Committed to safety on campus
Our top priority at Florida A&M University is to ensure and protect the safety of every person on campus. Accordingly, the FAMU Board of Trustees and the FAMU administration resolve to break the culture of secrecy that is a major component of institutionalized hazing. While we acknowledge the complexity of this challenge, our goal is to eliminate this pattern of destructive behavior from our campus.
As part of our ongoing efforts, the FAMU trustees are creating a Blue Ribbon Committee to examine hazing and ways to eradicate it from campus life. The university will honor the memory of our student Robert Champion, who died in a hazing incident, by establishing a new set of traditions across our campus that will result in a complete culture change and “zero tolerance” for hazing.
His death has touched us all deeply and has been a nightmare for the Champion family. Our prayers continue to be with them and with other students who have been impacted by similar incidents.
Rightly, Robert’s death has spawned a national conversation about hazing. Hazing was made a third-degree felony in Florida in 2005 after the hazing death of a University of Miami student. FAMU has an anti-hazing regulation and provides multiple anti-hazing workshops, in addition to having a process to handle reported violations. Yet, this national problem continues as a hidden culture shrouded in secrecy. This code of silence impairs every university’s ability to rid their campuses of these insidious activities.
Even in this situation, numerous warnings were given, yet a young man lost his life. The Wednesday before Robert lost his life, FAMU’S dean of students, campus police chief and band director met with the entire band to emphatically remind them of the FAMU regulation and the Florida law prohibiting hazing. Yet, three days later, hazing occurred.
We regret this tragedy and the loss of life. We are committed to providing a safe environment for all of our students and to ending hazing not only at FAMU, but contributing to the national effort to root out hazing.