Discovering the truth about the brutal hazing of Joseph Snell was no easy task.
In the early 1990s, the internet was in its earliest stages. As a young lawyer representing a hazing victim for the first time, my research into Snell’s case required locating historical records on microfilm and seeking internal documents held by universities through multiple public records requests that were often denied or delayed.
The truth, once uncovered, was ugly: Snell was beaten by fraternity members at the University of Maryland over a period of four weeks in 1993 with a hammer, a horse-hair whip, a brush, and a broken chair leg.
Members placed a space heater next to Snell’s face to darken his skin because they said he wasn’t “Black enough” to join Omega Psi Phi Inc., a historically Black fraternity. Snell ended up hospitalized with severe injuries.
On behalf of Snell, I filed a lawsuit against Omega Psi Phi in 1995. It was the beginning of a 30-year career representing school violence victims and survivors nationwide.
Through the legal discovery process, I learned that hazing was widespread across Omega Psi Phi’s chapters, resulting in a number of fatalities and serious injuries to pledges.
And I began to see that hazing deaths and injuries associated with fraternity misconduct were much more common across the nation than people realized.
Neither fraternities nor universities publicly reported such incidents at the time. Information was discoverable only when an incident was tragic enough to be considered news. Even then, many incidents were only covered in campus or local newspapers, making it difficult to find the details.
Over time, I learned that there was one group with ready access to the data documenting the harms of hazing — the fraternities and their insurers.
They maintained so-called loss histories and reports that documented hazing claims and lawsuits, and the financial payouts, settlements, and jury verdicts that resulted from them. They used that information to set the terms, coverages, and costs of insurance negotiated between fraternities and insurance companies.
Fraternities closely guarded the data because it demonstrated how dangerous fraternity rituals were, the inadequacy of their hazing prevention policies and risk management procedures, and their own reluctance to reform their practices to protect students and families.
Many commercial insurers ultimately decided the risks weren’t worth it and stopped issuing insurance policies to fraternities by the end of the 1980s because the risks were too high. That led the fraternity industry to create a self-insurance model, pooling their funds to insure themselves against potential liability for hazing and other risky behavior.
Justice finally came four years after my client, Joseph Snell, was hazed (and after we rejected an offer from Omega Psi Phi for $5,000 to settle the lawsuit before trial).
A Maryland jury awarded Snell $375,000 in punitive damages against the fraternity in 1997, finding both the international organization and its College Park, MD, chapter responsible for hazing. At the time, it was one of the largest judgments ever awarded in a hazing case in which the victim survived.
We collected every dollar of that judgment by seizing bank assets held by Omega Psi Phi in Georgia.
I came to believe then, and still believe nearly 30 years later, that seeking civil justice on behalf of students and families harmed by hazing rituals nationwide is the most effective way to force fraternities to change their behavior, protect students, and compensate families for the damage done by fraternities that should have prevented hazing in the first place.