Talk:Sigma Nu/Archive 2

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Hazing?

I know the national fraternity was founded as an anti-hazing fraternity and continues to have those values, but to me, the way the article is written seems somewhat misleading. Sigma Nu may not have as many hazing issues as SAE or anything, but Sigma Nu does haze and just saying that they pride themselves on anti-hazing laws makes it sound like there is absolutely no hazing in the fraternity. I had a boyfriend who was SN and the hazing at our school was pretty brutal. A quick google search brings up a half dozen SN chapters that were cited for hazing. Barry Ballou died in 1980 in a hazing incident in a SN chapter. Should we clarify this issue? Bali88 (talk) 01:39, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Sigma Nu is founded on anti-hazing and deeply frowns upon any greek organization that does so, let alone their own chapter. However, active chapters will untimely do what they want and wind up in trouble with their respective university and HQ. 128.125.231.232 (talk) 21:39, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

The death seems like it's worth mentioning. This source is used for Ballou's death on List of hazing deaths in the United States, but it's behind a paywall. It appears Ballou's death spurred anti-hazing legislation in the South Carolina house in 1980, which is significant.[1] That law doesn't appear to have passed, but one was passed in 1987 which was also connected to the Ballou family.[2]

Simply being cited for hazing is a hard call. If sources indicate it's significant to the frat as an organization, or to an outside community, then I would agree that it should be mentioned, but many examples I've found for other frats were pretty routine. It's definitely a gray area. Grayfell (talk) 23:37, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm revisiting this in light of recent reports about the serious 1990 hazing incident that resulted in criminal charges and the closing of the chapter at the University of Texas. [3][4] I agree that the current state of the article, emphasizing the official no-hazing policy without any mention of incidents that led to chapter closings (or worse), is unbalanced. This should be remedied by the addition of a section mentioning the most significant incidents.--Arxiloxos (talk) 21:50, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

The fraternity's outspoken opposition to hazing (no comment on how effective that's been) predates this incident by over a century, but the incident resulted in the closing of a chapter and involved an independently notable person. As is common with celebrity gossip it's fairly easy to find sources, and in this case many of them seem generally reliable. I'm all for adding a sentence or two mentioning the incident. The newspaper source is a good one. The Star Magazine article that broke the recent story is pretty trashy, but this Washington Post source since it seems fairly early in the news cycle and is better at avoiding click-bait. Grayfell (talk) 22:34, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

For what it is worth, I pledged Sigma Nu, Duke University (Γ) in 1981. In my years in the chapter I know we did not haze. When I later learned other chapters did I had to admit I was naive to think any young man who pledged Sigma Nu did so because they knew hazing was remarkably immature. As much as I loved my time in the fraternity and the friendships that arose from it, I wouldn't mind seeing a section linked to the article explaining why chapters aren't automatically shut down permanently for hazing. One strike and you're out seems fair to me. --Dhugot (talk) 21:42, 5 October 2018 (UTC)