Danny McAuliffe

FSView

After a semester-long investigation resulting in the arrests of seven members of the Zeta Beta Tau (ZBT) fraternity at Florida State University, the organization is set to appear for a hearing before the Office of Student Rights & Responsibilities Thursday.

The hearing will determine what actions, if any, will be taken toward ZBT. The fraternity faces possible sanctions of suspension or dismissal from campus.

According to Dean of Students Vicki Dobiyanski, evidence considered at the hearing will include a series of incidents that transpired last fall involving ZBT’s pledge class. These incidents were documented by Officer Hartley of FSUPD after he received hazing allegations from a confidential informant last December. The informant recalled three main instances of forced drinking and hazing.

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Following up from the allegations received by the confidential informant, Officer Hartley conducted interviews with several members of the fraternity, including former pledges. He recorded instances of excessive drinking, drug use, battery, sleep deprivation, forced calisthenics, mandated uniforms, second-class citizenship and mental intimidation in his incident report.

Two former pledges of the fraternity revealed to Officer Hartley what happened to new members on the night of initiation. They both recalled being told to use their ties as blindfolds and, after being forced to become heavily intoxicated, the blindfolded pledges were driven to the woods.

One pledge recalled being struck in the face while blindfolded and it was later revealed that ZBT member Dylan Weiss had slapped the pledge.

During the investigation, Weiss told Officer Hartley that the slapping was impulsive and stupid.

The confidential informant for the investigation said that the camera in the chapter room of the ZBT house would be blocked to obscure the camera’s view before instances of hazing would occur. This was later confirmed by a member of the fraternity.

After his investigation concluded in April, Hartley was advised by Assistant State Attorney Eddie Evans to not bring forth charges of criminal hazing and instead issue written arrests for ZBT members Charles Hillis, Brandon Corcione, Andrew Rector, Jackson Menke, Dylan Weiss, Clayton Balistreri and Alex Crespo for providing alcohol to a minor.

As of May 23, the prosecution is pending for each arrest.

FSU’s ZBT President Adam Culver declined to comment for the FSView on the investigation and hearing.

Laurence A. Bolotin, executive director of ZBT National Fraternity indicated that he was made aware of the specifics after receiving Hartley’s report and that the ZBT chapter remains in a suspended status until the university reaches a conclusion.

“We were very disappointed to learn of the choices made by the men in the Zeta Alpha Chapter at FSU as they were not at all in line with the values that our fraternity stands for,” Bolotin wrote in an email to the FSView.

He also noted that ZBT has a “zero tolerance” policy toward hazing and pledging. According to ZBT’s national website, the fraternity was the first to completely abolish pledging.

Major Jim Russell, deputy chief of police at FSUPD, told the FSView that it was not uncommon for the university to have hazing allegations. Though, as a former student of FSU, Russell consoled that the university has made the process of reporting hazing easier.

“When I was a student and when I was young officer here it was harder for people to come forward with the hazing complaint,” Russell said. “Now there are a lot of anonymous and different avenues to [report hazing] and the university has done a pretty good job of opening doors to come forward instead of pretending that [hazing] doesn’t exist.”

While ZBT was not charged with criminal hazing, the university is bringing forth administrative charges of hazing which will be heard Thursday.

According to the university’s student organization code of conduct, some hazing instances include forced or coerced consumption of food, alcohol, drugs and other substances; creation of unnecessary fatigue; and physical and/or psychological shocks.