A Cornell University student was beaten so badly across the buttocks during an alleged fraternity hazing that he needed skin grafts to repair the damage and blood transfusions to counter the infections, the student said in a lawsuit filed this week.
While pledging to become a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity two years ago, Sylvester Lloyd Jr., 23, of Florida, said he endured weeks of physical abuse --kicking, punching, slapping, choking, being thrown into a wall, and paddlings with a one and a half inch thick wooden board–before ending up in the hospital. Lloyd is seeking $5 million in damages from Cornell and $2 million from the fraternity and 12 fraternity brothers accused of the abuse.
A lawyer for Cornell said that the lawsuit against the University has no merit. “There’s no basis to it,” Nelson Roth Deputy University Counsel, said Wednesday. “Many, many members of the University provided assistance to pursue disciplinary and criminal charges, which he flatly and repeatedly refused.”
University officials didn’t deny the hazing occurred, however. Because of the Lloyd incident, the University in November revoked the Alpha Chapter’s status as a recognized fraternity and is trying to sell the chapter’s house at 409 Elmwood Avenue.
“There were some pretty serious allegations of hazing, some serious physical abuses. It was alarming what we learned,” said Randy Scott Stevens, Associate Dean of Students and Director of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs at Cornell. Stevens would not go into detail but added, “We concluded that there was enough evidence that we felt we needed to take some action.”
Officials from Alpha Phi Alpha in Baltimore could not be reached for comment. The national organization abolished pledging in 1990 because of too much hazing, but other chapters have been caught recently. In November, the national organization disbanded a chapter at Rutgers University after a student was charged with spanking seven pledges with a paddle, sending some of them to the hospital.
In court papers filed Monday with the Northern District of the U.S. District Court, Lloyd explains a torturous three-month initiation process that he said forced him to drop out of Cornell for 18 months and caused ulcers, loss of feeling in his hands and feet, clinical depression and thoughts of suicide.
Cornell’s Alpha chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha accepted Lloyd, a 21-year-old junior at the time, as a pledge in fall 1994. The Cornell chapter, founded in 1906, was the fraternity’s first and oldest.
“The students are the highest caliber. They were leaders on campus. It’s hard to fathom they would engage in this type of behavior,” Stevens said.
Lloyd alleges the abuse began during a “weed out” period, in which he was “repeatedly kicked, shoved, punched and stomped on by current or alumni brothers,” court papers said. He and another pledge were forced to stand outside the fraternity house at 409 Elmwood Avenue in freezing temperatures without clothes, court papers said. The other pledge dropped out because of a respiratory infection, leaving only Lloyd.
In early March, Lloyd said a group of alumni calling themselves the Jasiri Wrecking Crew drove him to Buffalo and New York City for beatings.** In New York City, frat brothers noticed an open bleeding wound on Lloyd’s right buttock, but continued the paddling, court papers said. Lloyd also said he discovered a lump on his penis and that his testicles had swollen because of the beatings.**
During the “hell” stage, frat brothers allegedly required Lloyd to entertain them with Michael Jackson imitations while they paddled him and threw food at him. And in the “ape” stage of initiation, Lloyd allegedly was blindfolded, put into a place in the house known as the “pit”, fed bananas, and told to communicate only in grunts. When he asked to relieve himself, he was given a container to urinate in, court papers said.
The beatings ended March 12. A few days later, Lloyd said he laid down on his bed with puss leaking from the wounds on his buttocks, lost track of time and became delirious. Fraternity brothers helped him into the shower on March 17, court papers said. The skin on his buttocks peeled off, allowing blood to gush from the wound, court papers said.
Lloyd was taken by ambulance to then-Tompkins Community Hospital. At the urging of fraternity brothers, Lloyd denied any hazing and told doctors, University officials and his family that the wounds were the result of a motorcycle accident. He also stopped disciplinary proceedings against the fraternity brothers.
“This was a fraternity with a distinguished membership. It was a dream of his to join,” said Betty Friedlander, explaining why her client chose to continue taking the beatings, then lied about how he got his wounds.
Alpha Phi Alpha is the oldest Black fraternity in the country and has had as members Martin Luther King, Jr. and former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. “It had Martin Luther King, Thurgood Marshall. They performed all these civic activities. He wanted to be a part of what he felt was an esteemed group.” Friedlander said the beatings had “very serious emotional consequences” for Lloyd and clouded his judgment.
Individual members of the fraternity could not be reached for comment. Only one of the fraternity brothers is still at Cornell, now as a graduate student, Stevens said.
It isn*t uncommon for victims of hazing to lie about what really happened, he said. “Hazing does some really sad things to a human being,” he said. “It can mess you up both physically and mentally. It puts you in a very compromising position.”
The Alpha chapter is the first to be suspended from Cornell for hazing since Theta Delta Chi in 1990. Theta Delta Chi returned in 1995 and has been without incident since, Stevens said.
Lloyd, who could not be reached for comment, returned to Cornell in January to finish his degree in human ecology.
