‘Focus on changing the culture:’ How parents hope to stop hazing after SC meeting

It was healing for many parents to share the pain of losing a child at this weekend’s Greenville conference on college hazing. Now, the families want to turn that pain into action.

The parents of 15 children came together in South Carolina to remember the sons they lost to fraternity hazing incidents gone fatally wrong. They also planned steps they can take to stop any more families from losing their children the same way.

The meeting was hosted by Cindy Hipps, whose son Tucker died at Clemson University in 2014. She said the group will focus on developing educational tools to help high school students recognize and avoid hazing, as well as a shared template for anti-hazing laws in their respective states.

But, mostly, the parents want to continue to support each other.

“We’re all very close after just a weekend,” said Hipps. “It’s the first time you’ve been in a room where we all know exactly the way you feel.”

While she hopes no other parent has to go through what she went through, Debbie Smith encourages others who have lost a child to join future meetings of the group, dubbed Parents United to Stop Hazing, or PUSH. “If nothing else, this experience will help you.”

Smith’s son Matthew Carrington died in a fraternity initiation ritual in California in 2005.

The Greenville meeting received national media attention. Smith flew from South Carolina to New York to join Megyn Kelly on NBC’s Today Show Monday to discuss PUSH’s plans.

Smith will host the next meeting of PUSH parents, in October, at her home in Pleasant Hill, Calif.

She hopes parents in different states can help pass laws like South Carolina’s Tucker Hipps Transparency Act, which requires S.C. schools to report fraternity misbehavior, or California’s “Matt’s law,” passed after Carrington’s death to stiffen penalties for hazing.

While Tucker Hipps died after falling from a bridge over Lake Hartwell, his mother said she sympathized with other families’ stories of losing children to the misuse of alcohol.

“Tucker’s case wasn’t alcohol-related, but all those scenarios played out in his fraternity house,” she said. “We have to focus on changing the culture.”

This story was originally published February 26, 2018 at 4:15 PM with the headline "‘Focus on changing the culture:’ How parents hope to stop hazing after SC meeting."