Engreso, Geralyn M.

BSAIS - 4

REFLECTION PAPER

With more and more reported cases of student deaths due to hazing, ched region 7 has organized a
webinar about the recruitment process of fraternities and sororities which is called hazing. The webinar
was entitled "ALANG SA KAAYOHAN NI JUAN UG JUANA SA SULOD UG GAWAS SA
ESKWELA: "A WEBINAR ON RA 11053-THE ANTI-HAZING ACT OF 2018". According to
Wikipedia, “Hazing is any activity expected of someone joining or participating in a group that
humiliates, degrades, abuses, or endangers them regardless of a person’s willingness to participate."
Hazing is seen in many different types of social groups, including gangs, sports teams, schools, cliques,
universities, military units, prisons, fraternities and sororities, and even workplaces in some cases. The
initiation rites can range from relatively benign pranks to protracted patterns of behavior that rise to the
level of abuse or criminal misconduct. Hazing is often prohibited by law or institutions such as colleges
and universities because it may include either physical or psychological abuse, such as humiliation,
nudity, or sexual abuse.

Fraternity in the early times is kind of brotherhood, it is where they formed a group of friend to help
each one of them, where members must bond, interact and live together over the period of the college life
or for some High School life. This club becomes a place for members to meet, socialize and create
friendship amongst other members. As a result each member gains recognition, sense of belonging in a
family and an ability to feel needed and wanted by the club. One of the most controversial legacies left to
the modern fraternity or sorority by past generations is the tradition of physical, psychological, or
emotional testing of its potential members as a rite of passage to full membership. Hazing is a brutal
practice that ought to be made illegal in each state so that no individual can be hurt both physically and
mentally. It is improper to employ hazing to initiate someone into a group since it encourages the use of
violence. The problem is that many mistakenly think hazing and initiation are the same things when they
are not. These are very different because although hazing is dangerous, initiation is harmless.

The psychological motivation for hazing is to foster unity, yet hazing actually undermines unity. How
can that foster comradery? When people are hazed, they lose their identity and nobility. As violence
humiliates and weakens a person, it cannot foster a sense of teamwork. Too many young, talented men
had been thrown away. There had been so many crushed dreams. There had been so many broken
families. The social structure has evolved into a vast, dark abyss that drags these young, promising men to
their deaths. Despite having noble and respectable principles, the fraternity as an organization has
degraded into a violent gang.

Hazing is improper in every way, as any moral and intelligent person can perceive. Students may live
with the harmful effects of hazing for the rest of their lives. Several of the universities where hazing is
practiced failed to punish offenders severely enough. As hazing encourages aggression, physically
degrades victims, and leaves them with emotional wounds, it calls for more severe punishment. The
safety of students nationwide would be ensured by outlawing hazing in every state.