FAMU's Answer to Hazing: No One Can Join Any Club Until Next School Year

​Some of the most enriching experiences student have in college come outside of the classroom and in various campus clubs and activities, but students at Florida A&M University may be missing out on those opportunities. In a perhaps overzealous way of battling hazing at the school in the wake of band member Robert Champions' death, president James Ammons has decided no one can join any club whatsoever until next fall.

Ammons also announced that the marching band's traditional summer band camp has been cancelled. The band is still on suspension, and the hazing death of Champion has sparked a criminal investigation. A handful of band members have so far been arrested for separate hazing cases.

Some other hazing activities, not linked to the band, have also been uncovered. The school is now investigating a potential hazing incident in the spring of 2011 related to the Kappa Kappa Psi fraternity.

The ban goes beyond the band and Greek groups. Every single student club on campus will be affected, as in the school "temporarily suspend the induction, enrollment, initiation, membership intake and recruitment for all student clubs and organizations until fall 2012." Which seems a bit unfair to the schools numerous other student organizations, including say the Association of Black Psychologists Student Circle or the Gateways Book Club.

The student body president, though, seems to be in favor of the all-encompassing ban.

"This issue of hazing has had a far-reaching impact on the university and I believe that we need to pause for a moment to make sure that all of our students are ready to seriously move in a direction which will result in a complete culture change," president Breyon Love said in a statement released by the university.

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