d-11e9-a390-bfe2c2c70732.html

[rpannier]

1. Another reason why I am glad I did not pledge when 'invited'

I didn't join because I found the members I spoke to obnoxious and elitist.
With what we are learning about frats and sororities now, I am glad I never found out what they were like in 82

[GaYellowDawg]

2. I pledged to 2 different fraternities.

The first time because I wanted to, and ended up getting kicked out. I wasn't wild enough for some of the members. I was dating a sorority girl at the time, and she insisted I try it again. I had kept my eyes open as to who acted how, and ended up pledging with the smallest fraternity on campus. They had a very strict no hazing policy. All I had to do was learn about the people in the chapter and the fraternity's history, and participate in as much as my class schedule allowed. Had a great time and ended up getting initiated. We had the highest GPA of any fraternity, couldn't win any games in intramural sports, but we all had a lot of fun. There were people in my chapter who didn't drink a drop of alcohol (I was one of them after a particularly bad experience from the other frat), and there wasn't any bullying or hazing. Just a great group of guys who I wouldn't have met in any of my classes. I'm still in contact with some of them 30 years later. But I wouldn't have ever joined any of the other frats on campus, and I wouldn't have joined any of the other chapters of my national fraternity that I encountered, either. Just got lucky with the group I joined, I suppose.