Members of the Sigma Pi fraternity at Hofstra University took hazing to new heights last year — with never-before-seen pictures depicting a slew of stomach-churning rituals, including vomiting on one another and being covered from head to toe in hot sauce.
The images, published Tuesday by the Hofstra Chronicle, show students being subjected to a wide range of abuse over the course of the fall 2014 and fall 2015 pledge processes.
They were obtained during a semester-long investigation, in which numerous acts of “extreme hazing” were uncovered within the now-defunct fraternity — such as forced favors, a merit and demerit system and anti-Semitic imagery, according to the school newspaper.
In one photo, three “pledges” from the fall class of 2015 can be seen sprawled out on the ground, with their bodies covered in flour.
Another shows a student locked in a small cage, which is intended to hold the smallest person in the pledge class.
Syed Ali John Mehdi — a former student and member of Sigma Pi’s Beta-Alpha class of spring 2015 — told the Chronicle that the student chosen to sit in the cage is ultimately forced to remain inside for indefinite periods of time, which are then made longer if they are unable to correctly answer a question about the fraternity or its members.
A third photo shows a young man on his knees in front of a duct-taped swastika — blindfolded and completely covered in ghost pepper hot sauce.
“We had this thing called ‘Hell Night,'” Mehdi recalled. “They’d throw hot sauce all over our body and we’d have to sit there for hours all throughout the night.”
Earlier this year, the Grand Council of Sigma Pi Fraternity International revoked the charter for the Eta-Gamma chapter at Hofstra — citing violations of both fraternity and Fraternal Information and Programming Group risk management policies.
“In March 2016, the university received notice that the Grand Council of Sigma Pi Fraternity International revoked the charter of the Eta-Gamma Chapter at Hofstra University for unspecified violations,” the school said in a statement. “As a result, the University immediately suspended the chapter, and requested more information from the Grand Council, which declined to provide any additional information.”
It was Mehdi who wound up blowing the lid on the alleged hazing — sending an email to national fraternity officials on March 1 outlining the abuse he and the others had faced. The message included the photos obtained by the Chronicle, as well as videos allegedly showing students chugging gallons of milk and forcibly throwing up on one another.
“Keep drinking,” an initiated brother says in one of the clips. “This is how we do this, boys.”
According to Mehdi, the hot sauce stunt was the most painful hazing ritual that pledges had to endure and it included covering their genitals.
GroupMe messages sent between initiated fraternity members and pledges later confirmed the abuse.
“If you say anything to me I will make sure your balls feel the wrath of satan himself,” one brother told a pledge, according to the Chronicle.
While the newspaper has reached out to several members of Sigma Pi who were at the school during the semesters in question, they have received very few responses.
“None of us are bigots or in any sense racist,” explained one initiated brother, who spoke under the condition of anonymity about the claims of anti-Semitism.
“For you to associate that picture that is not of us, there’s no proof in that picture of us besides a person telling you that it was us,” he said.