Hazing
ORC 2903.31 — the offence after Collin's Law, and ORC 2903.311 — the duty to report it
Ohio rewrote its hazing section in 2021 and named it after a student who died. The rewrite did three things: it widened what counts as hazing, it raised the penalty where alcohol or drugs or serious harm are involved, and it created a separate offence of failing to report.
What hazing is. Hazing means doing any act or coercing another, including the victim, to do any act of initiation into any student or other organisation, or any act to continue or reinstate membership in or affiliation with any student or other organisation, that causes or creates a substantial risk of causing mental or physical harm to any person, including coercing another to consume alcohol or a drug of abuse.
A misdemeanour of the second degree, and a felony where the alcohol or the harm is there. Hazing is a misdemeanour of the second degree. Where the hazing includes coerced consumption of alcohol or a drug of abuse, or where it causes serious physical harm, it is a felony of the third degree.
Consent is not the answer people expect it to be. The definition reaches an act of initiation that creates a substantial risk of harm, and it names coercing somebody to drink as one of those acts, so a person who agreed to take part is still a person the section protects.
The duty to report, and who it falls on. No administrator, employee, faculty member, teacher, consultant, alumnus or volunteer of any organisation, including any primary, secondary or post secondary school or other public or private educational institution, who is acting in an official and professional capacity, recklessly fails to immediately report knowledge of hazing to a law enforcement agency in the county in which the victim of the hazing resides or in which the hazing is occurring or has occurred.
Failing to report is a misdemeanour of the fourth degree, or of the first where the harm is serious. A violation of the reporting section is a misdemeanour of the fourth degree, except that it is a misdemeanour of the first degree where the hazing causes serious physical harm.
| The conduct | The degree |
|---|---|
| The conductHazing | The degreeMisdemeanour of the second degree |
| The conductHazing with coerced alcohol or a drug of abuse, or causing serious physical harm | The degreeFelony of the third degree |
| The conductRecklessly failing to immediately report knowledge of hazing | The degreeMisdemeanour of the fourth degree |
| The conductThe same failure where the hazing causes serious physical harm | The degreeMisdemeanour of the first degree |
The civil liability the same conduct can carry, the separate duties Ohio placed on colleges and universities to publish hazing reports and train students, the discipline an institution imposes under its own code, and the other offences a particular incident might also be are not on this page. Whether particular conduct met the definition, and whether a failure to report was reckless, are questions of fact for a court and for a licensed Ohio attorney.
Sources for this section (2)
- ORC 2903.31 — Hazing
- ORC 2903.311 — Reckless failure to immediately report knowledge of hazing
Legal information, not legal advice. Verified as of September 2026. Talk to a licensed Ohio attorney about your situation.