SPOKANE, Wash. — A new online tool aims to help students and parents make safer choices about campus organizations by providing access to hazing incident records.
The database, created by HazingInfo.org, allows users to look up colleges and universities to see their history of hazing incidents, prevention policies and reporting procedures. The tool was developed by Jolayne Houtz, whose son Sam Martinez died of acute alcohol poisoning at a Washington State University fraternity event in 2019.
“My hope with this project is that it will become a routine back-to-school checklist item for every single family,” Houtz said.
Since her son’s death nearly six years ago, Houtz has worked to get laws passed requiring universities to publish reports on hazing incidents. The new database compiles those reports into a searchable format for families.
“Look up your campus, find out what their situation is with hazing. Have they had a lot of hazing incidents? Or none? I think that will be life-saving,” Houtz said.
The database allows users to search by individual schools or filter results by state. For example, Gonzaga University shows no reported hazing incidents over the past three school years.
“It’s consumer protection. It’s information that parents should already have access to,” Houtz said. “That’s how we’re going to end hazing.”
Drew Keegan, a Gonzaga University student, believes the transparency could reduce incidents.
“That could be helpful, and also could help reduce the amount of incidents because people would be scared of getting put on there and their organizations getting a really bad rep,” he said.
By December 2024, all universities will be required to publish hazing reports. HazingInfo.org plans to continue expanding its database with help from students and faculty at the UW Information School, the University of Maine, and journalist Hank Nuwer, who spent 50 years researching and cataloging hazing deaths.
COPYRIGHT 2025 BY KXLY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.
