A Virginia University Will Pay Hazing Victim’s Family Nearly $1 Million

Virginia Commonwealth College has agreed to pay $995,000 to the household of Adam Oakes, a scholar who died final 12 months from alcohol poisoning at a fraternity get together and whose demise drew renewed scrutiny of hazing in Greek organizations throughout the nation.

The college stated in an announcement on Friday that, along with the fee, it had agreed to make adjustments to its fraternities and sororities, together with requiring that the alcohol served at their occasions be supplied by a licensed third-party vendor; providing extra hazing prevention coaching; and dedicating Feb. 27 — the day Mr. Oakes, a 19-year-old freshman, was discovered useless in 2021 — as a day of remembrance for Mr. Oakes, and for hazing prevention.

Eric Oakes, his father, stated on Monday that “no sum of money goes to convey Adam again.”

“As a lot as we pray to get up from the nightmare, it simply isn’t going to occur,” he stated. “The sunshine in all that is that Virginia Commonwealth College is now making adjustments to stop what occurred to Adam from taking place to anybody else sooner or later.”

Mr. Oakes’s father stated that the household had not filed a lawsuit in opposition to the college. Virginia Commonwealth College stated in its assertion that it will quickly start the method of making a memorial to Mr. Oakes on campus.

Fraternity organizations have been underneath intense scrutiny in recent times, after a lot of high-profile circumstances which have drawn the ire of anti-hazing activists and victims’ family members who say that the tradition of Greek life is harmful and shrouded in secrecy.

Based on Mr. Oakes’s household, the younger man’s demise occurred at an off-campus get together on the Delta Chi fraternity home, the place he was given a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey and informed to drink it.

V.C.U. completely expelled Delta Chi from campus final 12 months, after the college employed a consulting agency to review its Greek tradition. The agency, Dyad Methods, stated in a report that whereas the college’s Greek organizations weren’t an outlier in contrast with these at different schools, V.C.U. nonetheless struggled to deal with considerations about binge consuming and hazing.

In September final 12 months, 11 folks have been arrested in reference to Mr. Oakes’s demise. His father stated that six of them have been both discovered responsible or had pleaded responsible, and that expenses had been dropped in opposition to the 5 others.

As a part of their plea agreements, the six who have been convicted will journey to universities throughout the nation to speak about how their actions that evening have affected their lives and people of others, Eric Oakes stated, and they’ll accomplish that whereas sharing the stage with him. He’ll focus on how his life has been ruined by what the boys did or didn’t do this evening, he stated.

“Who higher to speak to college students than the folks their age that, you already know, hazed Adam that evening,” he stated.

He added that the household didn’t need the six males to serve jail time.

“We need to be sure that this by no means occurs once more to a different scholar, household,” he stated. “After which not simply at V.C.U., however in the complete state and, clearly, the nation.”