Police were called to a frat house in Boston just after midnight on Monday to find five young men in the basement bound with duct tape wearing nothing but their underwear and coated with flour, coffee grinds, fish sauce, chili sauce, honey, hot sauce, mustard, and empty sardine cans. According to police, the young men were shivering and crying, some of them had parts of their heads shaved, and they all had red welts on their backs. Oh, just another Easter Sunday in Boston! more ›

A lawsuit filed by the family of a student at Staten Island's all-boys Catholic school St. Peter's alleges that he was subjected to violent hazing and that the school refused to act against the aggressors. According to the Post, the freshman was "held down by four beefy linebackers in the locker room and repeatedly jabbed in the groin and rear end with a broomstick." That description probably could have done without the word "beefy," but hey, the guy who came up with "Headless Body Found In Topless Bar" just retired to cut the Post some slack. more ›

A Brooklyn-born member of the Alpha Delta Omega fraternity has dropped out of Hartwick College, and is suing the school and the frat over their excessive hazing rituals. Michael Warren claims at one point he was forced to dress like a pimp and was paddled so hard he needed medical treatment. "The place is run like Animal House," lawyer Gerald Gross said. Umm, no, the paddling was all the Omega Theta Pi house. Leave Delta Tau Chi out of this! more ›

The Amazin's just Tweeted, "A little rookie hazing...Rookie relievers carry the Hannah Montana backpack with seeds and gum to the bullpen every day," and posted a picture of the pink, purple and Hannah backpack of embarrassment. ESPN had reported earlier that it was filled with candy and it would be shared by Jenrry "Mejia, Hisanori Takahashi and rookie bullpen catcher Rafael Arroyo as an initiation." This almost makes the Hello Kitty backpack of 2008 look masculine! more ›

Six members of the Sigma Gamma Rho sorority at Rutgers have been arrested on charges of aggravated hazing. One unidentified woman tells the Star-Ledger she was struck 201 times with a wooden paddle during pledge week, and "on the eighth day—unable to sit, her buttocks covered with blood clots and welts—she went to the hospital." The woman says, "They told us there was no hazing, that they didn’t believe in it." But then the paddles came out, each one a foot long and six inches wide. Police say at least three women reported injuries and bleeding, but one pledge puts the number at seven. In response, Rutgers immediately suspended Sigma Gamma Rho, an African-American sorority founded in 1922. more ›

After parents complained about freshmen girls' hazing (and a slut list) at NJ's Millburn High School, the school administration says it will combat the long-standing problem. However, no culprits have been found, prompting one parent to say, "If it were my decision alone, I would punish the entire female population of the senior class. If you punish them all, you’ll get the names you need, because no one is going to take the rap for someone else." But one Gothamist reader says the freshmen victims are being "hysterical." more ›

The NY Times spotlights the worries of some parents whose daughters are freshmen at NJ's well-regarded Millburn High School. Specifically, how senior girls' hazing of the frosh include a slut list ("A dozen or more names are written on a piece of notebook paper, with crass descriptions, and copies are passed around — hundreds this year, some say") and senior girls "blow[ing] whistles in some girls’ faces" and shoving "them into lockers." more ›

Three fraternity members have been charged with criminally negligent homicide after intensive hazing left a 19-year-old SUNY Geneseo student from Queens dead. Arman Partamian was found dead at a banned frat known as "The Pig House" after a three-day drinking binge. The accused Pig House members (ages 20 and 21 respectively) were seen ordering Partamian to drink more as he drunkenly jumped around a bonfire. An RA called 911 and reported, “The Pigs were forcing these individuals to drink entire bottles of alcohol around the fire, and they were, like falling over and vomiting and just, extreme, like hazing." In addition to the hazing accusations, one of the trio is facing charges for tampering after allegedly taking a fraternity jersey off of Partamian's unconscious body before cops arrived. The DA in the case said, "We've learned that many of the off-campus fraternities have been operating illegal drinking venues. They call them 'open parties,'...(They) pay $5 and get a cup and then drink without limitation." more ›

On Friday, three paramedics were fired from Newark's University Hospital for making student interns wear KKK-like robes. Apparently paramedics had seen a racist parody video and then decided to re-enact it. The president of University of Medicine and Dentistry of NJ, which operates the hospital, William F. Owen said, "You can't make this stuff up. It's like being in Tennessee in the 1950s." The Star-Ledger reported emergency service supervisors rode with ambulance crews yesterday "in response to growing community anger" (Newarks contracts emergency services from the hospital). EMS director Nancy Hamstra said, "We have an important job and people rely on us. Two hundred and fifty times a day, people call us, and each is an opportunity for us to prove our professionalism." more ›