The family of Adam Oakes will host a statewide hazing prevention summit at Virginia Commonwealth University next month, a first-of-its-kind event that brings together educators and anti-hazing foundations aimed at stopping the dangerous behavior.
The event will be June 4 at the VCU Student Commons. About 30 groups have signed up so far, including 19 colleges, one K-12 school district, fraternity representatives and foundations, said Courtney White, Oakes’ cousin.
Seldom do colleges meet in person to collaborate on prevention strategies, White said.
“When it comes to prevention efforts and strategies, we are stronger together,” she added.
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Adam Oakes was a 19-year-old freshman who died in 2021 of alcohol intoxication at a Delta Chi “big-little” initiation party.
Instances of hazing continue at VCU. One student group, Delta Epsilon Mu, was suspended this semester for what the university called psychological hazing. Eight student groups have been suspended for misconduct since 2021.
After Oakes died, White, a doctoral student in education at the time, devoted her dissertation to hazing. She got the idea for a summit after attending a similar event in Ohio.
Virginia’s meeting will feature a number of topics, including restorative justice — a program Richmond prosecutors used after 11 members of the Delta Chi fraternity were charged in Oakes’ death. When restorative justice is used, offenders and victims meet for an off-the-record discussion about the crime and how it transpired.
Other subjects include bystander intervention and how alcohol and student conduct factored into Oakes’ death. Delta Chi broke university rules for years, and the university struggled to discipline the group, a Richmond Times-Dispatch investigation showed. Before Oakes died, the university issued the fraternity a four-year suspension, but Delta Chi hired a lawyer to dispute the school’s claims. Ultimately, VCU reduced the suspension to one year.
White worked with a VCU assistant dean of students, Rachael Tully, for a year to make sure the topics discussed meet participants’ needs.
Participants include VCU, the University of Richmond, Randolph-Macon College and Hampden-Sydney College. A Lexington-based fraternity, Kappa Alpha, will also attend. Gov. Glenn Youngkin will speak via recorded video, and VCU President Michael Rao and state Sen. Jennifer Boysko, D-Fairfax, will offer comments.
Oakes’ family created a hazing prevention foundation called Love Like Adam and has visited colleges across the mid-Atlantic giving seminars to students. Other similar foundations will come, including the Gordie Center at the University of Virginia and the Iamstonefoltz Foundation, named for Stone Foltz, who died days after Oakes in 2021 in a hazing incident at Bowling Green State University.
Loudoun County Public Schools, which Oakes attended, will also participate in the summit. A new law signed this year requires ninth- or 10th-grade students to learn about hazing prevention in their health and physical education classes.
It will be the first time public, private and K-12 schools have come together to discuss hazing in Virginia. Other colleges have not responded, White said, despite numerous invitations.
When members of Oakes’ family give a presentation to colleges, they provide an unvarnished description of Adam’s death. The presentation includes police body-camera video of the death investigation and text messages sent by the student leaders of Delta Chi.
The family wanted a seminar that is real and feels personal, White said. Participants watch a documentary video that features interviews with the fraternity’s president and Oakes’ big brother.
“I don’t sugarcoat this,” White said. “It’s raw; it’s as real as possible. It’s exactly what happened.”
When the family members present to high school students, they explain the basics — what Greek organizations are and how the rushing and pledging processes work. When students seek to join a fraternity or sorority, they meet with several student groups, a process known as rushing. Once they become new members of a group, they are known as pledges.
The Oakes family encourages prospective students to do research about organizations and to find out their history. Virginia law now requires universities to publish instances of misconduct committed by student groups, a law inspired by Adam’s death.
When family members meet with college students, they work on preventing hazing. They suggest ways for fraternities and sororities to change dangerous traditions, such as “big brother night,” when new members meet their big brothers in the fraternity, a time when hazing is more likely to occur. They tell students it’s OK to kick out members who refuse to adopt a safe culture.
If a student is going to drink alcohol, the Oakes family recommends doing it somewhere public or somewhere safe — not behind the closed doors of a fraternity house, where secrecy is often encouraged.
Fraternity members are sometimes scared to call 911 because they do not want to be implicated for giving alcohol to a minor. The Oakes family recommends having a friend nearby throughout the night.