Palmetto State News

A change.org petition calling for a reform to the state’s hazing legislation has been started by two upstate college students.

Communication studies majors at Furman University in Greenville, Rachel Vazquez and Savannah Hobbie, said it was up to students to protect one another, according to a university news release.

“It’s going to first start with (students) standing up for their peers,” Vazquez told WYFF 4 News, according to a Sept. 24 university news release.

Any activity where someone participates in the humiliation, degradation, abuse, or endangers someone irrespective of a person's willingness to participate is known as hazing, according to the release.

Hobbie, whose also a senior politics and international affairs major, launched the petition in hopes to get South Carolina lawmakers to take a harsher stance on hazing, the release said.

“I write this today to garner support for not only the [Tucker] Hipps family, but all families who have been impacted by hazing. We are trying to change South Carolina law, urging to make hazing that causes severe bodily injury or death a felony, rather than a misdemeanor," Hobbie recently wrote in an online column for Her Campus. “We want to hold those accountable for their actions, regardless of ‘age’ or ‘intention’.”

Hobbie's efforts come on the heels on the seventh anniversary of the alleged hazing-related death of Clemson University student, and her cousin, Tucker Hipps, who fell from a bridge during an early morning run with fraternity pledges on Sept. 24, 2014.

In the seven years since his death, Hipps' family is still searching for answers, and recently offered a $50,000 reward for more info, according to the Greenville News.

Hazing occurs in a wide range of groups: athletics, performing arts, religious, service organizations, fraternities, sororities and honor societies, according to a national leader in hazing prevention, HazingPrevention.org.