If O.U.'s hazing policy wasn't hastily implemented or done in a vacuum,what's their excuse ?

This whole mess has pointed out it wasn't well thought out.

I agree,the policy was put in place for a reason.

But,as I posted,when you have a policy so "open ended" and vague that even innocuous activities can result in a Cease and Desist Order,the policy loses all importance.

Maybe this debacle will result in O.U. revisiting/revising their policy to include some common sense.

As far as O.U.'s hazing policy being "in line" with other academic institutions,I'm reminded of the old saying "if one of your friends jumped off a bridge . . . ".

Sure seems like,when it comes to their hazing policy,
O.U. either went first,or followed others off that bridge.

Kind of like every statement out of President Nellis mouth or attributed to him in a news release. This institution is crying for fresh, bold, and principled leadership. We need someone in the mold of Robert M. Hutchins, but without the anti-athletic bias.

And, like many things rammed through a meeting that no one pays attention to.

1.That the university was unfair and did affect certain groups that were innocent is a fact.

That the university violated students' First Amendment rights, is also a fact.

2.Did some groups,by O.U.'s definition,"haze" ?

Yes.

When,as I posted,innocuous things like having pledges text daily weather reports to actives, meets O.U.'s definition of "hazing",maybe its THEIR definition that needs to be changed.

3.What was unjust was O.U. implementing a hazing policy lacking common sense.

Then using that policy to hammer organizations with Cease and Desist orders.

Of course,then it came out that,in many cases,the allegations were anonymous, second or third hand accounts of what,in at least one instance I know of,was a years' old allegation.

4.I never said O.U.'s current leadership is "stupid" or "reckless".

What I have said is that O.U.'s leadership mishandled this from day one.

I've also criticized their lack of communication.

A tweet from JHJ,and a paragraph from Nellis,weeks after this started and
well after it had become obvious the university mishandled it,is abhorrent.

5.Yes I do feel JHJ and Nellis need to go.
If you read my other posts you can see why I feel this way.

6.As far as O.U.'s hazing policy being in line with other institutions,reread my "bridge" comment.

7.Other then myself and a couple of others on BA,I have no idea how old anyone is,or if they are male or female.

But I do seem to detect just a hint of discrimination against seasoned citizens.

I do know that,in my experience,the people here do love O.U. sports.
This is, after all, an O.U. sports site.

Are you saying that's a bad thing ?

8.I really don't care about "wining this argument on a national scale".

I care about what happens at O.U., especially to the groups who were/are in the cross hairs of an overzealous administration,when it came to this.

This includes the 110, who are still waiting for their case to be resolved.

What will happen to things like this,nationally, over time, who knows.
Pendulums swing both ways.

As OCF pointed out,fraternities are already exercising their "nuclear option".


All I can say is,who would have thought that there'd be a topic on BA that liberals and conservatives would agree on.

I was just getting ready to respond to this.

Then I remembered,I already had. :-)

This thread has only had 8 pages, but whatevs.

My oh my. What an astute observation. I'll take it a step further OCF - or they don't have the whatever to go out on a limb, for them, to take a stance. We have posters who are members of their respective party central committees agreeing that OU botched the hell out of this. That's called bipartisan support. It will be very interesting to see what the enrollment numbers are for 2020-2021 as well as donations to the university. I'm betting they will be both be down unless of course a Violet Patton appears out of nowhere.

I think people have abandoned this thread because it’s dominated by the same 4-5 guys who have intractable opinions. There’s not much debate and dialogue happening here. The university did what just about any institution would have done given similar circumstances. You guys hate the reality that zero tolerance hazing policies and aggressive enforcement are quite standard in today’s world. This is about protecting assets (liability) and protecting students (for the umpteenth time, a student died). The university is doing this the same way other institutions are: Working to permanently destroy any kind of initiation rituals among any groups affiliated with the university. Is being forced cleaning a room or wake up at 6 a.m. life-threatening? Of course not. Is it a big leap from that kind of crap to stuff that’s really harmful? You probably don’t think so, but I promise a lawyer would disagree. These are perfectly reasonable explanations for what happened, and eight pages into the thread we’re still going in circles. Abandoning the thread looks wise, yet here I am.

So what's your point about unnamed people abandoning the thread? Alan's opinion was the same a month ago as it is now. There's always been folks who usually disagree agreeing here. And the "unnamed people" frequently posted about the issue prior, right? Or are you worried about people who haven't posted at all here?

You are correct. If anything, it has solidifed based on the continued bungling of the "investigations", the university's lack of a timely and forceful response to the vandalism, and personal conversations with individuals in some of the "charged" groups. Hindsight is often 20/20 but when the young man died, as a precautionanary and liability endeavor, all greek organizations should have been "suspended as of a certain date" and a campus wide convesation and educational programming should have taken place to address what has now been exposed as a widely known pattern of systemic "hazing." Instead and for some unknown reason, suspensions were put in place almost 8 months later in a matter of 72 hours based on a series of dubious claims and rumors.

I was in San Francisco for work and had long days last week. But glad to hear you all missed me.

I still don't get the speculation. Alan and Rp have been in agreement from day one. Why would their agreement make me uneasy? Or make this less "fun"? And what about the last week would have changed any of that?

To bring this semi back on topic.

Last Friday my wife and I were going to the Lehigh/Army Wrestling match.

To make sure we didn't have any commuting issues.I had to reschedule a meeting.

When I told the person why,he said he was a Lehigh grad.

As I've posted,Lehigh is a heavy Greek school.
So I asked him if was in a frat.

He said he was.
I told him about what happened at O.U.

He said that Lehigh had just suspended,they called it "paused",pretty
much all Greek activities on campus.

The University was also prohibiting any "active",including alumni,from
contacting "new" members,for anything "non-business" related.

He said that their National Organization told them that there is a concerted effort on the part of administrations around the country to "kill" the Greek system.

Here's the link to the full article: http://www.inquirer.com/news/lehigh-university-hazing-dri... .

Change the names in the article to "Nellis" and JHJ and the story starts to sound a bit familiar.