Hazing Still Kills College Students

On November 12, 2019, Jolayne Houtz received the news that every mother fears: Her child had died. Sam Martinez was just weeks into his freshman year at Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman, about 75 miles south of Spokane. The 19-year-old from Bellevue had recently pledged Gamma Chi, the WSU Pullman chapter of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. The night before his death, Sam and other pledges were in the campus library when fraternity members instructed them to head to an off-campus “live-out” house, for a new member initiation ritual.

One fraternity member told Martinez and another pledge to split a half gallon of spiced rum. The members and pledges moved to the nearby chapter house for more drinking. Martinez had become severely intoxicated, and fraternity members left him on a couch in the basement overnight. The next morning, Pullman police responded to a call at the house and found him unconscious. The Whitman County coroner reported that Martinez died from acute alcohol poisoning.

Almost two years after Martinez’s death, one ATO member pleaded guilty to furnishing the liquor to Martinez. He was sentenced to 19 days in jail, a fine, probation, and required to attend alcohol and drug information courses. Other fraternity members also pleaded guilty and received similar penalties. The university revoked its recognition of Gamma Chi until May 2026.

Asked if the university planned to reinstate the fraternity, Pam Scott, the WSU vice president of system communications and strategy, said in a statement to the Prospect: “There is no plan for Alpha Tau Omega to return to WSU at this time.” She explained in a second statement that ATO can only initiate re-recognition after the sanction period ends on May 15, 2026. “If it does so, the university will review the request considering campus policies, expansion priorities, and institutional goals.”

Scott added, “As a public institution WSU allows organizations to request recognition and any future request from this group would be reviewed through the standard process and timeline, which currently would not place potential eligibility before approximately 2032 due to other groups already in the expansion queue.”

Responding to WSU’s statements, Houtz told the Prospect that although students wouldn’t have safety risks “at least for a while,” she preferred to see the fraternity “permanently banned.” ATO “has a terrible track record,” she says, with hazing incidents “across the nation” since Martinez’s death. There were also multiple hazing incidents involving the fraternity in the years before he arrived on campus. “The fact that they can come back at all is concerning to me,” she says.

Alpha Tau Omega’s national representatives did not respond to requests for comment.

DESPITE FEDERAL LEGISLATION, new state laws, and campus prevention programs, hazing remains deeply embedded in many college cultures across the country. The federal Stop Campus Hazing Act enacted at the end of 2024 mandates that all institutions of higher education participating in federal student aid programs implement hazing prevention policies. In addition to publishing hazing statistics, current policies, and other information in annual security reports, they must also release “campus hazing transparency” reports disclosing any violations of anti-hazing policies by student organizations.

Since the law’s enactment, at least two documented hazing deaths have occurred. Caleb Wilson, a student at Southern University in Louisiana, died in 2025 at an Omega Psi Phi fraternity initiation event. Colin Daniel Martinez, a student at Northern Arizona University, died in January after a similar event.

It’s not just certain fraternities and sororities that sponsor questionable recruitment activities. Many sports teams, honor societies, and even singing groups and marching bands have participated in dangerous rituals. Since 2000, there have been 123 documented hazing-related deaths nationwide. But these groups are often protected by the victims’ silence; 95 percent of students who experience brutal hazing incidents do not report the abuses, which also contributes to suicides and other profound physical and mental harms.

In Washington state, Houtz and Martinez advocated for hazing reforms, and former Gov. Jay Inslee (D) signed “Sam’s Law” in 2022. It mandates that Washington colleges and universities provide hazing education and publish reports on hazing incidents and violations as well as other requirements. The Sam Martinez Stop Hazing Law, with stronger penalties for hazing, was enacted in 2023.

Sam’s death “absolutely shattered our family,” Houtz told the Prospect. “I’ve now met many other families that have very similar stories to tell.” She worked with the University of Maine, the University of Washington Information School, and StopHazing.org, a hazing prevention advocacy group, to launch HazingInfo.org in 2023, “the first comprehensive, free database of college hazing incidents.” Students and parents can use the tool to research Greek letter organizations, sports teams, and other groups.

“When we lost him, my husband and I said we would do everything in our power to ensure that no other family had to go through the trauma of losing a child in this way,” Houtz says. According to the database, only 44 percent of colleges and universities nationwide published the mandated federal transparency reports last year.

ELIZABETH ALLAN, A PROFESSOR of higher education at the University of Maine and StopHazing founder, currently leads the Hazing Prevention Consortium (HPC), a research initiative to support hazing prevention. One HPC workshop training program, “10 Signs of Healthy and Unhealthy Groups,” helps students identify problems like manipulation, isolation, and other risky social practices.

“Everyone wants to belong; that’s human,” Allan says. “So now, how do we become more discerning? We’re not always taught how to identify signs of healthy groups, so learn the signs and then choose carefully who you want to affiliate with.”

Pietro Sasso experienced fraternity hazing firsthand during his undergraduate years at Christopher Newport University in the early 2000s. He described the abuse as being primarily physical. When he spoke up about what happened on the Newport News, Virginia, campus, he faced numerous acts of retaliation. “When I came out about my hazing and reported it to the university, there was a lot of retribution,” Sasso says. “People broke into my apartment. They tried to steal all their member stuff back.” Now an associate professor of higher education at Delaware State University, Sasso believes that the federal legislation makes headway, but he’s concerned about student safety and how to protect people who report abuses.

Retaliation for speaking out against hazing practices is not uncommon. Cam James, an Atlanta-based filmmaker and a former member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity at Georgia Tech, faced harassment from fraternity members after he discussed his experiences—and what he knew about others’ ordeals—online. Still, James says that being out of university for over a decade has helped him come to terms with the fallout from going public.

“If I was still in college and these were still my main friends and support group,” James says, “the repercussions would have been way more severe,” adding, “We’re talking about social isolation on a level that most college kids can’t deal with.”

Effective protection from hazing will ultimately rely on whether the next student pulled into a basement is met with taunts or someone willing to step in and stop abuses before they start.

IN 2020, HOUTZ AND MARTINEZ filed suit against WSU to compel the university to accept responsibility for Sam’s death. Two years later, a King County Superior Court judge found that the university did not have “a duty of care” to protect Sam Martinez. His parents appealed that ruling.

Last year, the Washington Court of Appeals ruled against the university and reversed the Superior Court. “Because WSU has a special relationship with its recognized fraternal organizations,” the judges wrote, “we conclude that it owed a duty to use reasonable care to control the fraternity and protect Sam from the foreseeable harms of fraternal hazing and alcohol misuse.”

WSU appealed the decision. The case is now pending before the Washington State Supreme Court.