There is no universe in which I condone fraternity hazing. As a mother and as someone who believes deeply in the ideals of the fraternal world, I find hazing to be abhorrent to everything that should fraternity and sorority life. I am horrified by the recent hazing deaths and my heart breaks for the victims of these senseless tragedies.
Whenever news reports include the words “hazing ritual” I cringe because our rituals, those deeply imbedded values and beliefs and the words and ceremonies which reflect them, do not include hazing of any kind.
I remembered something I read in The Palm of Alpha Tau Omega. It was written in 1977 by Craig Mousin, but it is as true today as it was 40 years ago. Although Mousin was speaking about ATO, it could have been any fraternity, and I am confident it applied to almost all of the NIC fraternities of 1977. He stated that although hazing and fraternity were “in theory the antithesis of each other, this current attention to hazing can be seen as part of a circular pattern of the growth of hazing, the progress toward elimination of hazing, the renewed growth of hazing, and on and on.” Mousin had served for two years as a Chapter Services Consultant and was in his third year of law school. He went on to enumerate the steps ATO had taken to eliminate hazing starting with the 1924 constitutional amendment to eliminate hazing and rough play; violators would be fined $25 (about $350 in today’s funds).
In 1977, a film about fraternity hazing debuted. It was the work of Charles Gary Allison. It was his first movie, and it was produced on a shoe-string as part of his doctoral dissertation at University of Southern California. He sought to tell about the problems faced by a producer making a film. He realized that the best way to do that was to actually make a film. He wrote On Brotherhood and then brought it to life using a handful of young professional actors, one seasoned actor who played a rich alumnus, and with Cliff Robertson as the narrator. Many of the actors and extras were USC students and members of its fraternities and sororities. The Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Delta Delta Delta houses were used in the filming which took place on the campus over summer break.
The story takes place at the fictional eastern Summit College in 1954. It centers on the pledges of the Gamma Nu Pi fraternity. Kappa Delta Alpha is the sorority featured in the film. It starred Peter Fox, Nancy Morgan, Gregory Harrison, Wendy Phillips, Scott Newman, and Robert Emhardt.
The story that Allison told was one that he knew well. It was based on a true story, the death of Richard Swanson, a Kappa Sigma pledge, who choked on a piece of liver while a student at USC in 1959. Allison graduated in 1960 from USC. I’ve also read accounts that Allison was a Kappa Sigma when that happened, although I do not have official confirmation of that.
The film, which became Fraternity Row, was shown at several fraternity gatherings that summer and on campuses throughout the country. Allison’s film was screened at the Alpha Tau Omega Congress and he followed the screening with a question and answer session.
From the March 1977 issue of The Palm of Alpha Tau Omega
The following year, another film about fraternity life debuted. Animal House stole Fraternity Row’s thunder and helped bring a renewed interest in fraternity life, but that is a story for another day.
My sincere thanks to Kappa Kappa Gamma Carolyn Hunter for bringing this film to my attention and sharing her collection of items about the movie with me.
