Bill named after victim of severe hazing
The bill was named after Collin Wiant, a freshman at Ohio University from Dublin, died after collapsing on the floor of an unofficial, off-campus fraternity house on Nov. 12, 2018. A coroner ruled that Wiant died of asphyxiation due to nitrous oxide ingestion after he inhaled a canister of the gas, also known as a whippit.
The Dispatch spent much of last year investigating hazing on college campuses and in other areas of society. In the spring of 2019, the newspaper found that only five hazing charges had been filed in at least 25 years in the courts near Ohio s largest universities. The newspaper then spent months investigating the death of Wiant.