- Sam Martinez
- 4 mins
HazingInfo.org is his legacy
It was 8 pm on a Monday night, and my son, Sam, was right where he was supposed to be: Studying in the library at Washington State University (WSU) along with his fellow pledges at Alpha Tau Omega (ATO) fraternity.
Suddenly, all the pledges were told to report to the fraternity house.
It was Big-Little Night, when each pledge’s “big brother,” or fraternity mentor, would be revealed. Sam and his fellow pledges were taken to the basement by ATO members. Sam was handed a half-gallon of rum by his so-called big brother and told to “drink the family drink.”
Over the next few hours, dozens of fraternity members saw Sam clearly struggling and ultimately losing consciousness. Not one called for help.
They laid him on a couch in the basement. And they left him alone to die of alcohol poisoning. His blood-alcohol level was nearly 5 times the legal limit.
Sam was just weeks into his freshman year.
First-of-its-kind hazing database
Four years on from that terrible day, I am channeling my grief into the one good thing that might come out of our family’s tragedy: the chance to save someone else’s child from being hurt or killed by hazing.
HazingInfo.org is Sam’s legacy and my passion. It’s a new nationwide database of hazing incidents that gives students, parents, and others access to the kind of information I looked for and could not find when Sam said he wanted to join a fraternity.
It’s the nation’s first one-stop resource for comprehensive, objective information about hazing incidents on college and university campuses. By harnessing and aggregating data on documented hazing incidents, we aim to expose hazing culture through increased transparency.
And by making hazing data easily accessible, we will provide students and families with accurate information to make smart choices about the groups, teams, and clubs they may want to join.
A history of hazing
I did my research when Sam wanted to join ATO and found nothing of concern.
But after Sam died, we learned that ATO had a history of hazing, alcohol, drug, and misconduct violations at WSU dating back to at least 2013. In the six years before Sam was killed, there were dozens of instances when authorities from WSU, the local Police Department, or ATO’s national office intervened at the chapter for a range of misconduct allegations, including hazing.
Emails and other correspondence show that both WSU and ATO knew this at the highest leadership levels and did nothing.
If we had known even a fraction of this information, there is zero chance Sam would have joined this fraternity, and I believe he would still be alive today.
How to end hazing for good
College students and their families deserve better. They need to know the full picture of the groups, teams, and clubs they seek to join, including their history of hazing.
Three weeks after Sam died, we met with WSU President Kirk Schulz. I told him about my beautiful, funny, sporty son and how his death had shattered our family. I said that we couldn’t afford to lose any more students to hazing.
And then I asked him: What are you going to do to end hazing for good?
HazingInfo.org is our family’s answer to that question.
I invite you to learn about hazing on your campus. Visit HazingInfo.org, follow us on social media, subscribe to our newsletter, and share HazingInfo.org with your networks—especially college-bound students and their families.
