Salisbury University Frat Punished For Hazing
SALISBURY, Md. (WJZ) -- Beaten and forced to drink dangerous amounts of alcohol. Those are some of the disturbing allegations of hazing at a Salisbury University fraternity. A former pledge has come forward to speak out.
Meghan McCorkell has more on the disturbing claims.
Salisbury University suspended that fraternity after a former student described brutal treatment in the spring of 2012.
Fraternity brothers playfully performed a skit at Salisbury University in 2008 but a former student claims getting into Sigma Alpha Epsilon was not fun and games.
Speaking to Bloomberg News, the 19-year-old says pledges were beaten with paddles, locked in a basement and forced to drink until passing out. Similar allegations against the same frat were made at Dartmouth.
"There were times when I questioned, really, really questioned why. Why are we doing this?" said former pledge Andrew Lohse. "There's a fine line between being super drunk and being dead."
Substance abuse expert Mike Gimbel says hazing has reached dangerous levels.
"If I were the governor of the state of Maryland, I would call a meeting of every president of every college Monday morning and I would say we've got to deal with this," he said.
Salisbury suspended the fraternity in 2012, saying, "The university will continue to vigorously enforce its policies when allegations of violations occur."
SAE is banned from recruiting at the school until the spring of 2015, but a rush video was posted online three weeks ago.
The national fraternity says they have "zero tolerance for hazing" and those who violate the rules "are in no way representative of the fraternity."
According to the national website, more than a hundred SAE chapters have been disciplined for violations at schools over the past five years.
Salisbury University reported the hazing incident to city police. No charges were filed.
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