Ohio State’s Undergraduate Student Government passed a resolution Wednesday endorsing an anti-hazing bill in the Ohio Senate. Credit: Casey Cascaldo | Lantern file photo
The Undergraduate Student Government passed a resolution Wednesday night endorsing anti-hazing legislation in the Ohio Senate following the death of Bowling Green State University student Stone Foltz March 7 from an alleged fraternity hazing incident.
The passing of the resolution will encourage Ohio State’s Office of Government Affairs to advocate for Ohio Senate Bill 126, also known as Collin’s Law, and have the university work with student organizations to address the culture of hazing.
The bill was named after Collin Wiant, a first-year at Ohio University who died after collapsing at an off-campus Sigma Pi gathering in November 2018. A coroner ruled in February 2019 that he died from asphyxiation after inhaling gas from a nitrous oxide cartridge — known as a whippit.
The bill would strengthen the penalty for hazing from a fourth-degree misdemeanor to a second-degree misdemeanor and, if involving alcohol or drugs, a third-degree felony.
“A lot of organizations, including Greek life, have had a culture of hazing for a really long time,” Lauren Sutherland, legislative coordinator for the Governmental Relations Committee and John Glenn College of Public Affairs senator, said. “Universities have tried to address it, individual chapters or organizations have tried to address it, but the state has still been pretty lax on their punishments for hazing.”
The resolution has been introduced in every legislative session in the Ohio Statehouse since 2019 but has yet to be passed by the Ohio Senate.
“I think after you see something as senseless as Stone Foltz’s death or Collin Wiant’s death and you see the punishment as something that is so lax and not really fitting the crime, it’s just such an important issue and something that desperately, desperately needs to change,” Sutherland, a second-year in public management, leadership and policy, said.
Foltz was hospitalized the morning of March 5 after being injured at an off-campus event hosted by Bowling Green’s Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity — commonly known as PIKE — after being given “a copious amount of alcohol” at the event, the Foltz family’s attorney Sean Alto said. Foltz died March 7.
According to Ohio State’s Code of Student Conduct, hazing is “doing, requiring or encouraging any act, whether or not the act is voluntarily agreed upon, in conjunction with initiation or continued membership or participation in any group, that causes or creates a substantial risk of causing mental or physical harm or humiliation.” It includes acts such as the use of alcohol, creation of excessive fatigue and paddling, punching or kicking.
Since the original Collin’s Law was introduced in the spring of 2019, seven Ohio State fraternities have had their student organization status revoked by the university for hazing or endangering behavior, according to Ohio State’s Sorority and Fraternity Life conduct history.
The Code of Student Conduct defines endangering behavior as taking or threatening action that jeopardizes the safety, health or life of a person or causes fear of such action.
Ohio State’s chapter of PIKE resigned its national charter in January following a university investigation that led to the revocation of its student organization status through August 2024. They were cited for violating alcohol rules, engaging in endangering behavior, failing to comply with university or civil authority, violating university rules or federal, state and local laws, and student conduct system abuse.
According to a 2018 national study, 73 percent of students in Greek Life organizations, 74 percent in varsity athletics, 64 percent in club sports and 56 percent of students in performing arts reported experiencing a form of hazing.
According to the resolution, 65 percent of respondents believe the primary goal of initiation is to bond and overstep moral boundaries and participating in hazing activities creates a strong community.
“I know tradition and community are important things that mean a lot of things to a lot of people, and I value those things a lot, but if your tradition is literally taking the lives of young students every single year, that’s not one that should continue. That’s what we’re trying to stop,” Sage Klein, arts and humanities senator and a second-year in moving image production and political science, said.
At least one man has died in connection with fraternity hazing each year for the past two decades, reaching more than 350 deaths within American schools since the 1800s, according to the resolution.
“Unfortunately, Stone Foltz and Collin Wiant’s cases are not unique. We see them across the nation, pretty frequently. And it’s indicative of a larger culture, and a lot of institutions around colleges that have something to be expected and something to protect, and that’s just not true,” Sutherland said.
Sutherland said the resolution, along with recent support of the bill from the student body governments of Bowling Green and Ohio University, will be submitted as supporting documents to the Ohio Senate.
