{"id":39841,"date":"2019-11-15T02:03:22","date_gmt":"2019-11-15T02:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=39841"},"modified":"2019-11-15T02:03:22","modified_gmt":"2019-11-15T02:03:22","slug":"ut-hazing-case-brings-disgraceful-behavior-front-and-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=39841","title":{"rendered":"UT hazing case brings disgraceful behavior front and center"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Blogger’s Note: This blog post appeared originally on KETR-FM’s website.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I guess I missed out on a lot of \u201cfun\u201d while attending college back in the day.<\/p>\n

The \u201cfun,\u201d had I joined a fraternity at Portland (Ore.) State University, would have included hazing. You know, things that involve sleep deprivation and assorted other forms of what would qualify as \u201ctorture\u201d if it was being done to soldiers captured by the enemy on the battlefield.<\/p>\n

Nicholas Cumberland died Oct. 30, 2018 after being hazed at the University of Texas by the Texas Cowboys, a fraternal group that UT-Austin has suspended for six years<\/a>. Cumberland died in an automobile accident. He had been subjected to the kind of activity that clearly should be considered torture. The university has just released a report detailing the incident and the punishment it has leveled against the organization linked to the tragedy.<\/p>\n

I find this kind of activity to be reprehensible. I\u2019m an old man these days, long removed from my own college days. I was a young married student when I enrolled at Portland State. I lived with my bride and would go home each day after class. Thus, I avoided being sucked into the kind of activity that fraternities do to their members.<\/p>\n

As KTRK-TV reported: \u201cCumberland was paddled so hard, he had \u2018significant bruising on his buttocks nearly a month after the Retreat and car accident,\u2019 records allege.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, the young man was on a \u201cRetreat\u201d when the vehicle he was in rolled over.<\/p>\n

We hear about this kind of thing all the time. It\u2019s certainly not unique to UT-Austin, or even to any public college or university in Texas. My hope would be that university educators and administrators everywhere in this nation would be alarmed enough to examine how their own fraternities conduct themselves.<\/p>\n

A report by the UT-Austin Dean of Students Office notes that the Sept. 29, 2018 retreat included students bringing, among other things, \u201ccopious amounts of alcohol.\u201d They also brought a live chicken and a live hamster, presumably to arrange for the frat pledges to kill the animals in bizarre fashion.<\/p>\n

I get that I didn\u2019t get to experience the full breadth<\/em><\/i> of college life back when I was trying to get an education. I had seen enough already, having served a couple of years in the U.S. Army, including a tour of duty in Vietnam. So, I wasn\u2019t a totally green homebody when I enrolled in college upon my return home.<\/p>\n

I still cannot grasp the \u201cbenefit\u201d accrued by hazing students to the point of killing them.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the death of Nicholas Cumberland could prompt university officials to take a sober look at certain aspects of campus life<\/em><\/i> and whether some elements of it result in campus death<\/em><\/i>.<\/p>\n\n

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Blogger’s Note: This blog post appeared originally on KETR-FM’s website. I guess I missed out on a lot of \u201cfun\u201d while attending college back in the day. The \u201cfun,\u201d had I joined a fraternity at Portland (Ore.) State University, would have included hazing. You know, things that involve sleep deprivation and assorted other forms of … Continue reading UT hazing case brings disgraceful behavior front and center<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6251],"tags":[9040,8436,3341,3777,5068],"class_list":["post-39841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-news","tag-hazing","tag-ketr-fm","tag-npr","tag-public-radio","tag-ut-austin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39843,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39841\/revisions\/39843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}