By Kathryn Palmer
After years of stalled attempts to pass federal anti-hazing legislation, a bill that would require colleges and universities to report such incidents cleared a key committee Wednesday, paving the way for a vote on the House floor.
Nearly all present lawmakers on the House Education and Workforce Committee voted to advance the bipartisan Stop Campus Hazing Act. This is the first time a bill aimed at preventing hazing in higher education has passed out of committee, and advocates are hopeful that the legislation will become law.
In addition to mandating that institutions include hazing incidents in their annual security reports, the Stop Campus Hazing Act would also require them to implement hazing-prevention programming and publish their hazing policies online, along with information about which student organizations have a history of hazing incidents.
It’s “about empowering students and families so that they can make an informed decision for themselves about what school they or their loved one attends or the club that they may join, and hopefully save their lives,” said Representative Lucy McBath, a Georgia Democrat who sponsored the bill, during the House Education and Workforce Committee’s markup of the bill.
McBath ran for Congress after her 17-year-old son, Jordan, was murdered in a gas station parking lot in 2012. While she didn’t lose her son to hazing, she said that understanding the “pain of losing a child” motivated her to push for the legislation.
“I know the hole it leaves in your soul and the questions it leaves you to continue to dwell on for the rest of your life,” McBath told the committee and the numerous family members of hazing victims in attendance—some of whom have spent decades advocating for federal anti-hazing laws. “The only thing we can do now is try to harness our pain and do something positive with it—try to make a lasting change that will prevent other families from suffering the same tragedy.”
McBath and others have sought for years to enact federal anti-hazing legislation, which lawmakers and advocates say would provide better information about hazing incidents and help to prevent them.
Currently, the Clery Act of 1990, the federal campus safety law, doesn’t require colleges to report data about hazing. Additionally, at the state level, hazing definitions and penalties are inconsistent. Federal legislation would provide more uniform guidance, advocates and lawmakers say.
“The Clery Act is the central framework for campus safety, and hazing was the last criminal threat to student safety that wasn’t addressed as part of the Clery Act,” said S. Daniel Carter, a campus safety consultant and longtime advocate for federal anti-hazing legislation. “Adding it to the Clery Act is a sign that this will be a tool for institutions to use to combat hazing.”