‘Nobody called 911’: what can be done to change the culture of hazing at US colleges?

Hazing is most closely associated with the Greek-letter student organizations that uphold a kind of popularity caste system at private colleges and public universities across the country. Photograph: Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis/Getty Images

Late on 19 October 2021, an 18-year-old University of Missouri student named Danny Santulli collapsed to the floor in the middle of a Tuesday night party – the latest victim of an apparent hazing ritual that had spiraled dangerously out of control.

Surveillance footage from the “pledge father reveal” party hosted by the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity revealed how Santulli was force-fed beer through a funnel in between guzzling a 1.75 liter bottle of vodka; after two hours of drinking, he lost his balance and keeled over backward. He was barely conscious when fraternity members dropped him again, while scrambling to carry him out a door to the hospital. There, attendants found him inside a car, not breathing and in cardiac arrest; his blood-alcohol level was at a near-fatal 0.46.