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Harvard’s hazing policy needs some clearing up.

Just look at the situation Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra faces this fall. Following an investigation into alleged hazing — if it can even be called that, based on what we know — the College barred HRO’s student board from meeting, prohibited social events, and scrubbed the HRO name from programming. Harvard points to its revamped policies under the Stop Campus Hazing Act, passed last December, requiring formalized procedures, public reporting, and the naming of organizations in violation of policies.

Hazing that hurts people — or worse — should be illegal. Full stop. But something has gone wrong when a club initiation culminating in sharing hopes and fears while receiving advice from upperclassmen ends in a suspension whose main consequence is shutting down community service and socializing among Harvard’s top classical musicians.

Certainly, complying with federal law is non-negotiable. But over-complying — so broadly that innocuous traditions are treated like genuine abuse — is a choice.

The problem begins with the law’s vagueness. It targets conduct that creates any additional risk of physical or psychological injury beyond ordinary student life — an ambit broad enough to sweep in benign traditions. After all, what feels fraught to one student may feel affirming to another.

Most Harvard clubs and their arcane rituals are, frankly, less stressful than our most brutal final exams. When the definitional net is this wide, anything can become hazing if an administrator squints hard enough.

That breadth invites risk-averse enforcement. Harvard is under intense national scrutiny, so we understand the administration playing it safe. But in this case, caution has come at the expense of common sense.

The orchestra’s alleged rite appears to have been a group-building exercise — no over-the-top alcohol gauntlets, no sleep-deprivation marathons, no jumping into rivers. Done well, traditions like the HRO’s allow clubs to establish identity and belonging — especially in institutions as old and atomizing as Harvard.

The University’s blanket response treats the incident as if it were one of the genuine horror stories that spurred legislation in the first place. It wasn’t.

Indeed, the tragedies that motivated the law at other campuses bear no resemblance to the ordinary practices common here. Harvard’s sweeping crackdown on HRO collapses the meaningful distinctions between risk and ritual. When everything is hazing, nothing is.

Worse, this move fits a larger pattern in Harvard’s approach to student recreation. We’ve watched the University drift toward a nanny-state posture: strangling River Run, tightening tailgate rules, and generally treating fun as a liability to manage rather than a virtue to nurture.

The HRO suspension comes as just the latest act in this zero-tolerance theater.

Surely, Harvard can meet the letter of federal law without completely criminalizing culture. Students deserve policies that treat them as adults capable of consent and community, not problems to be managed.

Safety matters. So does sanity. Let’s restore both.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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