On Campus Podcast – The Stop Campus Hazing Act Explained for Higher Education Leaders

To easily navigate through our podcast, simply click on the ☰ icon on the player. This will take you straight to the chapter timestamps, allowing you to jump to specific segments and enjoy the parts you’re most interested in.

1. Introduction and Episode Framing (00:06) The host introduces the podcast, explains its educational purpose, and sets expectations for the episode.
2. Introducing the Guests and Topic: The Stop Campus Hazing Act (00:34) The host welcomes Dr. Elizabeth Allan and Meredith Stewart and frames the conversation around the Stop Campus Hazing Act.
3. Background and Significance of the Act (01:25) Dr. Allan explains the origins of the Act, its consumer-protection focus, and why federal hazing legislation is significant.
4. State Laws vs. the Need for Federal Consistency (02:44) Discussion of the uneven state-by-state hazing laws and how a federal framework helps standardize expectations.
5. Core Requirements of the Stop Campus Hazing Act (04:00) Overview of major requirements, including Clery integration, education and prevention mandates, and public transparency.
6. Institutional Interpretation and Early Implementation (06:40) How institutions are interpreting the law, with variation in readiness, structure, and rollout approaches.
7. How the Act Fits Within Existing Clery Reporting (07:43) Examination of how hazing disclosures and transparency reports integrate into Clery Act compliance.
8. Institutional Readiness, Burden, and Adaptation (09:16) Discussion of administrative capacity, perceived burden, and how campuses are operationalizing compliance.
9. Education Requirements and Practical Examples (10:30) Examples of how campuses are meeting education and prevention requirements, including mandatory training models.
10. Transparency, Reporting, and Risk Perception (12:00) How institutions are approaching public reporting, transparency, and concerns about reputation and risk avoidance.
11. Culture Change and Prevention Beyond Compliance (13:49) Emphasis on using the Act as a foundation for cultural change, prevention, and student wellbeing.
12. Federal Law as a Floor, Not a Ceiling (16:00) Discussion of why institutions should treat the Act as a baseline and continue expanding prevention efforts.
13. Sustaining Prevention and Long-Term Impact (18:13) The need for durable infrastructure, cross-campus collaboration, and ongoing evaluation.
14. Looking Ahead: What Success Looks Like (26:09) Reflections on the future impact of the Act, normalization of prevention, and safer campus environments.
15. Closing Remarks and Outro (29:18) Final reflections, acknowledgments, and episode close.

Ed Butch: Welcome to On Campus with CITI Program, the podcast where we explore the complexities of the campus experience with higher education experts and researchers. I’m your host, Ed Butch, and I’m thrilled to have you with us today. Before we get started, I want to quickly note that this podcast is for educational purposes only, and is not designed to provide legal advice or guidance. In addition, the views expressed in this podcast are solely those of our guests.

Welcome to another episode of On Campus. Today, we’re focusing on a timely and important issue in higher education, the Stop Campus Hazing Act and what it means for campuses moving forward. I’m joined by Dr. Elizabeth Allan, Professor of Higher Education and Director of the Hazing Prevention Research Lab at the University of Maine and founder of StopHazing. Along with Meredith Stewart, Operations Manager for StopHazing. Thank you both for being here. It’s great to have you on the podcast.

Meredith Stewart: Thanks for having us.

Elizabeth Allen: Yeah, thank you. Great to be here.

Ed Butch: Great. Thank you. So I guess just to kick it off, for our listeners who may have heard the name but not the details, can you start by really explaining what the Stop Campus Hazing Act is, and why this represents a shift for higher ed?

Elizabeth Allen: Absolutely. So the Stop Campus Hazing Act is the first federal legislation related to hazing and its prevention on campus, and really the focus is on consumer protection. It was a consumer protection bill, an amendment to the Clery Act, related to campus safety. And it’s a game changer because previous to this, we have had state laws both criminal and civil, but largely criminal, that deal with hazing after the fact and accountability. And certainly those are important, but there hasn’t been any consistency really from state-to-state. And so having a federal law really unifies expectations nationally, around the requirements and the mandates to not only be transparent about incidents of hazing and reports of hazing, but also to have a commitment to prevention.

Ed Butch: Definitely. And I’m curious, you mentioned obviously there were some on the state level there. Do you know, did all states have some sort of laws? Or was this just varied state-by-state?

Elizabeth Allen: It really varied state-by-state. We have 44 states now with laws, so not all states have them, but the vast majority do. And it really ranges. For example, in the criminal statutes, we have hazing sometimes as a misdemeanor. In some states more recently it’s a felony, and the penalties are wide-ranging, and who it applies to is also wide-ranging. So having the federal law really is going to help in terms of having some consistency and continuity.

Ed Butch: Yeah, for sure. That’s great. Thank you for that background and everything. So I guess what are some of the core requirements of the act that every institution really needs to understand?

Elizabeth Allen: Sure. So the first requirement, and as I mentioned earlier, as the Stop Campus Hazing Act is an amendment to the Existing Clery Act, is in keeping with that, that all institutions, all post-secondary institutions are now required to include reports of hazing in their Annual Security Reports, or their ASRs. So that’s the first policy requirements in the Stop Campus Hazing Act. The second is, as I mentioned earlier, a requirement related to education and prevention. So that’s a really important one, especially from our perspective as a prevention organization on Stop Hazing and the Hazing Prevention Research Lab. And importantly, and we can expand on this in a bit, but it relates to not just students but everyone, faculty and staff as well.

We really wanted the legislation to be comprehensive in nature, and understanding that this is a campus community issue and not just an issue related to some groups, some particular types of student organizations. Because we know from the research that hazing really happens in many different types of clubs, organizations, and teams, and that many different folks witness it and/or know about it, and often don’t know what to do in terms of reporting it or preventing it.

So having that education and prevention piece is key. And then thirdly, the transparency aspect of the transparency report requirement in the bill really focuses on ensuring that the incidents of hazing, those that are findings of violation of hazing, are reported publicly on campus website. So the general public, everyone can have access to that information, and know what’s going on, and maybe see patterns and be informed consumers before they join organizations. But Meredith, maybe is there anything you’d want to add to elaborate on the requirements so far?

Meredith Stewart: No, I think you did a great summary there, and how institutions are interpreting and implementing these components varies. But in the spirit of the law and transparency and consumer protection, really emphasizing the transparency and reporting through those statistics of the Annual Security Reports, the transparency reports, and then education, which again, is just going to look so different on every campus.

Ed Butch: Yeah, definitely. So you’ve mentioned a few times the Clery Act, and this is basically an amendment to that. So something the universities, the Clery Act in general, universities have been used to for many years now. But I guess how does this really fit under the Clery Act? When it comes to the reporting, which I know that we’ll get to a little bit more here in a bit, but is that in the same report that universities have already been used to? Or does that look a little bit different?

Elizabeth Allen: Yeah, that’s such a great question, and that’s something that we were really emphasizing when we were helping to educate legislators about the bill. Because, of course, it is a legitimate concern of how much of a burden this would be to post-secondary institutions, and already administrators and staff who are stretched very thin. And I think that was really a selling point, was that there already is this infrastructure built for complying with the Clery Act. And so adding a line in the report for incidents of hazing, and tracking those statistics within that structure seemed like it was really the least burdensome approach that could be taken, and also the most effective. Because many people on college campuses know about the Annual Security Reports. And so there’s a familiarity there, and we’re not designing a whole novel system. So that would be my initial response to how it fits.

Ed Butch: Great. And as you’ve talked to colleagues at the University of Maine or other institutions that you work with, I guess what are you seeing as some of the things that they are commonly missing or misunderstanding about how this act is going to affect them right now?

Meredith Stewart: That’s a good question. And of course, when the law first passed at the end of 2024, there was a bit of a fury to get everything in place from institutions, and they needed to act fast and see what all these new requirements were about. And so since then we’ve had a year and a half to get things more operationalized, and have more clarity and refinement with what their compliance approach is, and their overall hazing prevention strategy. Some more than others, maybe some were starting at square one in terms of hazing prevention on campus, or thinking about hazing prevention on campus. Whereas other institutions already had a lot of things in place, and they had campus professionals across campus working on hazing prevention, and their campus safety folks were already looped in, and their Clery folks were already very well aware.

So definitely a spectrum. And now that we’ve had some more time pass since the initial, since President Biden signed it into at the end of 2024. With that, I think a few things here. Education wise, fulfilling that education component of the law, everybody’s approaching that a little bit differently. For example, some institutions are requiring all students and faculty and staff to receive some type of education and show that. For example, Princeton has had 100% of their undergraduate student body complete an online course this year.

Ed Butch: Wow, that’s fantastic.

Meredith Stewart: Yeah, it was really quite novel, and they put holds on students’ accounts if they didn’t complete it. So everybody was required to do this. We saw something similar at the University of San Diego, putting holds on accounts to ensure folks are doing these various requirements. And then while other institutions aren’t necessarily requiring education to be completed, they’re making it available to everybody. And so there will be a little bit of a variance there in terms of how institutions roll out education or are tracking it, but we know that it’s happening.

And then in terms of reporting, in the spirit of the law, we’ve advocated and coached institutions to provide as much transparency as possible. And so instead of, for example, if an institution didn’t have any violations of their hazing policy this past year, instead of just not posting anything, and say for a campus hazing transparency report to say that. Say we haven’t had any findings of violation. Instead of if you put yourself in the consumer’s shoes, or a parent of a potential new student, for example, being able to at least see something that says, “Oh, we have no findings of violation.” That’s a lot more information than just finding nothing about hazing on campus. So we’ve really coached campuses and leaders to go that route, and to commit to that level of transparency just so that people aren’t left wondering, or guessing what is the status of hazing on campus.

Ed Butch: Yeah, that’s a great point. I really, really like the way that you are approaching that and coaching the campuses to do so. But I want to keep on this transparency report, because obviously this is one of the most visible parts of the law itself. And something that I know we saw an increase in interest in our course on the Clery Act and previous webinars on the Clery Act recently, because I think a lot of leaders have questions about this Act. Again, one of the reasons that I really wanted to bring you both on and have this episode. So I guess really how should the institutions be thinking about this public reporting without defaulting to fear or risk avoidance? And I guess again, going back to the reporting that they’re already doing, is there I guess a large difference for them?

Meredith Stewart: You put yourself in the shoes of an administrator on campus, and thinking about that risk or the fear, risk of avoidance, like you said, my recommendation is to think about what does a parent need to know? What does a student need to know? And why are we all working at institutions working with students? Go back to your mission, go back to your values, and think about why our students are here on campus getting educated, and finding a place to belong and be a part of a community. And the spirit of the law is aligned with that, in that we want people to have the information that they need in order to make informed decisions. As a consumer protection law, this is a basic responsibility to disclose this.

So if you ground yourself in that, then it’s a commitment to it, and a commitment to providing accurate information. And at the same time, if that means that you need to disclose that you have incidents of hazing on campus, you have to tell people that. They deserve that information. And same if you don’t have incidents of hazing to disclose, tell people that. And it’s an opportunity to commit to student wellbeing, and belonging, and creating safer campuses in a culture where students can learn and thrive. And hazing shouldn’t be a part of that recipe.

So committing to this transparency, to carrying out the law to its fullest extent, and to prevention, hazing prevention. And that’s what we’re all here to be doing, and providing these spaces for students to learn and grow.

Elizabeth Allen: Yeah. And I would just add too, that we always, when we’re talking with campus professionals and administrators, the federal legislation is really the floor, not the ceiling. This is a piece of shifting the culture. And we know from the research that hazing happens across the US. It happens in many different types of clubs and organizations. So even if it’s a campus that doesn’t have a large fraternity and sorority system, that doesn’t mean they’re immune to hazing. And so I think that keeping that in mind, the research findings in mind is important, because when you’re talking about risk avoidance, often the fear is, “Oh, it’ll be bad publicity if anyone sees that we’ve had a violation of hazing.”

But the reality is all campuses are, based on what we’ve seen from the research, very few campuses are immune, if any, to hazing incidents. And so starting from there and just like, “Okay, we recognize this is a problem nationally and here’s what we are doing about it.” And being, like Meredith said, just being transparent and proactive. And also knowing that when you do that, it’s part of the process of culture shifting, that there will be more awareness and more education, which is what we want, and that may lead to more reports, which is also what we want.

I think really just to bring it full circle back to what Meredith started with, it’s values alignment and really keeping in mind that commitment to what we’re about, and our commitment to student wellbeing and building positive and healthy campus communities.

Ed Butch: So I’m interested because obviously with Stop Hazing and the research lab, you all are really at the forefront of the research in some of these prevention efforts. And obviously there’s, I like how you mentioned it’s the floor, not the ceiling. So obviously when they look at that, a lot of universities could do just that one-time training and be like, “Check, we got that done.” And technically, yes, they do. But I guess in your eyes, what are some of the things that universities could be doing that go beyond that one-time training?

Elizabeth Allen: Yes. I’m so glad you asked about that. This is a topic that we’ve been an area of focus for us for a number of years. And really it’s just we’ve learned so much from the field of public health and community health, and adapting what we know from evidence-based in those areas of violence prevention. Because we think hazing is a form of interpersonal violence. And so using that public health-based approach and framework, we know that what’s going to work is a comprehensive approach, a community-based approach, and not a one and done check the box. We’ll have a speaker or we’ll have a program, but something that has regular dosage throughout the year, ideally it’s scaffolded. So it’s well planned, and also should be really grounded in some kind of data.

So we advocate for collecting data to assess, and prioritize and come up with a strategic plan. And also using a coalition-based approach is a very strong evidence base for the effectiveness of that. So we also advocate for that, because it’s really important to get all the stakeholders involved if you’re going to have a sustainable, and effective, and impactful approach to hazing prevention. So what we mean by that is often you find, and has been traditionally on a given college campus that there is maybe one person who has responsibility for hazing prevention. And now we’re seeing a shift. We’re definitely seeing in the past five years or so, more people understanding that this is connected to their work with students.

So that coalition-based approach could include people from student affairs, like people doing campus activities, folks working with student organizations and leadership development, folks working with fraternities and sororities, student conduct, Title IX, but also we need folks from athletics. We need also potentially academic advisors.

Academic advisors are hearing about hazing because hazing impacts how students are doing academically. And so they can be great advocates as well as faculty, campus safety personnel. I’m probably blanking and missing some key folks. Meredith, jump in here if I am. But I think so just to summarize, a comprehensive, coalition-based approach, a public health lens. So understanding this is about culture shifting, it’s about skill building. So it’s not just awareness of hazing, but then we have to help people understand, okay, what is their role in being change agents, and how can they be prepared to intervene as a bystander and/or act in a proactive way to prevent hazing?

So all those things take time, and they take planning, and then we would also advocate for folks to of course evaluate what they’re doing so that they know what’s working, and they can iterate and improve semester-to-semester, year-to-year.

Ed Butch: So the first deadline, the first reporting deadline is later this year in 2026. And so you obviously mentioned a lot of things there in terms of looking at the data, and forming that coalition and some strategic planning and looking for an evaluation later. So I guess for those that maybe for leaders that are listening out there, what should they be doing right now as they’re preparing for that deadline?

Meredith Stewart: Building on everything Elizabeth shared, building capacity for hazing prevention, for those reporting updates, for your overall infrastructure for hazing prevention, being able to answer, what are we doing? Who is doing it? Who needs to sign off? Who’s going to be implementing it? Where? What does this look like? When and why? So applying all of those questions to everything that you’re doing, whether it’s planning for counting your hazing statistics in your Clery report, knowing who’s doing that and when and who needs to sign off and so on to, who is compiling the transparency report? As those are two different things. And do you need folks who are going to be able to help you with website updates? What about your conduct team or investigations team, who’s going to help inform everything that’s in that report?

For education, that is going to include many other folks on campus ensuring that it gets implemented. But before that, who’s at the table to make some of those decisions? Who’s helping provide insight on what’s going to land with the students and the learners who are getting this education. And who’s helping evaluate what you did last year to improve on it this year? So there’s all kinds of things that need to happen behind the scenes, and continue to be iterated on every year. So just because everybody raced and got all of their ducks in order for these first few deadlines, it’s not going anywhere, and we’re going to have to do this every single year.

So building an infrastructure that’s sustainable, and that you can always come back to, and build on and iterate, and bring folks into the fold. We know turnover is often a barrier for institutions regardless of what we’re doing on campus. Turnover is something that happens in higher education.

So making sure that folks are getting onboarded to this work, they know where things stand, they know where you’re going, and so that it really can be a fully actualized coalition, or committee, or task force, whatever the institution wants to call this group of people that are working on this. But really building that foundation and the capacity to keep it going in a sustainable way over time that’s effective.

Ed Butch: Yeah. So it’s really about all the logistics right now and getting all that planned out. And Dr. Allan, I really enjoyed in your last answer as well, as a former academic advisor earlier in my career, that you mentioned academic advisors. Because it is that level of staff that are having those day-to-day interactions with students that really hear a lot about what is happening on campus. And so I think to me, I would say make sure that you have, even if it’s not an entry level advisor, but someone in that advising ecosystem that is going to be a part of this task force as well, to make sure that that entire area is getting a lot of this information. I think that’s really important.

Elizabeth Allen: That’s great to hear.

Ed Butch: So as we wrap up here, I like to always end on looking into the future a little bit. So as we look ahead, our first reporting deadline coming up as it’s being implemented, how do you think that the Stop Campus Hazing Act is going to change campus culture over the next few years?

Meredith Stewart: I think initially it’s going to really increase the visibility of the issue, of the issue of hazing and also hazing prevention on campus. And that it is a campus-wide issue that requires buy-in across divisions, and that is going to take some time to build that capacity and that commitment to get there. But as you do this, it should be less scary or taboo to talk about hazing, and that normalizing prevention really is everybody’s responsibility and everybody does have a role to play. So I think it’s a great starting point in where we’re headed.

Ed Butch: And I guess really just to end, again, since you all are at the forefront of the hazing research and anti-hazing research, I guess what gives you hope that the institutions are going to start taking this more seriously, other than they have to? But as you’ve worked with others, I guess what gives you that hope as we’re moving forward?

Elizabeth Allen: Yeah, I definitely feel hopeful having been in this work for more than two decades now, it’s amazing to see how far we’ve come. And even though we still have a long ways to go, I feel optimistic because I see the distance traveled, and I know that it’s only accelerating. And getting the law passed, bipartisan support for it, really is indicative of an increasing level of awareness of the harm and potential harm from hazing and the need for these mandates. And even though we know that one policy or one law is not going to solve the problem in itself, but it is an important piece. And as I said earlier, I really feel it’s a game changer in terms of helping us support the shifting of the culture, because you really need that commitment. And this is evidence of a serious commitment to hazing prevention in higher education.

So it’s really encouraging, and we’re excited to see where things go from here.

Ed Butch: Thank you both so much. Like I said, we’ve been hearing a lot at CITI Program about this as we’re getting closer. So I really appreciate you both taking time today to talk with me a little bit about the Act. And if you would both be up for it, I would love to have you back on after we get through this first reporting deadline, and hear your thoughts on what happened as well.

Elizabeth Allen: Sure thing. Thanks so much for inviting us.

Meredith Stewart: Yeah, thank you very much. We’re looking forward to continuing the conversation.

Ed Butch: I invite all of our listeners to visit citiprogram.org to learn more about our courses and webinars on research, ethics, compliance, and higher education. I look forward to bringing you more expert guests to discuss what’s happening on campus.