DIANE SAWYER Since last week’s rampage in Colorado, there has been so much talk about teenagers and how important a sense of belonging to a group can be. It is important at high school. It remains important through college. And tonight, we’re going to show you what some college girls are asked to endure as a prerequisite for joining a group. When you think of college sororities, hazing is not a word that immediately comes to mind. But as Elizabeth Vargas tells us, there can be a darker side to sisterhood.
DEMARA KARAMESINES They took us into one of the bedrooms, and the candles were lit. The lights were turned off.
JESSICA ZIMMERMAN Some of the people had masks and wigs on. We had to bow down to them, kiss a skull’s head. They immediately started screaming at us.
DEMARA KARAMESINES They held us. And I just was screaming. You could feel the flesh on your skin just burning.
ELIZABETH VARGAS, ABCNEWS (VO) Damara Karamesines and Jessica Zimmerman still bear the physical and emotional scars from that night almost two years ago. In a bizarre hazing ritual, they were branded by their sorority sisters.
DEMARA KARAMESINES That night, they took it from me—my bubbliness, my personality, my trust. They took everything from me that night.
SORORITY SISTERS (singing) (inaudible) you make me feel so good ...
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) Most sorority pledging experiences are positive, like these at the University of Iowa with their pledge songs and skits.
SORORITY SISTERS (singing) I wouldn’t change you if I could ... A—I—O (ph) is the only way to go.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) Young women putting their best foot forward during rush in an effort to attract new members.
SORORITY SISTERS (singing) Ooh—ohh, this is the perfect night. Ooh—ohh, and everything’s just right.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) Inviting potential pledges into their sorority house, enticing them with socials, formal dinners and promises of long—lasting friendships.
SORORITY SISTERS (singing) Ooh—ohh, and I will give my heart to you.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) The experience of Jessica and Damara started out the same way at Indiana’s Depauw University. Both were away from home for the first time and thought Kappa Kappa Gamma, with its pledge “moms” and “sorority sisters” could provide them with a sort of a family away from home. (on camera) Tell me why you decided to pledge a sorority, to join a sorority.
DEMARA KARAMESINES These will be your friends for life. These are—this will be your family for the next four years. These are the people you will trust.
JESSICA ZIMMERMAN It was a sisterhood and—and bonding with women and social functions and secrets and laughing.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) Kappa Kappa Gamma actively courted the freshmen to become members.
DAMARA KARAMESINES They introduced you to everybody, pretty much, you know, “This is Damara,” you know, “She’s one of our new pledges,” you know. And you just felt—you felt great.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (on camera) Like you belonged?
DAMARA KARAMESINES Yeah, we were there. We made it.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) But she hadn’t made it yet. Damara says she and 29 other girls had been selected to be members of Kappa, but they would have to go through initiation first. And Damara had heard rumors about hazing.
DAMARA KARAMESINES I asked them flat out about the rumors, and they’re like, “No, nothing like that will ever happen. We will never do anything like that.”
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) The initiation ended with a formal dinner at Kappa’s sorority house. Damara expected a night similar to many of their other pledge nights, one of songs and candlelight ceremonies. But Damara and Jessica say their pledge moms had something else in mind.
JESSICA ZIMMERMAN I felt intimidated. She was making it clear through her tone of voice and the looks that she gave me that I had to drink this.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) Damara and Jessica say their pledge moms took them to fraternity parties and pressured them to drink wine, beer and shots of liquor. Remember, Damara was only 17 years old. Jessica was 18. (on camera) Do you normally drink?
DAMARA KARAMESINES Uh—uh. I’m not saying that I hadn’t before, but I’m not a heavy drinker at all. And my tolerance is very, very low.
ELIZABETH VARGAS So how were you feeling?
DAMARA KARAMESINES I was very intoxicated.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) After several hours at the party, Damara and Jessica say they and two other pledges were brought to a dorm room, where they were surrounded by 15 Kappa sorority sisters. They lit a cigarette and told the five pledges they were about to be branded. The older sisters doing it to them said they had all been branded themselves—a tradition, they say, that had been going on for the past four years.
JESSICA ZIMMERMAN She came over on the couch I was sitting at and pulled the side of my jeans down enough to my hip and held the cigarette to my hip.
DEMARA KARAMESINES And they counted, “one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi,” up until six or when I—was just screaming in pain so much that they took it off.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (on camera) That must have felt like eternity.
JESSICA ZIMMERMAN It was probably the longest five seconds in my life.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) The branding left both young women with severe burns and scars even now, almost two years later. (on camera) You have an academic scholarship. You’re a very smart young lady. Why would you stay in that room? Why didn’t you get up and leave?
JESSICA ZIMMERMAN When you leave home for the first time and you’re naive and you’re 18 and you think you know and you don’t, when you’re put in a room like that with people that you trust and you look up to and you follow—and to be put in a situation like that, you don’t know what you’re going to do.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) But what happened to Damara and Jessica is not an isolated incident. Stephanie White (ph), Adrian Oldham (ph) and Nicolette Cargle (ph)say they were hazed. But they not only sustained physical abuse, but emotional abuse as well.
ADRIAN OLDHAM Everything—everything was a mind game. Everything. At no point was I in control of anything that was going on with me.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) It began in the spring of 1995. Nicolette, Adrian and Stephanie were drawn to Delta Sigma Theta at the University of Louisville—Kentucky because they wanted to make friends and contacts. But in order to get membership, the girls say, the sorority sisters would make sure the pledges paid a price.
ADRIAN OLDHAM I was pushed, shoved. I’ve been hit in my chest with a fist.
NICOLETTE CARGLE I was paddled. I have had water thrown in my face. I have been slapped.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) They say all 13 pledges were required to live in one room in this dorm. They were deprived of sleep, humiliated and referred to by number instead of name.
KERRI KEATING, SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGIST You know, the whole process of hazing is one where the individual’s identity is stripped away.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) Kerri Keating is a social psychologist at Colgate University. She has done extensive research on the effects of hazing.
KERRI KEATING Once you have a strong group identity, it is very hard to deny the group anything.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (on camera) Even going so far as to allow yourself to be branded or to be paddled?
KERRI KEATING Yes.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) But it wasn’t the physical side of hazing that hurt the most, these three say. It was when their upperclassmen, in the name of bonding and sisterhood, preyed on their emotions.
ADRIAN OLDHAM Physical hazing can be dealt with. It’s the mental things I can’t deal with, and women tend to be more vindictive.
STEPHANIE WHITE Yeah.
ADRIAN OLDHAM And women tend to know just the right thing to say to hit—hit that soft spot in your heart.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) Adrian, Stephanie and Nicolette say their older sorority sisters targeted the 13 younger women’s weaknesses—degrading them, calling them fat and ugly, all the time threatening to deny them membership in the sorority. (on camera) Men are usually more physical. The aggression is physical, whereas with women, it’s psychological. Is either one of them more damaging? Is either one of them just nastier?
KERRI KEATING Social rejection is particularly, particularly harsh for women.
ELIZABETH VARGAS And that’s what the hazing threatens to do?
KERRI KEATING And hazing often involves social rejection or the threat of social rejection.
ADRIAN OLDHAM They demeaned my character. They tried to make me less of a woman than I am. And that hurt.
SARAH DRONEK (PH) Girls can be as mean as guys. I think it would be more emotional. Let’s take your low point, and then make you scream it to the entire neighborhood that you’re a wimp.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) Sarah Dronek wanted to belong so much, she was willing to put herself in a life—threatening situation. In the spring of 1993, she joined Lambda Delta Sigma at Concordia College in Minnesota, hoping to make new friends. To become a member, she says she had to participate in an outdoor scavenger hunt. Girls were divided into groups of three and were put into cars.
SARAH DRONEK We were told to go into—in the back seat of the car, put our heads down. You cannot look out. You cannot talk.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) One of Sarah’s sorority sisters drove her and two other pledges across the river into Fargo, North Dakota. There, the three were dropped in a wooded area and told to find their way back. Sarah says she spent most of the night outside in sub—zero temperatures, often wading in knee—deep snow.
SARAH DRONEK I was crying by now and telling them that my feet were cold, and they hurt and my legs hurt, and I had pulled muscles, and I don’t think they can do it anymore.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) Sarah’s foot was frost—bitten. It turned blue and swelled so much she couldn’t put on her shoe. Sarah’s fellow pledges were worried. And once they found their way back to campus, they notified Lambda Delta Sigma. Sarah says some of the sorority sisters insisted she continue the initiation and humiliated her by making her get up in front of the entire group of more than 40 young women.
SARAH DRONEK They told me to stand up in front of everybody and shout that I am a wimp, hear me cry “moo,” because I guess—because my foot turned blue, and I was in pain. And I was a wimp. And so, I needed to scream this loud, so everybody could hear that I couldn’t do it.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) Not wanting to disappoint her sorority sisters, Sarah struggled till morning to finish the initiation activities and was rewarded with membership in Lambda Delta Sigma. When she finally sought medical attention, doctors told her the situation was serious.
SARAH DRONEK And they told me that they wanted to schedule emergency amputation in the morning at 6:30 to cut off my toes.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) Sarah persuaded them not to amputate. Only after months of painful procedures were the doctors sure her foot could be saved. But Sarah says that despite the physical pain she endured, it was the humiliation that hurt the most.
SARAH DRONEK The memories of that, you want to forget them, but you can’t. I think that the scars you can’t see are the ones that take longer to heal.
ELIZABETH VARGAS (on camera) All the universities and sororities we spoke with said they do not permit or condone hazing, and in every situation, the sorority was sanctioned. They say new pledges are required to go through hazing education and sign documents like this one, saying they will not allow themselves to be hazed, and most honor that. (VO) Sarah Dronek, despite the physical and emotional pain she says she endured, went ahead and became a member of Lambda Delta Sigma. When Sarah suggested that the other girls stop hazing, she says they told her ...
SARAH DRONEK “Sarah, sit down and shut up. Stop. This is tradition. This is what we do.”
ELIZABETH VARGAS (VO) One month after the hazing occurred, Damara left Depauw University. Jessica also felt compelled to transfer schools and is still trying to come to terms with what happened that night. (on camera) What advice would you give to other young women who want to go through rush and pledge sororities?
JESSICA ZIMMERMAN To be extremely careful, extremely careful.
SAM DONALDSON Sarah Dronek, the girl who developed frostbite after spending hours in the snow, decided to sue Lambda Delta Sigma and Concordia College. Both organizations deny responsibility for what happened.
(This is an unedited, uncorrected transcript.)
