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Hazing
Roxbury Community College does not permit hazing at any activity or event associated with the College or College recognized clubs and organizations. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts prohibits hazing of any form on campuses throughout the Commonwealth. Hazing is defined as any conduct or method of initiation into any student organization, whether on public or private property, which willfully or recklessly endangers the physical or mental health of any student or other person. Such conduct shall include whipping, beating, branding, forced calisthenics and exposure to weather, forced consumption of any food, liquor, beverage, drug or other substance. Also, hazing includes any other brutal treatment or forced physical activity which is likely to adversely affect the physical health or safety of any student or other person, or cause extreme mental stress, including extended deprivation of sleep or rest or extended isolation.
The Senate enacted an act prohibiting the practice of hazing and the House of Representatives in General Court in 1985. Chapter 369 of the General Laws is hereby amended by adding the following three sections.
Section 17. Whoever is a principle organizer or participant in the crime of hazing as defined herein shall be punished by a fine of not more that one thousand dollars or by imprisonment in a house of correction for not more than one hundred days or by both such fine and imprisonment. The term hazing as used in this section and in sections eighteen and nineteen, shall mean any conduct or method of initiation into any student organization, whether public or private property, which willfully or recklessly endangers the physical or mental health of any student or other person. Such conduct shall include whipping, beating, branding, forced calisthenics and exposure to the weather, forced consumption of any food, liquor, beverage, drug or other substance. Also, hazing includes any other brutal treatment or forced physical activity which is likely to adversely affect the physical health or safety of any such student or other person, or cause extreme mental stress, including extended deprivation of sleep or rest or extended isolation.
Section 18. Whoever knows that a person is the victim of hazing as defined in section seventeen and is at the scene of such a crime shall, to the extent that such person can do so without danger or peril to himself or other, report such a crime to an appropriate law enforcement official as soon as reasonably practical. Whoever fails to report such crime will be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars.
Section 19. Each institution of secondary education and each student group, student team or student organization which is part of such institution or is recognized by the institution or permitted by the institution to use its name or facilities or is known by the institution to exist as an unaffiliated student group, student team or student organization, shall provide a copy of this section and sections seventeen and eighteen; provided however, that an institution's compliance with this section's requirements that an institution issue copies of this section and sections seventeen and eighteen to an unaffiliated student groups, teams or organizations shall not constitute evidence of the institution's recognition or endorsement of said unaffiliated student groups, teams or organizations. Each such group, team or organization shall distribute a copy of this section and sections seventeen and eighteen to each of its members, pledges, or applicants for membership. It shall be the duty of each such group, team or organization, acting through its designated officer, to deliver annually, to the institution an attested acknowledgement stating that such group, team or organization has received a copy of this section and said sections, seventeen and eighteen, and that such group, team or organization understands and agrees to comply with the provisions of this section and sections seventeen and eighteen. Each secondary school and each public or private school or college shall file, at least annually, before the start of enrollment, deliver to each person who enrolls as a full time student in such institution a copy of this section and sections seventeen and eighteen. Each secondary school and each public or private school or college shall file, at least annually, a report with the regents of higher education and in the case of secondary schools, the board of education, certifying that such institution has complied with the provisions of this sections and also certifying that said school has adopted a disciplinary policy with its responsibility to inform student groups, teams or organizations and to notify each full time student enrolled by it of the provisions of this section and sections seventeen and eighteen and also certifying that said institution has adopted a disciplinary policy with regard to the organizers and participants of hazing, and that such policy has been set forth with appropriate emphasis in the student handbook or similar means of communicating the institutions policies to its students. The Board of Education shall promulgate regulations governing the content and frequency of such reports and shall forth-with report to the Attorney General any such institution which fails to make such a report.
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