Kappa Alpha Psi Chapter Suspended Until 2040 At Miami University After Hazing Allegations

The Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. chapter at Miami University in Ohio received a 15-year suspension on April 11 after current members and alumni were accused of violent hazing against four new recruits in the fall of 2024.

The institution is hoping the suspension will help erase the culture of hazing from the chapter, which was already on probation for a hazing incident in 2022.

The chapter was first permanently banned, then it was changed to a 15-year suspension

The fraternity, which chartered the Kappa Delta chapter on the Miami University campus in 1980, has been multiple several times of hazing new recruits. 

Wesley Highley, the associate director of the Office of Community Standards, first permanently banned the fraternity from campus on March 6. The sanction was then reduced to 15 years after fraternity leaders appealed the decision, according to The Enquirer. The chapter is suspended until March 15, 20240.

Jayne Brownell, the senior vice president for student life, said the case was serious and required significant disciplinary action.

“Our hope is by that time, the alumni from Miami will no longer be an influence on the culture for a recolonization,” she wrote in an April 11 letter announcing the suspension. “There may be a time when Kappa Alpha Psi could become a thriving chapter after a long enough period of time has passed to erase this culture.”

Kappa Alpha Psi “forfeits all the rights and privileges afforded to them by University policy” and may have to undergo mandatory anti-hazing training once the suspension is lifted.

What is alleged to have happened at Miami University in fall 2024?

Four students pledging for Kappa Alpha Psi were allegedly beaten with paddles and canes during “nightly hazing rituals,” according to law firm Merriman Legal LLC representing one of the students, as reported by The Enquirer.

The hazing reportedly lasted from late August to early October. Students were allegedly beaten up to 60 times a night, were forced to do wall sits, and were subjected to verbal humiliation until meetings that lasted until 3 a.m., among other strict rules they had to follow.

The student represented by the firm “endured five weeks of beatings, sleep deprivation, and psychological manipulation.” Attorney Tom Merriman described him to The Enquirer as a “shell of himself” and as being in a “catatonic” state.

The firm also said that beatings were allegedly performed during “unauthorized meetings” attended by alumni members of the fraternity. These alumni were also involved in a 2022 hazing incident that resulted in Kappa Alpha Psi being put on probation at the time.

Kappa Alpha Psi is the second fraternity at Miami University to receive a recent suspension

This year, another fraternity was suspended after being accused of hazing. The Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity was suspended in February after the university investigated a report of hazing. New members were allegedly forced to ingest chewing tobacco, do wall sits while covered in baby oil, along with other “inhumane” activities, The Enquirer reported.

Hazing is illegal and prohibited at Miami University.

“Miami seeks to promote a safe environment where students may participate in activities and organizations without compromising their health, safety, or welfare,” the university indicated on its website.

It qualified hazing as any act of initiation or membership reinstatement into a student organization or athletic team “that causes or creates a substantial risk of causing mental or physical harm to any person, including coercing another to consume alcohol or another drug.”

“Failure to intervene, prevent or report any act of hazing may also constitute a violation,” the website reads.