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News / Northwest

Biden signs anti-hazing bill backed by WA parents

By Dahlia Bazzaz, The Seattle Times
Published: January 3, 2025, 7:27am

Sam Martinez’s story keeps changing laws.

After his death five years ago during a fraternity hazing ritual, his parents, Jolayne Houtz and Hector Martinez of Bellevue, turned their grief into action, successfully lobbying Washington lawmakers to enact anti-hazing laws in 2022 and 2023.

Then, they joined other families in a decades-long campaign to advocate for the first federal anti-hazing law, sharing their son’s story with dozens of members of Congress.

Last week, on Christmas Eve, their efforts paid off when President Joe Biden signed the Stop Campus Hazing Act. The law requires all colleges and universities to publicly disclose hazing incidents, making them a separate category in the crime statistics colleges must report. It also mandates the creation of prevention and education programs to help students understand the dangers of hazing.

Advocates say a lack of data on hazing incidents makes it more difficult to shed light on the practice. The new law is designed to address that problem.

In the meantime, Houtz is compiling a comprehensive database of hazing incidents from around the country, using information from government sources and news reports.

Seeing the federal law passed was a milestone that “lifted a burden from my shoulders,” she said.

“It was a nice Christmas present,” Hector Martinez added.

Sam Martinez died of alcohol poisoning in 2019 while pledging for a fraternity at Washington State University. A graduate of Bellevue’s Newport High School, Sam Martinez planned to study business and entrepreneurship at WSU.

It was not an easy road from grief to advocacy. For the first 2 1/2 years, Houtz said, it was “just trying to put one foot in front of the other.”

“Eventually, I felt there had to be more we could do to prevent other families from going through this pain.”

Before Sam pledged Alpha Tau Omega, Houtz searched for information about hazing incidents connected to the fraternity. Houtz found nothing, she wrote in a blog post.

“We never thought this would happen to our son,” Hector Martinez said. “We were so excited for him to go to college.”

“Sam’s Law,” the 2022 Washington bill that Martinez’s parents championed, requires Washington colleges and universities to post information about hazing incidents on their websites and provide hazing education and training to students and employees, including during orientation sessions. It also requires students and employees to report allegations of hazing by student organizations and athletic teams.

Public institutions must also convene a hazing prevention committee that meets quarterly.

“We’ve let higher education off the hook for the hazing that happens under their watch,” said Houtz, a former Seattle Times reporter. “We have to bring it out of the shadows.”

The couple also advocated for the passage of a 2023 law that stiffens the penalties for those convicted of hazing crimes.

Houtz said she’s seen some good outcomes from the state legislation. The University of Washington hired its first hazing prevention specialist, and some colleges have posted incident reports on their websites. WSU, where Sam attended, has reported almost two dozen incidents related to hazing and other illegal activities at fraternities since 2022.

The fight for the federal law began with the efforts of the DeVercelly family, who lost their son, Gary, to alcohol poisoning after a fraternity hazing ritual in 2007 at Rider University in New Jersey. The legislation stalled in Congress three times before it reached Biden’s desk.

Houtz and Martinez joined the effort with other families in 2023.

“Hearing our stories moved people,” Houtz said. “Sometimes, lawmakers’ staffers broke down in tears as they listened.”

That year, Houtz and Martinez also launched HazingInfo.org, a comprehensive online resource that aggregates hazing data from all 50 states. Partnering with the University of Washington and the University of Maine, the database will be compiled, in part, by using AI tools to gather and analyze reports, creating a centralized database for families and students.

“My hope is it becomes a checklist item — something to be checked off before you join a group, to make sure you know the history,” Houtz said.

Under the new law, colleges must update hazing reports twice yearly and keep at least five years’ worth of historical data available. Data collection begins this month, and the first reports are due by December 2025.

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