It's long past time that alumni for the Greek system take charge to eliminate dangerous hazing at fraternities and sororities.

The message that hazing is impermissible apparently disappears as rapidly as as fruit flies replace one generation with the next. Hazing continues to resurface with appalling regularity.

Reports of hazing at the Sigma Chi fraternity on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus include an allegation that a stripper used a vibrator to anally penetrate a student during an initiation ceremony.

Shocking as that is, one has to go back only a few years to find other incidents on the UNL campus. In 2003 a Sigma Alpha Epsilon pledge said he was struck in the throat and genitals with a broomstick.

The problems with hazing in the Greek system are just as horrible elsewhere. Last year 10 Pi Kappa Alpha members were hauled into court for inflicting burns on pledges during "Hell Week." The students poured boiling water laced with pepper spray and "crab boil" mixture over the pledges' backs. Two were treated at a hospital for second- and third-degree burns.

It takes only a few seconds with an Internet search engine to turn up recent incidents in which fraternity hazing resulted in deaths. National Public Radio carried an account of a 2005 incident at the Chi Tau house at Chico State University in California in which pledges were forced to drink massive quantities of water.

One of the pledges "collapsed and started a seizure. Fraternity members didn't initially call an ambulance. By the time they did, it was too late. [The pledge] was taken to Enloe Medical Center, where his heart stopped. At about 5 a.m. he was pronounced dead from water intoxication, which caused the swelling of his brain and lungs."

Additional cause for alarm is evidence that hazing is becoming pervasive at the high school level. That means that students arrive on campus already acculturated to accept hazing practices.

A national study by professors at the University of Maine found that 47 percent of high school students reported they had experienced hazing, typically in sports, band and performing arts. "We're still having hazing incidents in this country in high schools. They're getting more brutal. They're getting more sexual. And they're being pushed down into middle schools," Elliot Hopkins of the National Federation of State High School Associations told USA Today.

Obviously some of the more horrific acts result in criminal charges. Campus officials also have imposed severe penalties. But hazing continues to resurface.

The shock that Greek alumni profess on revelations of hazing has grown wearisome. No house is immune. Greek alumni need to make sure the message that hazing will not be tolerated is passed along each year. There's no excuse for allowing its perpetuation.