FULTON — “We’re not looking to punish, we’re looking to protect,” anti-hazing advocate Richard Braham said to a crowd of students Thursday at Westminster’s Champ Auditorium.
Braham, who is also a managing editor and director at ABC News, spoke as a part of Anti-Hazing Week organized by the Phi Delta Theta fraternity at Westminster College. Braham’s son, Marquise, was an 18-year-old biomedical engineering student who died by suicide in 2014 after undergoing hazing in a fraternity at Penn State Altoona.
Since his son’s death, Braham helped form the Anti-Hazing Coalition, which seeks to end hazing on college campuses. In September, the coalition helped pass the Stop Campus Hazing Act through the U.S. House of Representatives, which would require universities to report hazing incidents. Braham said if passed, it would be the first law of its kind.
“(The Stop Campus Hazing Act) is critical to saving lives,” Braham said. “That gives students and parents a choice, before they would choose to join any group, to know whether or not that group is worthy of them and how safe is it to join them.”
