CHAPTER 536
PROHIBITING THE PRACTICE OF
HAZING
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
Chapter 269 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 than 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 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, exposure to the weather, forced
consumption of any food, liquor, beverage, drug or other substance, or 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 which subjects such student or
other person to extreme mental stress, including extended deprivation of sleep or rest or
extended isolation.
Section 18. Whoever knows that another person is the
victim of hazing as defined in section seventeen and is at the scene of such crime shall,
to the extent that such person can do so without danger or peril to himself or other,
report such crime to an appropriate law enforcement official as soon as reasonably
practicable. Whoever fails to report such crime shall be punished by a fine of not more
than five hundred dollars.
Section 19. Each secondary school and each public and
private school or college shall issue to every group or organization under it authority or
operating on or in conjunction with its campus or school and to every member, plebe,
pledge or applicant for membership in such group or organization, a copy of this section
and sections seventeen and eighteen. An officer of each such group or organization, and
each individual receiving a copy of such sections seventeen and eighteen shall sign an
acknowledgement stating that such group, organization or individual has received a copy of
said 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 section and also certifying that said school has
adopted a disciplinary policy with regards to the organizers and participants of hazing.
The Board of Regents and in the case of secondary schools, the Board of Education shall
promulgate regulations governing the content and frequency of such reports, and shall
forthwith report to the attorney general any such institution, which fails to make such
report.
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