Two people have been arrested following a hazing investigation at Fort Valley State University, according to police records.
The school announced Thursday that police had finished the investigation of FVSU’s marching band, where the alleged incident occurred.
An officer interviewed a student on Sept. 24 regarding a hazing incident and then turned the investigation over to the Fort Valley Police Department, according to a university police report.
The investigation was concluded roughly a week later, when FVSU announced in a social media post Thursday that the city of Fort Valley Police Department “has found sufficient evidence to support charges of hazing.”
The victims were a 20-year-old man and 18-year-old woman, according to an incident report from Fort Valley police. Two women, ages 20 and 21, were arrested on a charge of “hazing students.” There was also a warrant for a 25-year-old woman, but she was not arrested, according to the document. The report does not describe the allegations.
The university did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.
Hazing has been a misdemeanor in Georgia since 2021, when the state Legislature passed the Max Gruver Act. Named after a Roswell teen who died from alcohol poisoning during a hazing incident at a Louisiana State University fraternity in 2017, it can result in a $5,000 fine and up to one year in jail.
FVSU said it was also “engaged in an independent administrative investigation.” It said that is in accordance with school policy, with the University System of Georgia policy, and with the Stop Campus Hazing Act. Signed by then-President Joe Biden late last year, the Stop Campus Hazing Act requires universities that participate in federal student aid programs to disclose hazing incidents, as well as develop and distribute a comprehensive prevention program.
“Until the process is complete, the band will remain under suspension and will not perform this weekend,” FVSU said.
This weekend marks homecoming for the historically Black university, just south of Macon. Its homecoming parade is scheduled for Saturday morning, with the football team slated to play Central State University, an Ohio historically Black university, that afternoon.
The Fort Valley State case is not the first instance of a college marching band investigated for hazing. Metro Atlanta native Robert Champion, a member of Florida A&M University’s famed “Marching 100” band, was killed in November 2011 during a hazing ritual. Several band members were criminally charged in the case, and the band’s longtime director abruptly retired in May 2012 after fighting for months to keep his job.
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