Fraternity Hazing Where we are and how we got there Built-in failure of the system

David K. Easlick, Jr. JD MBA

Kilmarnock, Virginia October 9, 2017: I was the Executive Director of Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity for over 25 years. I have held virtually every volunteer and professional job in a fraternity, and I was a long-term member of the two trade associations, the North American Interfraternity Conference, and the Fraternity Executives Association.

I am also a lawyer with my MBA from the University of Michigan, and I am currently appearing as an expert witness, primarily on behalf of plaintiffs, in Fraternity Risk Management Cases.

The Fraternity "Industry" has self-imposed top down regulation from the top to the bottom. The Industry barely survived the Sixties and Seventies. Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll was the theme on campus, and it was not clear where fraternities fit. However, in 1978, the film Animal House brought instant change and attraction back to the fraternity world.

The National chapter, technically the home office, was caught totally by surprise. The typical office consisted of one or two people whose greatly underfinanced mission was to visit local chapters on an annual basis and process pin orders. While membership had started to boom, and demand for new chapters everywhere was the rule, Animal House plus nation-wide 18-year-old drinking brought fraternities to a new behavioral low.

Prior to Animal House, lawsuits against the National were unheard of, and judgments, if they happened, would go against the chapter or individuals therein. With wanton alcohol, drug abuse and hazing, the situation drastically changed.

In 1986, at a Fraternity Executives Association (FEA) Annual Meeting that I attended, we as a body learned that the Executive Director of Sigma Nu, was being named in a hazing suit at a local chapter that included, the Chapter, the National, and Exec and his wife personally.

The New World of Insurance Crisis was upon us. In December of 1987, FIPG, then Fraternity Insurance Purchasing Group, Inc., was established. For the first time, a group of fraternities would band together with a common risk management program and seek national insurance as a package from an insurance broker.

The key element for FIPG is the two-page FIPG Risk Management policy which is periodically reviewed and modified based upon legal experience of the members. Originally FIPG was a membership organization with minimal annual dues to each fraternity or sorority member. There were 30 or 40 members of the organization.

As of the summer of 2016, FIPG (the Acronym now means Fraternity Information and Programming Group) became a section of the trade association - Fraternity Executives Association and all members of that group, which include the executive directors of every fraternity and sorority are members.

Key to FIPG is its Risk Management Guidelines, a small print two or three-page document that is “the Policy,” “the Rock,” or “The 10 Commandments” of Fraternity Risk Management. Basically, the policy outlaws everything alcohol related, including games, underage drinking, common source alcohol, drugs, hazing, sexual abuse and virtually anything else that can happen in a fraternity house.

It is supplemented by a 50-page manual filled with examples. This policy is updated periodically based upon litigation experience of the program. If FIPG policy is the 10 Commandments, the risk management Manual, a 50 page "how to" work, is the Bible. Current versions may be found at www.FIPG.org.

The one thing never to forget in Fraternity Liability cases is that the Nationals have mandated a risk management program from on top designed by older adults without buy-in from the undergraduates.

The thing is totally funded by the undergraduates with annual fees of around $250 per undergraduate member, yet the only real insurance is at the National level.

Actual tortfeasors at the local level find that they have no or next to no insurance, and are told to look to Mommy and Daddy’s Homeowner’s policies, while the National has millions of dollars with which to defend itself.

In the beginning, the thing was totally unenforceable; nobody had the staff at that time to enforce such a creation. And even now the Nationals take the position, in litigation, that they cannot enforce anything at the local level on a day to day basis, despite a massive investment by the nationals, their insurers, trade associations and colleges to implement the FIPG program.

For this to work, a vital element is adherence to the FIPG risk management code. It is the duty of the National to impose this top down code on the undergraduate membership to keep risk away from the National which is the primary insured in this whole system.

The basic understanding must be that it is the duty of the National when the local chapter is failing, the National must intervene to prevent harm and injury and thereby liability and damages from occurring at the local. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the position of the Fraternity Defense lawyers at trial.