Hofstra University‘s Sigma Pi fraternity is in deep, deep doo-doo after pictures of alleged hazing rituals featuring swastikas, dog cages, and hot sauce were published in The Hofstra Chronicle. It’s very important to note that these photos haven’t been vetted by anyone but The Chronicle, although it does need to be said that the Grand Council of Sigma Pi Fraternity International did revoke this Hofstra chapter on March 1, 2016. Since that date, The Chronicle claims they’ve been investigating the cause of what happened. These photos are just part of what they’ve found.
According to The Chronicle, Sigma Pi International received an email from a student and former Sigma Pi pledge Syed Ali John Mehdi containing photos, video, and a brief description of the “extreme hazing” that Syed said he had to go through. That email was sent on March 1, 2016. On March 2, 2016, the fraternity got an email of their own, telling them that their charter had been revoked.
Update 12/8/2016: Video of the pledges drinking milk and puking on each other has leaked. It’s pretty… graphic.
Mehdi alleges that during the fall of 2014, spring of 2015 and fall of 2015 there was a culture of hazing that involved things like ghost pepper hot sauce poured on the body of pledges, being forced into dog cages while other pledges recited historical information, and being forced to do “bows & toes” on bottle caps. The videos included in Mehdi’s emails are said to depict pledges being forced to drink milk until they vomit. That video has leaked (click link above).
As for what happened to Mehdi, he was actually expelled from Hofstra later that year after being found responsible of “Sexual Assault_Non-Consensual Sexual Contact” by a Hofstra Admin Board for allegedly “engaging in sexual touching of the complainant in this matter by pushing [his] groin against her buttocks while dancing, without her affirmative consent.”
Ironically enough, the eight students still attending Hofstra that were pledging Sigma Pi before the fraternity was kicked off, have confirmed that they’re now joining AEPi, a historically Jewish fraternity. The irony is that you can see a swastika clear as day in the photo above.
And as for what you see below? Well, that’s the kind of hazing that should never be photographed ever. So a very, very special shoutout to the idiots who thought it’d be a good idea to film their friends in dog cages and covered in hot sauce.
