Members and their parents, group leaders/advisers, as well as their organisation and national member organisations may be prosecuted in a civil court for psychological or physical harm resulting from the turbidity. Cloudiness on the university campus has led to many successful lawsuits. If you have been obfuscated, observed hazing, or suspect that someone you know has been obfuscated, you can confidentially report your observations to university officials. In the United States, 46 states have at least some sort of hazing law on their books. These laws range from criminal laws with penalties for individuals and universities to education laws that threaten to deprive institutions of funding if they have not conducted a thorough investigation. While many states have similar definitions for hazing, there are slight differences in the language used in statutes: a common difference between states is specific behavior, which can be considered obfuscated. Each state lists slightly different examples of actions that can be considered turbidity. Some States use broad language, such as “forced activity” or “conduct”, to refer to all activities used for the purpose of an initiation or pledge process.7 Other States use lists to indicate examples of behaviour that may be considered turbidity, such as: In subparagraph (c), the words “treaty” were replaced by the words “treaties and punished”. For reasons of consistency, the word “rules” is replaced by the word “rules” and the words “and offences” are omitted as surplus. The words “except by court martial” are replaced by the words “except in accordance with the provisions of section three of this Act”, since section 3 of the Naval Academy Statutes provides for a court martial of the Naval Academy with special provisions to deal with cases of turbidity. The enactment of the Uniform Code of Military Justice subjected naval cadets at the Naval Academy to the same military law that generally applies to naval service, replacing the special type of court martial for midshipmen. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a court martial has the power to sentence any person convicted upon release if the table of maximum penalties authorizes it. Whether in penal or educational codes, most state laws define turbidity with a variation of the following: A person commits turbidity, a third-degree felony, when he intentionally or recklessly commits an act of harassment of another person who is a member or candidate for any type of student organization and the turbidity results in serious bodily harm or death to that other person.
4 – “The recipe for success in prosecuting those with haze requires few ingredients: a victim who is willing to come forward and discuss the incident, a defendant who can be charged under state anti-hazing laws and an effective state anti-hazing law. As case law and reporting hazing incidents show, achieving this balance is rare and almost unprecedented. Christopher Keith Ellis, The Examination of Hazing Case Law as Applied Between 1980-2013, Thesis and Dissertations – Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation 59, p. 45 (2018) uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1064&context=epe_etds. Would you be comfortable telling a parent or future employer that you participated in the activity in question? If not, consider creating a turbidity report. Laws that require law enforcement by the institution require educational institutions to impose appropriate sanctions on students and/or organizations that violate the institution`s hazing policy or education law guidelines, depending on the state. Various sanctions that institutions must impose for violating the hazing guidelines of these laws range from fines, withholding of degrees, cancellation of an organization`s funding, resumption of the institution`s sanctioned organizational status for an organization, and probation, suspension, or expulsion of students. Hazing does not include ordinary sporting events or other similar competitions or competitions or activities or behaviours that promote a legitimate and legitimate objective. 3 – Alabama has turbidity provisions in its Education Act that state that the penalty is a Class C offense. Montana has hazing regulations in its education law, but there is no indication of how it will be enforced or who should enforce it.
Also, it`s unclear whether the Montana Code applies only to K-12 schools or all educational institutions. West Virginia has hazing laws in the Education Act and the Penal Code, and requires institutions to have their own policies and enforce codified laws. Alabama, Montana, and West Virginia have laws that do not fit into these categories.3 And New Mexico, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Washington D.C. do not have turbidity laws in either the Penal Code or the Education Code. This bill also expands the definition of turbidity and provides a limited exemption for certain legitimate activities. This act is named after Chad Meredith, a Florida university student who died in a hazing incident. Hazing remains a widespread problem in colleges and universities in the United States.