Gary and Julie DeVercelly, who have been advocating for federal hazing legislation since their son Gary DeVercelly Jr. died from an alcohol-related fraternity hazing ritual in 2007, looked on Wednesday as the House Committee for Education and Workforce advanced the Stop Campus Hazing Act.
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.”
Multiple Greek life organizations, including the National Panhellenic Conference and the North American Interfraternity Conference, support the legislation. The American Council on Education, the chief lobbying group for colleges, said in a letter to the committee that it didn’t have time to review the latest version of the legislation.
“We appreciate that the bill has undergone some helpful changes since its introduction, although we believe the bill should be further strengthened with clearer and narrower definitions in some instances,” the letter read. It didn’t specify the changes.
The proposed legislation defines hazing as “any intentional, knowing, or reckless act,” committed during “initiation into, an affiliation with, or the maintenance of membership in, a student organization.” Depriving someone of sleep or coercing alcohol consumption would qualify as hazing under the bill, as would “any activity that places another person in reasonable fear of bodily harm through the use of threatening words or conduct.”
Between 1959 and 2021, at least one hazing death took place on a U.S. college campus per year, according to an up-to-date hazing tracker maintained by Hank Nuwer, a noted hazing researcher and professor.
“Hazing has almost become an acceptable part of college culture,” said Pennsylvania representative Glenn Thompson, a Republican member of the committee, who voted to advance the bill. “Let me be clear today: Those days are over.”
In 2019, Thompson co-sponsored the bipartisan End All Hazing Act, which, like the Stop Campus Hazing Act, called for colleges to be more transparent about hazing incidents. But it didn’t move forward. A similar story unfolded for the bipartisan Report and Educate About Campus Hazing Act, which Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Republican senator Dr. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana introduced in 2021.
But when the Stop Campus Hazing Act was introduced in 2023, it married the language of the two earlier bills and gathered enough momentum to move forward. The full House and Senate have to sign off on the bill before the president can sign it into law.
If that happens, the legislation “will create a road map for a culture shift in hazing on our campuses that will save student lives,” said Representative Bobby Scott of Virginia, who is the top Democrat on the House committee. “With this legislation, we’ll ensure that students and parents will be better informed about the culture of hazing on their college campuses.”
Jessica Mertz, executive director of the Clery Center, a nonprofit that’s been pushing for federal hazing legislation for nearly a decade, said in an email after the vote Wednesday that she applauded the committee’s “strong bipartisan support to pass long overdue federal legislation that will help end a harmful culture of hazing on college campuses.”
Gary and Julie DeVercelly, who have been advocating for federal hazing legislation since their son Gary DeVercelly Jr. died from an alcohol-related fraternity hazing ritual in 2007, described Wednesday’s vote as “a crucial step on our journey.”
The Stop Campus Hazing Act “will transform the landscape of dangerous hazing culture that is prevalent on college campuses today,” the DeVercellys said in an email. “No parents should be a part of our club. Not for something that is 100 percent preventable and 100 percent unnecessary.”