PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Two hazing investigations in the area are renewing concerns about student safety on college and high school campuses.
Cheltenham High School cancelled its football season on Sunday, amid allegations of hazing among players. A similar situation unfolded at Rutgers-New Brunswick, when the school issued a cease and desist order to its Alpha Sigma Phi chapter, after a 19-year-old student was found unresponsive last week, leaving them in critical condition.
Psychologist and hazing expert Dr. Susan Lipkins of Doylestown said hazing is visible but often ignored.
“You know it is fairly obvious,” said Lipkins. “Colleges and high schools could and should know because typically these things happen at the same time, every year.”
Lipkins is the author of “Preventing Hazing: How Parents, Teachers, and Coaches Can Stop the Violence, Harassment, and Humiliation,” and detailed some signs.
“If you look around college campuses, often you’ll see kids who are being hazed,” she explained. “They have their hands tied behind their backs. Others have blindfolds on. Or there are 10 people all walking in a line all wearing the same exact hoodie, carrying a pumpkin.”
What’s more, she said it’s a cycle that worsens over time. “People who are perpetrating want to do to others what was done to them and they want to leave their own mark, so they maybe add a little,” she said.
“For example, maybe in the year 2000, there were five times they got hit with a paddle, but in 2025, it’s 25 times they get hit.”
Lipkins said it’s difficult to break the cycle of institutionalized hazing, but urged parents to learn as much as possible about the culture of groups their children are trying to join. And while there’s no magic pill to solve the problem, she said schools can help by creating clear and safe methods to report incidents.