The first federal anti-hazing bill has passed the Senate, a years-long effort by families who lost their children

Julie DeVercelly estimates she and her husband, Gary, have been to Washington as many as 30 times over the last decade to lobby for the nation’s first federal anti-hazing law.

It’s been a long journey for the DeVercellys, who lost their son Gary Jr. to alcohol poisoning in 2007 after a fraternity event at Rider University in New Jersey.

On Wednesday night, they and other families with the same mission learned that the Stop Campus Hazing Act is almost a reality. The Senate approved the bill, which had been previously passed by the House and now awaits President Joe Biden’s signature.

» READ MORE: Ten years later, couple who lost son to hazing work for change

“We’ve been pushing hard for this for a very long time,” said Julie DeVercelly, a high school math teacher in Long Beach, Calif.

The legislation will require colleges to publicly report hazing incidents, establish a hazing prevention policy, and offer ongoing research-based prevention and awareness training. It also will establish a federal definition of hazing and require colleges to publish on their websites findings on student organizations that violate hazing policy.

Both Pennsylvania and New Jersey previously enacted laws that require colleges to publicly report hazing incidents and toughened penalties.

“This is a huge milestone for campus safety and a victory for the students and families that have been impacted by hazing,” said Jessica Mertz, executive director of Clery Center, a national group aimed at improving the reporting of campus crime, based in Fort Washington.

The legislation, Mertz said, will amend the Clery Act, a campus crime law that was passed following the 1986 murder and rape of Jeanne Clery in her dorm room at Lehigh University. The 1990 legislation requires colleges and universities to disclose crimes reported on or near their campuses and warn students about potential threats.

The new law, Mertz said, will help expose how widespread hazing is on college campuses and bring a uniform definition and reporting mechanism that will be used across the country.

“We are confident that [Biden] will sign this bill into law and that we will be able to start supporting institutions with implementation next year,” said Mertz, whose center has been advocating for the law for a decade.

» READ MORE: Tim Piazza died after a fraternity hazing party. Now, his parents are back in court as part of a seven-year battle for justice and reform.

Jim and Evelyn Piazza, the parents of Tim Piazza, who died following a booze-fueled hazing party at Pennsylvania State University in 2017, said they were “thrilled and appreciative” that the bill passed the Senate.

“We, along with other families in the anti-hazing coalition, which we helped form, have been working on this bill and its predecessor, the End All Hazing Act, for the past seven years,” said Jim Piazza, of Spring Lake, N.J. “Many thanks to the congressional leaders who supported us and to everyone responsible for making this happen.”

That February night, Tim Piazza, a sophomore mechanical engineering major, passed through a drinking gauntlet with other pledges to the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. Piazza fell down stairs and languished on a couch for nearly 12 hours before anyone called for help. He later died, suffering a collapsed lung, a ruptured spleen, and a “non-recoverable” traumatic brain injury.

The case drew national attention in part because video surveillance from the house that night was played in court, showing Piazza and others moving through the gauntlet and chugging alcohol. More than two dozen fraternity members entered pleas to charges including hazing, conspiracy to commit hazing, and furnishing alcohol to minors. The last two members, Brendan Young and Daniel Casey, the fraternity’s former president and vice president, were sentenced in October to two to four months in prison and three years’ probation.

» READ MORE: Penn State ex-frat members sentenced to prison in fraternity hazing incident where Tim Piazza was fatally injured

A civil suit the Piazzas filed against fraternity members is ongoing.

Despite the university’s myriad efforts following Piazza’s death to crack down on Greek life, hazing continues to pose challenges at the state-related university. Earlier this fall, Penn State said in a letter to parents it was experiencing double the number of alleged hazing incidents this year compared with the same time last year, the Centre Daily Times reported in October. Multiple reports of hazing and high-risk drinking occurred at fraternities not recognized by Penn State as part of its Greek system, the newspaper said.

The DeVercellys’ son died under circumstances similar to Piazza’s. During “Big Little” night at a fraternity, he and his sponsoring big brother had to split a bottle of vodka, his father previously told The Inquirer. The sponsor had a test the next day, so he took only a couple of shots. Gary DeVercelly Jr. drank the rest.

When he passed out, fraternity members put him on a couch; some wanted to call for help but were told not to, his father has said. He died of alcohol poisoning the next day.

The DeVercellys joined the Clery board and have been pushing for more education and legislation. They quickly became concerned about the inconsistencies in state hazing laws across the country and the inability to get a true picture of the extent of the problem, Julie DeVercelly said.

“We’re going to get a sense of just how deep hazing is on college campuses” nationally, she said.

She wished the legislation could have happened sooner, noting students, including Piazza, who died in the years following her son’s death.

“But now we’re here and we can start the process of transforming the hazing culture on campuses,” she said.

DeVercelly called Connie Clery, mother of Jeanne Clery, on Wednesday night. It was decades ago that Clery and her husband mounted their own successful campaign for a campus safety law. Clery, DeVercelly said, had become a mentor.

“’You have made my night,’” DeVercelly said Clery told her. “’You are going to save lives.’”