If you saw photographs of the party house where the alleged Sigma Chi sexual hazing happened, you would close your eyes.

You would try to imagine how nice young men sent off to college by their parents for an education - the proverbial opportunity for a better life - ended up in this dark, deteriorating basement, derailing their lives on a drunken fall night.

You would blame alcohol. You would blame the pack.

And you would be sickened to think something as pointless as hazing could be to blame.

Hazing doesn't happen only in Greek houses.

And it doesn't happen just at Sigma Chi, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln fraternity suspended over allegations one pledge was sodomized by a stripper last year. And that other freshmen, attempting to pass the test of loyalty - manhood? fraternalism? - were made to drink Tabasco-laced vodka shots until they puked and leap-frog one another through the fraternity house on Vine Street while being pelted with ice.

And you thought skyrocketing tuition was a problem.

I know less about the Greek system than most.

I admit my prejudice. I've always thought the idea of pledging a house was a bit ludicrous (what counts most: GPA or wardrobe selection?) and a bit elitist (what counts most: one's logic or one's legacy?) .

I also acknowledge Greek houses do plenty of good things. Raise money, clean highways, study en masse, dress up for dinner. I've written about some of them.

At UNL, Greek members on the average have higher GPAs than their fellow nonaffiliated students.

If one of my children had wanted to join a house after high school, I wouldn't have barred the door. We all want to belong somewhere.

How much hazing happens?

It's a documented part of military life. It is a fact in the sports world.

Is it hazing when you make the intern at the office get your coffee? Write the weather story?

Hazing is "woven into the fabric of student life," a 2008 study found. A full 55 percent of college students involved in clubs, sports or organizations reported being hazed in some fashion. Most often: drinking games, sleep deprivation, verbal assault.

But Susan Lipkins, a New York author and hazing expert, says that's changing.

"Hazing is becoming more sexual and more aggressive each year," Lipkins told the Journal Star last week. "And more dangerous."

Sigma Chi got called out.

If the charges prove to be true, you hope the pledge who went to police is a source of systemwide Greek pride instead of a scapegoat for breaking rank.

Because in any system that seeks loyalty from its members, rank closes fast.

Two years ago, a Nebraska Wesleyan fraternity fire left a young man dead. Police were stymied in their investigation when fraternity members were less than forthcoming about circumstances surrounding the blaze.

In a Daily Nebraskan column Tuesday, UNL junior Bryce McLeay described a world without Greeks in which no "sorority hopeful (would) be obligated to strip down to her undies" and have her flaws circled with a Sharpie.

"No dudes (would) ever have to crawl on the bathroom floor … (partaking) in the fratastic and humiliating elephant walk."

Perhaps McLeay has an overactive imagination. Or perhaps every fraternity member with a Picture Man snapshot from the Spring Formal knows what an elephant walk is.

The investigation into Sigma Chi is ongoing.

The fraternity house is off the Greek system grid.

I read a copy of the initial police report this afternoon. Details - racial slurs and derogatory sexual slang - not fit for publication in a family newspaper would turn your stomach.

And make you wonder: Why would human beings humiliate each other so viciously in the name of brotherhood?

Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.