Hazing Prevention
Hazing
Skagit Valley College provides students and employees with educational programming on hazing that includes information on hazing awareness, prevention, intervention, and the College’s policies prohibiting hazing.
What is hazing?
Hazing can be violent, harassing, intimidating, or subtle. Subtle hazing behaviors emphasize a power imbalance between new members and other members of the group or team. We often take these types of hazing for granted or accepted as harmless or meaningless. Subtle hazing typically involves activities or attitudes that may ridicule, embarrass, or humiliate new members. New members often feel the need to endure subtle hazing to feel like part of the group or team.
Under the Student Conduct Code, hazing is any act committed as part of
- a person’s recruitment, initiation, pledging, admission into, or affiliation with a student group, or
- any pastime or amusement engaged in with respect to such a student group;
- that causes, or is likely to cause, bodily danger or physical harm, or serious psychological or emotional harm, to any student.
Hazing does not include customary athletic events or other similar contests or competitions. Consent is not a valid defense against hazing. (WAC 132D-150-050.9)
What does hazing look like?
- Compelling someone to consume alcohol or drugs
- Requiring someone to participate in activities (pranks, scavenger hunts, etc.) that encourage property damage or theft
- Making someone engage in sexual behaviors or exhibitionism
- Morally degrading or humiliating games or activities which make someone the object of amusement, ridicule, or intimidation
- Sexual, racial, and other discriminatory harassment
- Requiring someone to eat or drink unusual substances or large amounts
- Compelling someone to engage in acts of personal servitude
- Transporting someone against their will, abandoning someone at a distant location, or conducting any “kidnap,” “ditch” or “road trip” that may in any way endanger or compromise their health, safety, or comfort
- Causing someone to be indecently exposed or exposed to the elements
- Requiring someone to remain in a fixed position for a long period of time
- “Line-ups” involving intense shouting of obscenities or insults
- Excluding someone from social contact for prolonged periods of time
How do I report hazing?
If you see or experience hazing, you can report your concerns at Incident Reporting – Skagit Valley College or contact the Manager of Student Conduct.
If an employee, student employee, or volunteer has “reasonable cause” to believe hazing has occurred, they are required to report the incident. “Reasonable cause” means receiving a credible written or oral report alleging hazing or potential or planned hazing.
Skagit Valley College had no reported cases of hazing during the 2020-2021 academic year.
What is Sam’s Law?
What training does SVC provide to prevent hazing?
All employees including student employees receive an online hazing prevention training on the signs and dangers of hazing, as well as the College’s prohibition against hazing.
Get Inclusive Hazing Prevention Course for SVC employees and students:
Hazing Policies and Procedures
Hazing Reporting
Passed in 2022, Sam’s Law requires Washington state colleges and universities to publish a report disclosing all student groups found responsible for engaging in hazing on a quarterly basis.
The report must be published at least forty-five (45) days before fall quarter commences and at least ten (10) days before the start of any other academic quarter. The report must contain the beginning and ending dates for the hazing investigation, the dates the student group was charged with hazing and the date it was found responsible for the violation, a description of the incident, and a description of the sanctions and the date they were imposed. Each report must be retained for at least five years and comply with the Family Educational Records and Privacy Act (FERPA).
Quarterly Reports
- Spring 2022 – Skagit Valley College had no reported cases of hazing or investigations.
- Summer 2022 – Skagit Valley College had no reported cases of hazing or investigations.
- Fall 2022 – Skagit Valley College had no reported cases of hazing or investigations.
How to Report
If you see or experience hazing, you can report your concerns at Incident Reporting – Skagit Valley College or contact the Manager of Student Conduct.
Employees, student employees, and volunteers must report any incident where they have “reasonable cause” to believe hazing has occurred. “Reasonable cause” means receiving a credible written or oral report alleging hazing or potential or planned hazing.