Two members of the marching band at Southern University at Baton Rouge have been hospitalized in serious condition after an incident described as a possible hazing at the Louisiana institution, and six people are facing criminal charges of battery and ritualistic acts in connection with their injuries, The Advocate, a local newspaper, reported.

The university declined to identify the students who were injured and stopped short of confirming whether their injuries were hazing related. It issued a written statement, however, saying that Southern was “cooperating with law-enforcement authorities in their investigation of this matter,” and stating that Southern has “zero tolerance for hazing.”

The injuries occurred on Saturday before Southern’s Bayou Classic football game against Grambling State University, authorities said. The Baton Rouge television station WAFB, a CBS affiliate, reported that the victims were beaten with a two-by-four board as part of initiation into the band’s French horn section. A third band member was also beaten but “elected to stop the ritual after he had been struck over 50 times with the board,” the station said, citing witness reports.

Nationwide, more than half of students who belong to campus organizations, including performing-arts groups, experience hazing, according to the initial findings of a large study sponsored by the National Center for Hazing Research and Prevention. A report on those findings was presented last March at the annual conference of Naspa — Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education. —Charles Huckabee