The Stop Campus Hazing Act, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2025, now requires higher education institutions to collect hazing statistics to include in their 2026 Annual Security Report, among other new reporting and education requirements. The act is the first federal anti-hazing legislation and represents a bipartisan effort to improve hazing reporting and prevention on campuses. The act amends the Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, and renames the Higher Education Act of 1965 officially as the Jeanne Clery Campus Safety Act.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2025, institutions will need to include in their Annual Security Report (often referred to as the Clery Report) hazing incident statistics, as well as information on their hazing policies and campus-wide hazing education and prevention programming. The act also requires that institutions publish a Campus Hazing Transparency Report to include information on hazing incidents.
The critical reporting deadlines are listed below:
- Jan. 1, 2025: Institutions must begin collecting hazing statistics to include in their 2026 Annual Security Report.
- June 23, 2025: Institutions must have the required hazing policies in place.
- July 1, 2025: Institutions must have in place a process for documenting violations of their hazing policies, for use in their Campus Hazing Transparency Report.
- Dec. 23, 2025: Institutions must make publicly available the Campus Hazing Transparency Report, which documents violations that occurred since June 2025.
- Oct. 1, 2026: Institutions must include 2025 hazing statistics in their Annual Security Report for the first time.
Each of these requirements is described in further detail below.
Defining Hazing
The act amends the Higher Education Act to include, for the first time, a definition of hazing:
"Hazing is any intentional, knowing, or reckless act committed by a person against a student (regardless of that student's willingness to participate), that (1) is connected with an initiation into, an affiliation with, or the maintenance of membership in, an organization (e.g., a club, athletic team, fraternity, or sorority); and (2) causes or is likely to contribute to a substantial risk, above the reasonable risk encountered in the course of participation in the institution of higher education or the organization, of physical injury, mental harm, or degradation."
Hazing rituals include whipping, beating, striking, electronic shocking or placing a harmful substance on someone’s body; causing, coercing or inducing sleep deprivation, exposure to the elements, confinement in small space or extreme calisthenics; causing, coercing or inducing another person to consume food, liquid, alcohol or drugs; causing, coercing or inducing another person to perform sexual acts; and any activity that places a person in reasonable fear of bodily harm.
The act formalizes the definition of hazing and the organizations to which it applies. Those definitions may vary significantly from state and local law. For example, the act applies to hazing rituals that may occur for student organizations regardless of whether they are established or recognized by the institution of higher education. The act also applies to hazing actions that are affiliated with campus organizations, even if the hazing actions are not part of membership or initiation to those organizations.
New Disclosure Requirements for the Annual Security Report
Institutions publish and distribute an Annual Security Report (often referred to as a Clery Report), which includes campus crime statistics and campus security policies. The act requires that institutions identify in their 2025 Clery Report (which gets filed in 2026) hazing incidents that were reported to campus security authorities or local law enforcement. Institutions will need to start collecting data and statistics on hazing incidents as of Jan. 1, 2025 for the Report.
Institutions will also need to include in their Clery Report a statement of their policies related to hazing, how to report incidents of hazing, the process used to investigate such incidents and information on applicable hazing laws. They will need to provide details about their hazing prevention and awareness programs. The act suggests that those programs include skill building for bystander intervention, information about ethical leadership, and the promotion of strategies for building group cohesion without hazing.
Institutions Must Compile and Publish a Campus Hazing Transparency Report
By Dec. 23, 2025, institutions must publish on their websites a Campus Hazing Transparency Report identifying each hazing incident in violation of the act that occurred since July 1, 2025. For each incident, the report must include the name of the organization, a description of the violation, the date of the incident and investigation, and a description of the institution’s findings and sanctions placed on the organization. Institutions must update their Transparency Report at least two times per year going forward.
How Institutions Can Prepare for These Changes
The Stop Campus Hazing Act is intended to prevent hazing, improve hazing reporting and inform students about hazing incidents on campus.
While many institutions already have efforts in place to curb hazing, they must complete a thorough review of their policies, practices, prevention education, and data collection efforts. Institutions should work quickly to ensure that they are collecting and retaining all necessary hazing data for their 2025 Clery Report (to be published in 2026). Institutions must enact hazing policies, or review their existing policies, to ensure compliance with the federal definition of hazing, to include information on how to make a report of hazing and to outline the process used to investigate those incidents. Institutions must also establish hazing prevention and awareness programs. Finally, institutions must prepare to publish a Hazing Transparency Report by the end of the year.
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