FAMU Band Members Admit to Hazing Yet Another Student
Two Florida A&M band members pleaded no contest to misdemeanor hazing charges in the beating of a female clarinet player last year. One of the students was also charged in the felony hazing death of Robert Champion.
Aaron Golson, 19, and Sean Hobson, 23, are set to serve a year of probation in Georgia and report to jail work camp for one month. They were originally going to be charged with felonies after the hazing of 18-year old Bria Shante Hunter, a freshman. Hunter was trying to join a group of FAMU band members from Georgia called the “Red Dawg Order.”
The hazing incident took place three weeks before the death of Robert Champion on November 19 of last year. Champion died after being beaten on a bus headed to Orlando. A total of 11 band members have been charged with felony hazing in his death.
Police say that Hunter’s upper thighs were punched repeatedly and her upper legs were also hit with a metal ruler. She went to the hospital after she could no longer walk or climb stairs. Felony charges were initially filed because police thought her leg was broken. The charges were reduced when they found this to be untrue.
The students who were charged are going to be expelled from the university.
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The president of the university stated that the band will not take the field for a year, and that the university will work to eliminate the hazing “culture.”
How did that “culture” start in the first place? Would “Just Say No” to hazing work? The press reports that such hazing seems to be found among bands historically black colleges and universities. Is that true? Why should that be so?
Were high school musicians aware of the hazing when they applied for the apparently highly-coveted positions in the band? Were some of them attracted to the prospect of getting to take their turns at hazing new band members?
Are some current band members going to feel that they are somehow being “cheated” in not getting their turns to haze, hit or otherwise abuse new band members? I guess it won’t do to go somewhere in private and in a solitary way haze/hit/abuse themselves. After all, it’s apparently prodominantly a culture of sadists, not masochists.