Thanks in part to the Stop Campus Hazing Act’s educational requirements, it seems like we’re seeing more reports of hazing in the news and at the campus level.
For instance, just last week, a wrongful death lawsuit was filed against the University of Texas at Austin chapter of Sigma Chi fraternity, alleging that brutal hazing in fall 2023—including physical abuse like piercing a pledge with a fishhook—drove a freshman, Sawyer Updike, into a psychological crisis that ended in his suicide in January 2024. The university has since ordered the chapter to cease activities pending an investigation after it received “new information.”
RELATED: The Stop Campus Hazing Act: Key Implementation Trends That Could Impact Clery Act Compliance
How universities will report incidents like these—that occurred in 2023 but came to light after they began collecting hazing statistics in 2025—is an interesting question. We don’t yet have any guidance from the U.S. Department of Education, but a longstanding regulation provides that “an institution must record a crime statistic for the calendar year in which the crime was reported.” Even though hazing wasn’t a Clery crime in 2023, this rule suggests that it is reportable as statistics from 2025.
There is precedent for this approach. For example, The Ohio State University, following guidance from the U.S. Department of Education, reported over 2,800 incidents of sexual assault that occurred between 1978 and 1998 but were disclosed to the university from 2018 to 2021 after allegations against a university-employed physician came to light. Although the Clery Act didn’t require institutions to begin collecting crime statistics until 1991, incidents dating as early as 13 years prior to that were included in the statistics for the years they were reported.
This rule has been rooted in federal regulation since 1999, but it wasn’t always this way. In the 1990s, the U.S. Department of Education expected institutions to disclose statistics in the year the crime occurred, and even found one institution in violation of the law for disclosing an incident in the year it was reported to them. The 1999 change better aligned Clery reporting with the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting system—on which much of Clery is based—and ensures that older crimes coming to light in later years still get reported.
With increased hazing education under the Stop Campus Hazing Act, students and others on campus will be better equipped to recognize, name, and report it—not just current incidents, but also those from the past. Institutions should have protocols in place to capture this information systematically, including clear processes for campus public safety and other officials to log historical reports. And when possible, be prepared to act on it, as seen in the University of Texas at Austin case where new details emerged through a lawsuit, prompting an investigation and chapter suspension.
Note: The views expressed by guest bloggers and contributors are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, Campus Safety.
