Hazing death prompts new solution to ‘shameful problem.’ I’m all for it.

As a college professor, I worry a lot about hazing. And I’m relieved to hear that we may have a new solution to this old, shameful problem.

In February 2017, Penn State sophomore Tim Piazza died following a fraternity hazing episode. The 19-year-old New Jersey native consumed copious amounts of alcohol, hit his head in a fall, and ruptured his spleen. He lay injured for 12 hours while fraternity members conducted searches on their phones like “falling asleep after a head injury” and “cold extremities in drunk person.” But none of them called 911 until it was too late.

The next year, Gov. Tom Wolf signed the Timothy J. Piazza Antihazing Law, requiring Pennsylvania colleges and universities to adopt policies against the practice and strengthening legal penalties to include a felony charge for hazing that results in serious injury or death. New Jersey followed up with a similar measure — also named after Piazza — in 2021.

That’s been the national trend in the struggle against hazing, which has claimed over 50 lives since 2000: A student dies and we pass a new law, often bearing the victim’s name. Thirteen states now allow for felony prosecutions of hazing, which means violators can face jail time and substantial fines.

I’m fine with that, but we shouldn’t pretend it will solve the problem.

Pennsylvania had an anti-hazing law before Piazza’s death, but that didn’t seem to deter his fraternity brothers in the least; instead, it led them to cover up their activity. “I don’t want to go to jail,” one member texted, urging brothers to keep the matter quiet. “Hazing is a huge thing.”

Indeed, it is. And like with most bad behavior, we can’t eliminate it simply by establishing stiffer penalties.

It’s time to try a different approach.

Last month, a Virginia court case suggested one. Six students pleaded guilty or were found guilty in the 2021 fraternity hazing death of Virginia Commonwealth University freshman Adam Oakes. But instead of jail time, their plea agreement requires them to travel to universities around the country to talk about what they did — and didn’t do — the night that Oakes died.

It won’t be easy to hear. Oakes was told to chug 40 ounces of Jack Daniels, which brought his blood-alcohol level to .419. That’s beyond the level of surgical anesthesia, to the point where breathing slows and coma can start.

“Oakes was told to chug 40 ounces of Jack Daniels, which brought his blood-alcohol level to .419.”

Adam Oakes threw up and collapsed. The other fraternity brothers left him there, and he was pronounced dead the next morning.

Oakes had been rejected by several other fraternities and was excited that he had finally received a bid to join one. “He’d seen the brotherhood and just loved the actual acceptance,” his father, Eric Oakes, told CNN affiliate WWBT. The last text Adam sent to his dad arrived at 9 p.m., on the night of the fraternity initiation in which he died. “I’m going in,” he wrote. “Love you.”

In what can only be described as a Herculean act of grace and courage, Eric Oakes will share the stage with his son’s six fraternity brothers on their nationwide tour. He will describe how his family was crushed by Adam’s death, while the students will detail their part in causing it.

“Who better to talk to students than the people their age that, you know, hazed Adam that night,” Oakes told the New York Times.

He’s right. Two years after Tim Piazza died, three of his former fraternity brothers received prison sentences ranging from two to nine months after pleading guilty to hazing-related charges. A lot of people thought they got off easy, and I’m inclined to agree.

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It would have been a lot harder to make them tell the world what happened on the night that Piazza lost his life. But it would also have been much more educational, for them and — especially — for everyone else.

Eric Oakes didn’t want his son’s fraternity brothers to go to jail; he wanted them to go on the road, to explain how Adam died. It’s the best way to remember him and to teach the rest of us.

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of “Whose America?: Culture Wars in the Public Schools,” which was published in a revised 20th-anniversary edition this fall by the University of Chicago Press.