Rutgers Fraternity Is Closed After Student Is Injured in Hazing Episode

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: New York Times

Rutgers Fraternity Is Closed After Student Is Injured in Hazing Episode

The Alpha Sigma Phi national organization permanently shut down its Rutgers chapter after concluding that hazing had occurred when a student was critically hurt this month.


The Alpha Sigma Phi parent organization pledged to cooperate with prosecutors who were investigating the injury of a 19-year-old student at the fraternity’s Rutgers house.
Patti Sapone/NJ Advance Media, via Associated Press

By Sharon Otterman
https://www.nytimes.com/by/sharon-otterman
Oct. 25, 2025
Updated 3:39 p.m. ET

A fraternity at Rutgers University has been permanently closed as a result of a hazing episode that critically injured a 19-year-old student this month, the fraternity’s parent organization said on Saturday. … The fraternity, the Rutgers chapter of Alpha Sigma Phi, has been under investigation since Oct. 15, when the police responded to its house on College Avenue in New Brunswick, N.J., just after midnight to find the 19-year-old man unconscious and unresponsive. He was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in critical condition.

The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the possibility of criminal charges, it said in a statement this week. The Alpha Sigma Phi parent organization, in its own investigation, found this week that hazing had taken place. … Hazing is barred by the fraternity and the university, as well as by New Jersey state law. The Alpha Sigma Phi national organization urged Rutgers and prosecutors to take a tough approach to the hazing at the fraternity house to ensure that similar episodes do not occur in the future.

“Hazing is illegal and will not be condoned or tolerated,” Gordy Heminger, the president and chief executive of the Alpha Sigma Phi national organization, said in a statement. He added that all fraternity members directly or indirectly involved in the Rutgers episode would be expelled from the fraternity and that the chapter had been shut down. … The chapter’s status was listed as closed on the university’s website as of Wednesday. Rutgers officials did not immediately return a request for comment on Saturday.

Danny Miller, a spokesman for the national fraternity, said by email on Saturday that the episode had taken place in the basement of the fraternity house and that water had become involved. … A spokeswoman for the county prosecutor’s office on Thursday told Patch, a local news website, that the victim, who has not been identified, had been electrocuted after coming into contact with exposed electrical wires and remained hospitalized, though his condition had been improving. The office did not immediately return a request for comment on Saturday.

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Sharon Otterman is a Times reporter covering higher education, public health and other issues facing New York City
https://www.nytimes.com/by/sharon-otterman

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/25/nyregion/rutgers-fraternity-closed-hazing.html

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No, the pledge was not electrocuted, at least not yet. He received an electric shock. If he dies as a result of the shock he received, then you can say he was electrocuted.

[IbogaProject]

1. Faulty wiring

The shock was likely an accident, the water wasn't an accident. I actually visited that house 35-40 years ago. Nice enough group then, but over the years the culture may have shifted. That house was always rickety. I saw on a reddit thread that there were wiring issues throughout. Which is sloppyness and ultimately their alumni and national are at fault not assuring basic mechanical safety in that dwelling. College kids wouldn't know this stuff, unless they worked with an electrician.

[Oeditpus Rex]

2. You'd think a New York Times reporter

or a New York Times copy editor or a New York Times news editor would know the difference between elecrtic shock and electrocution. But, that's an example of what AI can do.