Bending The Rules For Profit...The American Dream

Initially I refrained from commenting on the hazing situation at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) and members of its famed "Marching 100" marching band, but I just can't let this one ride. Recently, after the Florida Classic football game between FAMU and Bethune-Cookman University, a yearly hazing ritual claimed the life of Mr. Robert Champion, a drum-major at FAMU. The reasons why I didn't want to comment largely had to do with factual accounts I had been given of how HBCU bands operate in addition to my own experiences and views on hazing/pledging, but I've just had enough of the commentary from the peanut gallery. I am actually troubled in writing this because as a self-proclaimed "bandhead," the contents of this post may come off as blasphemous, but as an attorney, I am inclined to ask for impartiality and equal treatment that I know will not happen.

While I have not and will not ever believe that the price of admission in a prestigious organization should ever be someone's life, there is a price to be paid that keeps the exclusivity of the organization. I have argued that despite the announcement that FAMU has indefinitely suspended the band program, the Marching 100 would get a much tamer sentence than any Greek-lettered society if faced with the same circumstances. In fact, deaths of pledges have occurred in both Kappa Alpha Psi (1994) and Alpha Kappa Alpha (2003) both of which resulted in the charters for the chapters at those schools being retired and a year-long moratorium against new membership. Another hazing incident occurring at FAMU among members of the Alpha Xi chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi in 2009 resulted in the chapter being suspended by the university until 2013 despite no serious injuries and most importantly no deaths. In bringing these facts up in a post within a Facebook group with members of both the Southern University and FAMU student body and alumni I was told that the same standard that Greeks are held to should not apply to the band, and the only reason I could see as to why this would hold salt was the all mighty dollar.

Like Greeks, band members are required to maintain a certain GPA to be active within the organization, and most colleges and universities require members both current and perspective to sign statements displaying a knowledge of both the illegality of hazing and the consequences that both those who participate in as well as consent to these activities could be subjected to. As a result, the person who initially told me that the band and Greeks are not the same retorted that band is a school-sponsored activity that represents the university and that the equivalent of the impartiality and fairness that I wanted to see would be to suspend the Penn State football team in light of the Sandusky child molestation scandal. I wholeheartedly disagreed and challenged the same individual to put his blatant favoritism to the side and see that this is the equivalent of a Greek hazing event and in no way related to the Penn State incident, a sentiment echoed by ESPN's Jemele Hill in a recent article written for ESPN.com.

Greeks have to get permission from the school to function on campus and you had better believe that when the organizations do well that the university takes credit just as they bear the brunt when hazing allegations such as the aforementioned ones cast the institution's student body in a negative light. The main difference is that unlike with the band the university does not receive a payday from it's Greeks. For example, FAMU just signed a contract in which the university is set to receive $850,000 to play THE Ohio State University, which I'm sure the Marching 100 and their repore among sports fans around the world was a part of the reasoning behind such a large sum to play a team they have no chance in hell or competing with. Also, this is not a case of the band director of the Marching 100 killing a student in a hazing ritual so the counter point of its similarity to Penn State is irrelevant.

My main point is that while Mr. Champion has paid the ultimate price, the subsequent expulsion and readmittance of accused hazers, firing of band staff, and indefinite suspension of the band is by no means fair. Had this been Greeks, the accused would have been arrested and charged with murder, the chapter's charter revoked permanently, and a lawsuit filed (even though that part is sure to come). Hill said it best, the only plausible solution would be a 5 year suspension of the Marching 100 and I could not agree with her more. And for those of you who know of my love for Southern's Human Jukebox, I would be looking for the same had a member of Southern's band died after a post Bayou Classic hazing ritual. But mark my words, that will not come to fruition as bending the rules in favor of profit is exactly what Anerica was founded upon. Please keep the family of Mr. Robert Champion in your prayers...