Understanding the Stop Campus Hazing Act: Clarifying Misconceptions About Organizational Liability

Timothy M. Burke, Fraternal Law Partners, tburke@manleyburke.com

National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) Chief Executive Officer, Dani Weatherford, who was instrumental in drafting and passing the Stop Campus Hazing Act (the “Act”),^[1] reports that some college and university officials are misinterpreting a provision of the Act. This misunderstanding concerns how the Act defines student organizations and assigns responsibility for hazing incidents.

Several institutions, including even UNLV in its recently revised statement described in the preceding article, have incorrectly suggested that the Act establishes organizational culpability when two members engage in hazing behavior. This interpretation misrepresents the Act’s actual language and intent. What the provision of the Act states is:

The term ‘student organization,’ for purposes of reporting under [the Act], means an organization at an institution of higher education (such as a club, society, association, varsity or junior varsity athletic team, club sports team, fraternity, sorority, band or student government) in which two or more of the members are students enrolled at the institute of higher education, whether or not the organization is established or recognized by the institution.

What the Act actually requires is that even if only two students are members of a group and hazing occurs, it must be reported. It does not mean that the group is guilty of hazing even if only two members engage in the hazing. In other words, the Act requires that hazing incidents be reported when they occur within any group having at least two student members, regardless of official recognition status. It does not, however, automatically attribute the actions of individual members to the entire organization.

Nearly all national and international fraternal organizations explicitly prohibit hazing in their policies, as do their local chapters. If two individual members act independently to haze potential new members—particularly when concealing these actions from chapter leadership—the Act does not assign blanket responsibility to the entire organization for these unauthorized behaviors.

While the organization itself may not be automatically culpable under the Act, it is important to note that the individual perpetrators remain accountable through university disciplinary processes, organizational sanctions, and where applicable, criminal proceedings under state law.

This clarification is essential for institutions as they implement reporting procedures that copy with the Stop Campus Hazing Act.

[1] Stop Campus Hazing Act, H.R. 5646, 118th Cong. (2023-2024).