Why Does Violent Hazing Plague Asian-American Fraternities?

When Minh Tran joined an Asian-American fraternity at the University of Michigan, in 1997, his brothers were struggling to fill a house. Back then, they were more likely to beg for a prospective pledge than to beat him.

As a member of a Midwest chapter of Lambda Phi Epsilon, he said, there were none of the machismo-fueled rituals that have since spiraled out of control in Asian-American fraternities, some of the nation’s least-recognized and least-understood corners of Greek life. Over the past decade, Mr. Tran has been shocked by the violent acts of hazing — including one in his own fraternity — that often fly under the radar.

The latest such act resulted in the 2013 death of a 19-year-old pledge from Baruch College, in New York, during a fraternity retreat in the Poconos region of Pennsylvania. It was a stark example, he said, of the lengths to which some Asian-American men will go to fit in. It was also a sobering reminder of the potential dangers that exist alongside the friendship, support, and community-service opportunities that the fraternities provide.

Four years ago Mr. Tran, who is now director of curriculum and academic enrichment at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Dentistry, co-directed a study that set out to answer the question that had been bothering him: Why would well-educated, seemingly well-adjusted men willingly participate in violent forms of hazing?

Mr. Tran spoke to many of those men, and their answers went beyond the usual explanation that hazing was a tradition no one dared to question.

“A lot of them said that, as Asian men, they felt that they were usually portrayed as nerds who played video games a lot and weren’t very social or physically strong,” Mr. Tran said. “It felt good to be part of a group that broke that stereotype.”

Asian-American fraternities are by no means the only ones prone to violent hazing rituals. Physical abuse also happens at black and Latino fraternities. To a lesser extent, it happens in predominantly white fraternities, where serious injuries and deaths are more likely to result from alcohol poisoning, falls from rooftops or cliffs, or choking on food, according to hazing experts.

But considering how small their portion of the overall Greek-life population is, the number of deaths and serious injuries at Asian-American fraternities is surprising, said Walter M. Kimbrough, president of Dillard University, who is an expert on ethnic fraternities. “Many people don’t even know these fraternities exist, and when they hear about them, it’s usually bad news.”

Another expert agreed. “We’re sadly, anecdotally, seeing much more physical abuse, particularly within historically Asian fraternities in the Northeast and West Coast,” said Gentry R. McCreary, chief executive officer of Dyad Strategies, a research-and-assessment firm that helps fraternities and sororities develop antihazing policies. “When we travel and talk to students, there’s a tremendous concern about this rite of passage that’s supposedly preparing one for manhood.”

A Lack of Oversight

The incident involving the group from Baruch College, which is part of the City University of New York, is among the most harrowing in recent years. The fraternity itself, Pi Delta Psi, and five of its members are expected to face third-degree murder charges in connection with the death of Chun Hsien (Michael) Deng. Lesser charges are being filed against 32 other members who were in some way connected with the retreat in which Mr. Deng was blindfolded, weighed down with a heavy pack, and repeatedly tackled and thrown to the frozen ground in a ritual known as the “glass ceiling.”

The tradition, according to a lawyer for one of the accused, was intended to prepare students for the struggles they will face as Asian-Americans.

Mr. Tran believes that the problems plaguing Pi Delta Psi and other Asian-American fraternities are compounded by a lack of oversight from national fraternity groups. Without that oversight, he said, the fraternities are “doomed to repeat the same things over and over.”

Leaders of the National Asian Pacific Islander American Panhellenic Association, an umbrella group that includes dozens of fraternities and sororities, declined to comment beyond an email saying that the group took hazing seriously and was working to educate its members.

The Chronicle also sent emails to several leaders of the national Pi Delta Psi fraternity, who did not respond.

Mr. Tran’s co-author on the 2012 study, Mitchell J. Chang, agreed that many Asian-American fraternities lack supervision. While campus administrators are keeping their eyes on traditional, mostly white fraternities, they might not think to question what’s going on in in a chapter where students of Chinese, Korean, or Japanese heritage live, said Mr. Chang, who is a professor of education and of Asian-American studies at UCLA.

“If you apply the stereotype and assume these kids aren’t going to go crazy — that they’re busy studying — there’s more chance of overlooking problems,” he said.

The study he conducted with Mr. Tran — “To Be Mice or Men: Gender Identity and the Development of Masculinity Through Participation in Asian-American Interest Fraternities” — included several fraternities that, like Pi Delta Psi at Baruch, had been banned by their universities because of hazing abuses. Instead of disappearing, those chapters often go underground, where they may be even less monitored and more dangerous, Mr. Chang said. That’s especially true when they feel they need to toughen up their members.

“These groups are taking hazing to much more of an extreme because they think it serves a purpose,” Mr. Chang said.

Mr. Tran’s own fraternity, Lambda Phi Epsilon, was implicated in an incident in 2005, when Kenny Luong, a 19-year-old student at California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, was fatally injured during a roughly played football game without helmets or pads.

He and eight other pledges who were trying to start a new chapter of the fraternity on their campus were forced to play offense for two hours against 40 fraternity brothers from the University of California at Irvine.

Cultural Differences

What can be done to cut down on such abuses? Training sessions shouldn’t take a one-size-fits-all approach or assume that all black, Latino, or Asian-American fraternities are alike, said Rasheed A. Cromwell, president of the Harbor Institute, a consulting firm that works with ethnic fraternities.

A session that focused on binge drinking might have little impact at an Asian fraternity at which heavy drinking is less of a problem than physically aggressive hazing.

“If students feel like it doesn’t apply to them, they’re likely to check out,” Mr. Cromwell said. “The first step is to acknowledge cultural differences and adjust hazing-prevention initiatives accordingly.”

Rather than give a canned lecture about the dangers of hazing, he would talk to individual fraternity members about where their traditions came from and what they were hoping to accomplish. He’d also share examples of what has and hasn’t worked at black fraternities, where efforts have been underway for years to rein in rituals that have escalated from paddling to beatings. Many Latino and Asian-American fraternities model their more aggressive hazing rituals on such tactics, Mr. Cromwell said, and they could learn from both their failures and successes.

“People are so afraid to talk because of liability and getting in trouble,” he said. “By telling them, Here’s what we tried and what we learned, we’re opening up a dialogue.”

Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.