Editor’s note: This is part of our blog series, “The State of Hazing,” investigating the impact of hazing laws in states that require public disclosure of hazing incidents.
Louisiana colleges and universities reported 43 hazing incidents since 2018, including last month’s death of Southern University student Caleb Wilson, according to a new HazingInfo.org analysis.
But that number only tells part of the story: Just 4 of Louisiana’s 22 colleges and universities are following the policy adopted by their own state Board of Regents that requires public disclosure of campus hazing incidents.
While the picture of college hazing in Louisiana is incomplete, this marks the first time that reported hazing incidents across all Louisiana higher education institutions have been totaled, including minor incidents, serious injuries, and deaths reported by the institutions and the media.
Across the nation, the HazingInfo.org investigation found 937 reported incidents of hazing on 174 campuses between 2018 and February 2025.
“Unfortunately, that number is not surprising,” said District Attorney Hillar Moore with the East Baton Rouge District Attorney’s office. His office is leading the case against three fraternity members charged with manslaughter and criminal hazing in Wilson’s death.
“You would think that one death would stop hazing in its tracks forever, but obviously, it has not,” Moore said. “Hazing continues to flourish.”
The four Louisiana schools with hazing transparency reports available on their websites are: Louisiana State University (LSU); Nicolls State University; Southeastern Louisiana University; and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
LSU, the state’s largest university, reported 18 hazing incidents over seven years. But LSU doesn’t make it easy to find that information. Its hazing prevention website doesn’t show the list of hazing violations.
Instead, their hazing data is buried under the title “Community Scorecard” and requires multiple clicks through all 40 of its Greek organizations to reach the total number. Their report only includes information on Greek organizations, not athletic teams or other student groups.
The Advocate newspaper of Baton Rouge has reported that LSU’s fraternities have faced years of accusations related to hazing, binge drinking, and misconduct.
The HazingInfo investigation did not include other kinds of organizational misconduct like alcohol violations or assaults that weren’t officially labeled as hazing.
All 22 of Louisiana’s colleges and universities have a hazing policy, as required by law, while 19 campuses have an online reporting form for students and others to report hazing.
At least six hazing deaths have been reported at Louisiana colleges and universities since 1951.
The most recent deaths include Wilson, who was being initiated into Omega Psi Phi Inc. fraternity when he died in February, and Max Gruver, an 18-year-old freshman at Louisiana State University (LSU) who died in 2017 following hazing by Phi Delta Theta fraternity.
After Gruver’s death, his parents, Rae Ann and Steve, helped lead the passage of the Max Gruver Act in the state Legislature, which criminalized hazing in Louisiana when it results in serious injury or death.
The law also required the state’s higher education oversight body, the Board of Regents, to create a policy on how Louisiana colleges and universities should make information on hazing incidents public.
That policy requires all post-secondary institutions to disclose on their websites detailed information regarding all credible reports of hazing they receive.
Yet more than five years after the policy was adopted, only 18% of campuses are making their hazing data public. That’s well below the national average of 50% for all higher education institutions in nine states that currently have hazing transparency laws.
“It’s about the ownership, the accountability that these things have happened on our campuses,” she said. “It’s showing the public we are willing to be transparent and hold our students, our organizations, and each other accountable.”
Gruver believes many schools are taking hazing more seriously now with better hazing prevention programs and education from guest speakers like Gruver, who travels across the country speaking to high school and college students about the dangers of hazing.
“But seven years later, I’m worried, are people getting soft about it again? Is it just checking a box at this point?” Gruver asked. “How many deaths have to happen? You have to stay on it.”
Gruver said she and her husband searched online for information about Phi Delta Theta before Max sought to join the fraternity. “The only thing we ever found was the positive stuff, all the accolades, their GPAs, their awards, how much money they had raised for their philanthropy,” she said.
Only after Max’s death did they learn that Phi Delta Theta had been suspended by LSU for hazing for the five semesters before Max started his freshman year.
“We were flying blind,” she said. “It’s only fair that parents and students have all the information in front of them so they can make informed decisions.”
“That information should not be hard to find. The goal is transparency. You want it to be as readily available as possible. That’s key when it comes to the prevention of hazing,” Abels said.
“It’s about helping families, students, and community members understand that hazing does happen,” he said. “It isn’t just within Greek life, but also athletic teams, performing arts groups. It’s an everyone issue.”
In states with no hazing transparency laws, including Tennessee, most universities do not share their hazing incidents. Sewanee University’s hazing violations page currently says “page under construction.”
That will change soon under the new federal Stop Campus Hazing Act, which will require all US colleges and universities to publish a Campus Hazing Transparency Report on their websites by December.
In Baton Rouge, District Attorney Moore said he has seen more cooperation from universities in hazing investigations since Max Gruver’s death.
Moore’s work as a prosecutor on that case helped pave the way for the Max Gruver Act and the new felony hazing law that Moore now will use to prosecute defendants in Caleb Wilson’s death.
While transparency about hazing incidents is important, Moore also believes hazing prevention needs to start earlier, while students are still in high school. Hazing education should also extend to parents, some of whom are university alumni who experienced hazing themselves and may downplay the dangers of hazing with their college-bound teens, Moore said.
Delaying the Greek recruitment process, known as rush, until the second semester of freshman year would also help by giving new students time to mature and acclimate to campus, he said.
Moore’s experience with the Gruver case also taught him how important it is to move quickly once a hazing incident is reported.
In the Gruver case, a fraternity member was charged with obstruction of justice after deleting 700 files containing social media chats, sensitive documents, and photos from his cell phone within minutes of learning investigators had issued a search warrant for his phone.
The defendant, Matthew Naquin, was found guilty of negligent homicide and sentenced to five years in prison, though half of his sentence was suspended.
Next in “The State of Hazing” blog series: A detailed look at hazing data in Georgia and Washington state.