Two students dead at Ole Miss. A cocaine cutting operation allegedly run out of a Penn State fraternity. Dozens of half-clothed pledges found packed into a sweltering Wisconsin basement, covered in food and condiments, some showing signs of physical assault.
All three stories broke within days of each other, and a Dartmouth hazing survivor turned author says he wasn’t surprised by any of it.
“For years and years [the last] 10 years, it’s like whenever someone dies in a frat, like that’s when my phone rings,” said Andrew Lohse, 36, author of “Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy” and a former Sigma Alpha Epsilon brother at Dartmouth who has spent a decade speaking out about hazing culture.
Ole Miss deaths under investigation
Ryan Strang, a Phi Delta Theta brother at Ole Miss, was found dead at an off-campus home. Packages of kratom — a commercially sold drug sometimes called “gas station heroin” — were recovered at that scene and at a second site where another student, identified as Robert and Aidan Hamilton, was found dead. Investigators have not determined what role, if any, the drug played in either death, and toxicology results are still pending.
Phi Delta Theta has not been accused of wrongdoing. In a statement, the fraternity called the deaths “a profound tragedy” and said it “joins the University of Mississippi and the broader Ole Miss community in mourning Robert and Aidan Hamilton and extending our deepest sympathies to their families, friends, chapter brothers, classmates, and all those who knew and loved them.” The statement added that the losses “reinforce the importance of a collective commitment to health, safety, and well-being on college campuses today,” and asked the Phi Delta Theta community to keep the Strang family and the Mississippi Alpha Chapter in their thoughts.
Alleged cocaine ring at Penn State
At Penn State, prosecutors allege in court documents that a former Sigma Chi member, Agostino Abbatiello, ran an organized cocaine distribution operation and that pledges were coerced into cutting and packaging the drug as part of an “indoctrination” ritual. Fourteen people were arrested in the case.
“When I was reading that the pledges were in the background doing that, I thought that was sort of amazing — but in a bad way, but also extremely brazen,” Lohse said.
Hazing bust in Madison
In Madison, Wisconsin, police were called Wednesday night to the Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) house after finding roughly 30 partially clothed young men crammed inside a hot basement, covered in food, condiments and other liquids. Several pledges showed signs of having been physically assaulted. Two people have been arrested, and the Madison Police Department is investigating.
“AEPi Headquarters takes the allegations involving our Pi Chapter in Madison, Wisconsin, extremely seriously,” said Jonathan Pierce, the fraternity’s chief communications officer, in a statement. “We will cooperate fully with the authorities investigating this matter. Hazing is a betrayal of everything our fraternity stands for. There is no place for it in AEPi. No exceptions. No excuses.”
A “code of omertà”
Lohse argues that the through-line connecting these cases is a culture of enforced silence.
“You need a code of omertà if you’re trying to create an organization that’s essentially like a criminal organization.”
“Essentially, you can look at a modern fraternity like a criminal organization,” Lohse said. “In most states, the unique behavioral attributes of a fraternity cross into criminal statutes — whether misdemeanor hazing or serious felony drug trafficking. You need a code of silence to protect that.” He added that “the organization forces the individual to compromise their own identity for the collective, taking something from its members to ensure the system perpetuates itself over time.”
Lohse said the drugs circulating on campuses today are far more lethal than what he encountered as an undergraduate. “There was no kratom, no tranq, no smoking bath salts, no fentanyl. Back then, the cocaine was more or less just cocaine. It wasn’t like every time somebody did cocaine they could die.”
During his own pledgeship at Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Lohse said he was forced to “swim in a kiddie pool full of vomit while being urinated on” and to “chug” vinegar or milk until he and other pledges “would vomit” in a room lined with tarps. He said he was also forced into a small basement crawl space, on top of what he described as constant coerced binge drinking — “we’re talking like 10, 15 plus drinks,” he said. SAE was suspended from Dartmouth for 10 years following hazing incidents during his time there and was re-recognized in August, according to student paper The Dartmouth.
“It’s a sad moment, for society, civilization,” Lohse said of the recent headlines. “These organizations should be forces of good. Young men need it more than ever. Young men are more adrift than ever, there’s no moral leadership. There’s a vacuum in the center of higher education and American society that used to be filled by God, by religion, by the church,” he said, calling that space “totally vacant now.”
What fraternities and their national body say
Judson Horras, president and CEO of the North American Interfraternity Conference, said “student safety is our members’ highest priority,” noting the group has adopted enhanced health and safety guidelines and co-led advocacy for tougher anti-hazing laws in more than a dozen states as well as the federal Stop Campus Hazing Act. On the Ole Miss deaths, Horras said: “We are heartbroken by the loss of two University of Mississippi students, one of whom was a fraternity member. Our sympathies are with both families and the Ole Miss community. We will continue working with universities and families to keep every student safe.”
Asked what he’d tell young men weighing whether to pledge, Lohse stopped short of telling them to avoid fraternities outright, urging instead that they weigh the “opportunity cost.”
“Consider that the upside benefit, while maybe not zero, pales in comparison to the downside risk,” Lohse said. “Think about what you actually want out of college. Who do you really want to be around, and who is actually going to be there to help you? I think you’ll find that a fraternity isn’t going to provide that.”
