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Patric Solander, a former Radford University student, has accused a fraternity of hazing and is suing for $7.3 million in damages.
Solander’s suit accuses the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity chapter at Radford of hazing. The suit lists 28 defendants, including the national chapter, two members of its national prevention and accountability teams, a local chapter adviser and more than a dozen members of the chapter at Radford University.
In June 2016, Radford University suspended the chapter due to “substantiated violations of student conduct standards, including hazing.”
via The Roanoke Times:
In July 2016, four RU students, all members of the now-disbanded fraternity, pleaded guilty to hazing and alcohol charges related to making pledges perform push-ups on bottle caps, and other painful and humiliating initiation rituals. Yet in subsequent semesters, some students continued to recruit new members and call themselves Pi Kappa Phi.
In December, seventeen men were arrested in connection with an incident in September 2017 during which a pledge received what was claimed initially to be a burn from a brand during an initiation ritual.
In February, eight of those 17 men had their hazing charges dropped after it was found a malfunctioning vape unit, not a branding iron, caused the pledge’s burn. On March 1, the remaining members of the rogue fraternity had all hazing charges thrown out, with most pleading guilty to lesser charges such as providing alcohol to minors.
John Andrews, a spokesman for the national fraternity, says it does not comment on pending litigation.
Since being dismissed from the university in 2016, the Pi Kappa Phi chapter at Radford University has not returned to campus.
Below is the full list of allegations outlined in the suit:
– Providing “slave” services to brothers, including cleaning their houses, perform menial tasks like picking up laundry or giving them rides.
– Watching another pledge be “water-boarded ,” doused with ice water and having a filthy mop run across their faces.
– Being forced to eat onions doused in cayenne pepper, causing Solander to vomit, which they then forced him and other pledges to eat.
– Being forced to participate in a hazing ritual known as “bows and toes” in which pledges were made to crawl on the concrete floor with bottle caps on their elbows.
Solander claims he was “severely physically and emotionally injured” as a result of the hazing.
