A WHISTLEBLOWER who blew open the scandal of alleged hazing at a top US college is truly "courageous," the mother of a student who died following a fraternity initiation has claimed.
The scandal, which began as an anonymous complaint at Northwestern University's football program late last year, has now spiraled into a broader crisis that has cost a leading coach his job and resulted in multiple lawsuits against the college.
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Now the mom of Antonio Tsialas, who died following a suspected hazing at Cornell University, has spoken out in praise of the original whistleblower.
Flavia Tomasello remembers where she was when she heard her son was missing in October 2019.
She knew about the Greek life system, and she had heard of hazing, despite being born and raised outside of the United States.
But she didn't believe that her kind, helpful, soccer-mad Antonio would ever be involved in a fraternity.
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She had gone to visit him for parents' weekend, and the pair had dinner the previous day.
In an interview, she told The U.S. Sun: "Antonio was very happy at Cornell University. He was thriving there. Every news that we had from him, both my husband and myself, was all good."
He had become a campus tour guide - unusual for a freshman - and had joined a soccer club, playing as a goalkeeper.
Always a smart and hard-working student, Flavia said her son was coaching other students to help them with their calculus.
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"We knew that he wanted to try out or look into a fraternity," she said. "I remember that he told us, 'Oh, don't worry.' We told him that we wanted to help him because there were many fraternities and some of them had misconducts in the past."
However, she claimed that she and Antonio's father were still in the dark about some of the hazing practices still carried out in secret by Greek letter chapters at the prestigious college in Ithaca, New York.
"I had had dinner with him the night before, and all of a sudden he was missing," she said. "That was very hard for me.
"We were supposed to meet at the bookstore and he didn't show up."
The 18-year-old from Miami, Florida had gone along to initiation drinks with the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.
That night, it is alleged, he was urged to drink to excess by other students, with one even vodka down his throat from a bottle.
The fraternity's president told Antonio's worried mother who came to the house when her son still hadn't answered his phone that he may have gone on to another party afterward.
But her son was tragically dead, his body lying at the bottom of a nearby ravine, with a fractured skull, broken ribs, and a high blood alcohol level.
Today, almost four years later, Flavia is still searching for answers to what happened on the night of her son's death.
He would not have left by himself
Flavia TomaselloMother, Antonio Tsialas
"When I went to the fraternity house, they seemed very nervous at first," she said.
"I said, 'Well, did he drink anything? Did you have him drink something different?"
Flavia doesn't believe what she was told by the frat members that her son had gone on to another party alone.
"That was very unusual because Antonio was in a new environment," she explained. "He would not have left by himself."
She also said Cornell didn't keep them in the loop on the ongoing investigation, leaving it up to the parents to try and piece together the events of that night.
"We did not receive any information from the school," she said. "It was whatever we were able to find out through our private investigators and the help of our attorney.
"They [Cornell] didn't want to call it a hazing death, it was not recognized as anything at the beginning."
Flavia praised the courage of the student-athletes at Northwestern who have spoken out about the culture of hazing at the college.
"There is a secrecy around hazing that makes it even more dangerous because you only hear about high-profile cases like Antonio's or the one at Northwestern," she said. "There are so many other victims.
"I know because when I go do speeches, we always find someone who says, 'Oh, my brother was hazed, or my sister, my friend, they never said anything but they suffered.'"
She added: "There is no accountability whatsoever. Universities say, 'Oh, well this is part of the ritual, and it's just very sad that we still see it happening and very little is being done.
"I think it's time to normalize the conversation and normalize the reporting of inappropriate behaviors. I think what has happened at Northwestern is really an act of courage because the majority of students or people that know that this is happening just turned a blind eye or they just are passive bystanders.
"So I think it's time to feel that compassion for each other and see so much suffering that, that is created by hazing."
In December 2020, Cornell University Police Department (CUPD) announced that there would be no charges over Antonio's death.
"Cornell Police investigators conducted approximately 150 interviews and followed up on nearly 100 other individual leads in an attempt to determine how and why Tsialas died," the force said in a statement.
"CUPD did not identify any evidence or reason to suspect foul play at that location, and the death remains an accidental death due to a fall from a height as classified by the medical examiner."
Joel M Malina, a Cornell vice president at the time, said in a statement that he stood by the CUPD investigation, and added that the university had been clamping down on fraternities in recent years, suspending or limiting the activities of 28 Greek organizations since 2017.
Today, Flavia still believes she is being kept in the dark, and admits she may never know exactly what happened to Antonio.
She also fears changes to the laws and tougher penalties on frats and sororities which continue hazing will not be enough.
"I don't know if the laws we have work, to tell you the truth because it seems that everybody can work around the laws," she said. "There were enough laws at Cornell that could have been applied, but they were not applied."
She went on: "I think it goes back to education. We can put in more and more laws, but they're always going to be violated until we understand that the suffering that we inflict on others is our own suffering and that it needs to stop."
The U.S. Sun has approached Cornell and Northwestern University for comment.
A spokesperson for Northwestern said: "Northwestern University has engaged former United States Attorney General Loretta Lynch from the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to lead an independent review of the processes and accountability mechanisms in place to detect, report and respond to potential misconduct in its athletics programs.
"As part of her review, Lynch will examine the culture of Northwestern Athletics to ensure it is consistent with the University’s mission and values as a leading academic institution.
"Lynch will conduct this review with feedback from and engagement with faculty, staff, students, and alumni and the results will be made public.
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"This review is one of many actions the University is taking to ensure the welfare of student-athletes, including monitoring of the football locker room, additional anti-hazing training for all student-athletes, and an enhanced online reporting tool for complaints."
Cornell University was yet to respond to the request for comment by the time of publication. Phi Kappa Psi did not immediately respond to The U.S. Sun's request for comment.
