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Amid Questions of Hazing, Florida A&M President Bars Students From Joining Clubs

January 31, 2012, 7:12 pm

The president of Florida A&M University, James H. Ammons, announced Tuesday that students at the university would temporarily be barred from joining clubs and organizations, the Associated Press reported. The announcement comes as the university grapples with allegations that the November death of a drum major in its famed marching band was linked to hazing. Mr. Ammons, speaking at a safety forum on campus, also said he would cancel a summer band camp.

Mary Madden, an associate research professor at the University of Maine who studies hazing, applauded Mr. Ammons’s actions. “It’s a very bold move on their part to try to get hold of what’s going on,” she told The Orlando Sentinel.

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  • tptrekker

    Has the group culture at Florida A&M really become so toxic, dysfunctional, and dangerous that associational rights must be taken away across the board, even temporarily, in the interest of student safety? If so, that is very sad. If not, deal with problem where it exists. If it is centered in the famed march band and its culture, have the fortitude to attack the problem there specifically. 

  • yellow1

    This is absurd. If the problem is this widespread to call for this type of reaction, I do not understand how President Ammons can honestly say he is fit to lead this institution. Banning all students, even temporarily, from joining all clubs and organizations is not leadership. Does this include honor societies, business clubs, and clubs associated with programs and students set to graduate this Spring? I hope Florida A&M students teach themselves about their college’s grievance procedures, and I hope those students use those procedures.  

  • jffoster

    I read the original article and I suggest the above headline and news blurb are misleading.  CHE really ought clean its act up. 

    What the President effectively did was put a temporary freeze on all University sponsored on campus clubs from recruiting or enrolling new memberships.   Sort of like a bank freeze until the auditors can sort things out.  He did not and of course cannot forbid these largely adult in years (if not in behaviour and maturity) students from joining the Kiwanis Club, the Country Club, the Republican Party, or the Episcopal Church,……

  • sansserif

    As well-intentioned as this move is, it will not remedy the deep-seated, psychosocial nature of pledging and hazing. These students don’t need formal groups and clubs to be initiated into and to haze in the name of. The student who was killed was not pleding for admission into the band – he was already a drum major, the most prestigious of all band members, especially at HBCUs! Instead, he was being hazed to join a formally meaningless, but socially venerable ‘clique’ of band members who hail from Georgia called the “Red Dawg Order.”

    I’ve often said from my platform as a leader in a leading Black fraternity that hazing will continue exist, even if the organization ceases to, because the culture of hazing and the need for human belonging and social sense trumps formal organizational boundaries. When my fraternity suspends, or even discountinues, a college chapter because of hazing infractions, that chapter, usually decades old and with a legion of members who carry its locale-specific culture, does not simply “go away,” nor does the hazing magically end. It simply goes “underground,” where (in this case) men continue to use the culture of initiation and physical brutality as a means of affirming their sense of self, their perceived social placement, and their in-group identity.

  • sansserif

    I get what you’re getting at, but singling out FAMU is misguided. The “group culture” is this dysfunctional at 10 out of 10 college campuses, but takes many forms. Among many Black groups, physical brutality is emphasized. Among some White fraternities, binge drinking or sexual deviance (e.g., the “rape wish list” that recently led to the shutting down of a fraternity chapter at a northeastern university) is more prevalent. Other groups have their own dealings.

    I agree that we have to attack the problem directly. Let’s just be clear that this is not “only” a Florida A&M problem.

  • gwwyo04

    What if I wanted to start an anti-hazing club? Could I recruit students at FAMU?

    This seems like total overkill.

  • kathymizereck

    I am shocked that there is this level of “intellectual” discussion about this issue and the events at FAMU.  A young man is DEAD.  As a parent, there is no action that is unwarranted or “overkill” in this situation.  He is DEAD. 

  • yellow1

    No, he cannot, but these aren’t the same things. Comparing this to financial accounting, to me, is as misguided as President Ammons’s actions. Real leadership would have rooted out the problem where it exists. If the problem exists in ALL of Florida A&M’s student organizations, then President Ammons should take the blame for the institution’s lack of control.

  • jstramaski

    I think a ban of nature of this nature is unconstitutional. Peaceable assembly?

  • jffoster

    “no action that is unwarranted ”

       When you’ve calmed down, you might want to rethink that statement.

  • pianiste

    Let’s say FAMU had a professor who sexually assaulted a student. Would the president temporarily ban all classes?

  • katisumas

    Pianiste, there have been several instances of victims of hazing at Florida A&M, a number of them in the band.   For instance a few weeks before the drummer was beaten to death, a young woman band member was  beaten so badly with fists and a metal  ruler that she ended up in the hospital with a broken pelvic bone  and  a dangerous amoung of  bruises. 

    In spite of this, the university did not do anything until someone actually died.  (Since both of these known victims were black, there  might be something  else at play here?  It might also be that the drummer was not even interested in becoming member of the group that killed him, but they went for him anyway?  I assume all that  is under investigation). 

    The band and band leader do deserve punishment.  They closed their eyes, they let it happe.  Perhaps they even encouraged it?  Don’t you think  that the fun of a summer camp for the band is undeserved? At the same time, the university will get its punishment with owing huge compensation payments to the victims and their families.  

    I assume that hazing might be prevalent in university clubs.  Not allowing new members to enroll until  the hazing issue has  been sorted out might be one way to re-educate students and perhaps save some lives or pelvic bones or unaccounted broken arms and legs and cases of lifelong PTSD.

    We are talking about a widespread practice in clubs at that institutions.  These clubs are themselves not a necessity for education.  This is not at all the same thing as a prof assaulting a student (sexually or otherwise).  Of course if the habit of profs assaulting students was widespread in a university,  I assume the police/FBI etc would force it to close and totally clean house.

  • katisumas

    …and not only that, at least one female  band member was sent to the hospital with a broken pelvic bone  and dangerous amount of bruising after being beaten with fists and  a metal ruler on her  legs by her fellow band members. 

    We don’t have all the fact.  What made it into the media is probably just the tip of the iceberg.  I assume the university needs a breezer to investigate what sort of hazing actually takes place in university clubs and to reform their members’ thinking on the issue. 

    It’s the university’s duty to protect future club members.  In addition to the horror of students being beaten to death (and called “hazing”!!!),  the  university is also liable financially for what it  allowed those clubs to do (it didn’t do anything after the woman band member was beaten within an inch of her  life — so you could argue that this only encouraged the next beating to go further into murder) 

    So the hazing that caused the univ. pres. to issue a moratorium  on  new applicants for membership in univ.club is not what we might have thought hazing to be.  Does anyone has recollection that hazing means a group beating someone to death or to the hospital? 

     (sadly, the woman victim might never be able  to march again,  do you suppose  that was the motive for beating her legs to a pulp?)

  • thedoctorisin

    This action is on a par with the so-called “zero-tolerance” policies that expel grade school students for things like telling the teacher she is “cute” or giving your friend an aspirin or Midol.  Whatever happened to common sense or discernment in decision making?

  • pianiste

    Problem with the band, punish the band, not all “clubs and organizations” by prohibiting new members from joining them. Problem with a particular professor in a particular professor, punish the professor, not all classes by prohibiting students from signing up for any new ones.

    The FAMU president’s tactic is so stupidly meat-axe, I’m astonished that the normally reasonable katisumas would defend it.

  • sansserif

    As katisumas suggests (and I am confirming), the “problems” are by no means limited to the band. The fraternities and sororities are having “problems,” the dance clubs are having “problems,” even the “community service” clubs are having “problems.” Hence, the total ban.

    I don’t necessarily buy that the ban will prove efficacious, but to characterize the move as overkill or “meat axe” fails to realize the reach of the “problems” campus-wide.

  • pianiste

    Banning all clubs (the chess club, the glee club, the Latin club, the knitting club, the foreign affairs club, the entrepreneurs club, the soup-kitchen club, any and every club) from accepting new members is the very definition of a meat-axe approach.

    Clubs could be warned and/or investigated while accepting new members, and be given the benefit of the doubt while an investigation is in progress. If there’s a formal complaint filed, then membership could be frozen for that particular club.

    Sanserif him- or herself says, “I don’t necessarily buy that the ban will prove efficacious.” Now there’s a good idea: Doubting that the Draconian banning all FAMU clubs and organizations from accepting new members will do any good, but supporting it anyway.

    And katisumas says, “Since both of these known victims were black, there  might be something  else at play here?” What’s at play is a black president of an HBCU saying, in effect, that black students are so risky when it comes to civilized behavior, that nobody can join any clubs or organizations for the time being. Astounding.

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