A University of Pittsburgh student was attacked by her sorority sisters in a brutal hazing incident during which the 20-year-old woman was beaten with pieces of wood in a darkened room and forced to eat rotten food, her mother claims.
Sue Levy Giles, of Philadelphia, said her daughter, Alexandria, has been undergoing intense therapy since the alleged ordeal in which 12 Alpha Kappa Alpha pledges were taken to the basement of a private off-campus home in February and physically assaulted.
“She broke down,” Giles told CBS Philly of her daughter when she relayed the episode days later. “She just started sobbing.”
The 12 pledges spoke with investigators last month as university officials placed the sorority on interim suspension. Penn Hills Police Chief Howard Burton said at the time that he had not determined whether charges should be filed in the case due to lack of cooperation by the alleged victims.
“During the course of this, they were maybe hit with a paddle of some sort,” Burton said. “We’ve got a lot of girls who don’t want to talk about it. If they don’t want to be victims, there’s not a heck of a lot we can do with that.”
Giles said her daughter even broke a tooth during the hazing episode.
“She had been kicked, pushed and slapped,” Giles told CBS Philly. “She had been forced to ingest rotten food.”
Giles said her daughter had wanted to join the sorority ever since she was a little girl, following in her mother’s footsteps as a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha.
“She would wear pink and green,” she said. “Her room at one point was pink and green. She always looked forward to becoming a member of the sorority.”
In a statement, sorority officials said the organization has a “zero-tolerance policy” for hazing.
“We were appalled to learn of hazing allegations against a suspended member who is no longer a student at the University of Pittsburgh,” the statement reads. “We believe that all existing and prospective members have the right to be treated with dignity and respect.”
While “extremely serious,” the allegations are not representative of the sorority, according to the statement released by Alpha Kappa Alpha spokesperson Leona Dotson.
Giles, meanwhile, is hurt that the sorority didn’t think to look after one of their own, a pledge who had been trying to become a member just like her mother did decades earlier. Giles said she’s also disappointed that no one from the sorority’s national headquarters has reached out to her.
“As a mom, I’m sorry but I wish I could have protected her but I entrusted her to the university,” she told CBS Philly. “I entrusted her to my sorority.”
