Many people in attendance for Fort Valley State University’s homecoming over the weekend likely had been looking forward to seeing the school’s storied marching band take the field for another electric halftime performance.
But after hazing charges were leveled against members of the band last week, the “Blue Machine” was removed from the weekend’s lineup.
According to reports, two young women were arrested after the Fort Valley Police Department “found sufficient evidence to support charges of hazing.” The alleged victims were identified only as a 20-year-old man and an 18-year-old woman.
“We understand the seriousness of this situation and the impact it has on our community, particularly during Homecoming season,” the university said in a statement. “Our top priority is the safety and well-being of all our students and the entire Wildcat community.”
While the university has opened an independent investigation into the case, FVSU isn’t the only institution grappling with hazing allegations this year.
Divine Nine hazing investigations
In late February, a 20-year-old student at Southern University died in what police called “a fraternity hazing incident.”
Police said that Caleb Wilson, a student from suburban New Orleans, was punched repeatedly during a meeting between members of the university’s chapter of Omega Psi Phi and a group of prospective members, or pledges. His death was ruled a homicide in September.
During the meeting, authorities said, three members of the fraternity took turns punching the pledges in the chest while wearing boxing gloves. Officials said that Wilson collapsed after being punched several times, and later died at a hospital.
Wilson’s death rocked the community at the historically Black university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where the junior mechanical engineering major was also a member of the school’s prominent marching band, known as the Human Jukebox.
In March, Baton Rouge police arrested three Southern University students — Isaiah Earl Smith, 28, Kyle McKinley Thurman, 25 and Caleb McCray, 23 — on felony hazing charges in connection with Wilson’s death. McCray was also charged with manslaughter.
Last month, a former Omega Psi Phi pledge at the University of Southern Mississippi filed a federal lawsuit against the organization after alleging that he was beaten so brutally during “Hell Night” that he was hospitalized and had to learn to walk again.
According to reports about the suit filed by Rafeal Joseph, he and other pledges were struck repeatedly with a wooden paddle on April 16, 2023. As a result, Joseph underwent a blood transfusion and emergency surgery while being treated for bruised ribs, a hematoma, posterior compartment syndrome, and a severe muscle injury.
The lawsuit alleges that Joseph, who dropped out of school, suffered severe emotional distress and could not walk for months.
Stopping the violence
Famed civil rights attorney Bakari Settles took on Joseph’s case against Omega Psi Phi in an effort to raise awareness about hazing’s impact.
“We see violent incidents like these time and again across the nation but, instead of taking action, fraternity leaders and university officials alike sweep it under the rug and write it off as ‘boys will be boys,’” Settles said in a press release. “It’s criminal violence and abuse and it needs to end.”
In Georgia, hazing is considered a misdemeanor. In 2021 the state legislature passed the Max Gruver Act, named after a Roswell teen who died during a hazing incident at a Louisiana State University fraternity in 2017. Penalties include a $5,000 fine and up to one year in jail.
Last year, President Joe Biden signed the Stop Campus Hazing Act, requiring universities that participate in federal student aid programs to disclose hazing incidents, and distribute a comprehensive prevention program.
Filmmaker Byron Hurt, produced Hazing, a 2022 documentary on fraternities and sororities that physically abuse prospective members, and faced criticism for asserting that the “silence” around the issue “is an act of betrayal.”
Hurt told Capital B’s Alecia Taylor in an interview last week that there’s a lot at stake in the fight against hazing.
“For people who endure hazing, who survive hazing, they have to deal with the emotional and physical trauma that remains once they complete their process,” he said. “On the extreme side of that are people who lose their lives, like Caleb Wilson — that’s the extreme outcome that nobody wants, and that is the thing that gets people to have these conversations.”
Fort Valley State University found itself embroiled in another homecoming controversy when it announced in an email to Capital B Atlanta on Monday that nine FVSU student-athletes and football head coach Marlon Watson will serve a one-game ban following a “postgame altercation” that occurred during Saturday’s game against Central State University.
“Acts of unsportsmanlike conduct have no place in intercollegiate athletics or within the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference,” conference Commissioner Anthony Holloman said in a press release. “I am extremely disappointed that this event has overshadowed what was otherwise a very competitive football game.”
According to reports, the SIAC suspended 20 student-athletes — nine from Fort Valley State and 11 from Central State — for fighting.
