Two women say the Cater Society Honorary, an exclusive senior society of women on Auburn's campus, hazed them during the ritual period of induction.
Sydney Nicholas, a 2018 graduate and former member of the society, and Catherine Scibetta, a 2017 graduate who quit during her induction, both say they were hazed during their time with the society.
The 2018-19 Cater Society Honorary says they do not haze their members.
“Everything I had heard about Cater was about women empowering other women,” said Nicholas, who first became involved with the society in February 2017 when she applied.
She says she received a note from a student in involvement with a location, time and dress code. When she arrived at the grocery store parking lot, she was given a blindfold and told to get in a car.
She was taken to an open field with 15 hooded women, Nicholas says. What she thought was a week-long process turned into a month of several nights a week.
“I would get emails from [the alias of] Katherine Cooper Cater that said, ‘You have an hour to write a three-page paper on a woman on campus in a prominent building named after her,'" she said.
Nicholas said the women had to carry ChapStick with them at all times because "their lips were sealed." This task could fall under the University’s Anti-Hazing Policy Section 6.2, “Carrying items for others for no constructive purpose.” She was tasked with writing the Auburn Creed 10 times.
She said she remembers her closest friends and family members frustrated with her absence.
“It interrupted your life because you were staying up until 3 a.m.,” said Nicholas, who later served as president of Emerge, Auburn's freshman leadership program, and as Dance Marathon president. “How can you focus on your classes when you get text messaged saying you have X amount of time to complete some task?”
Section 6.9
One night, the girls were expected to meet for a knowledge test, an intimidating and pressuring night of quizzing. Nicholas said she was in the middle seat of a car blindfolded and crouched forward when the two women beside her got out.
An hour passed. Nicholas said she was paranoid about this being a test and stayed crouched forward until that hour passed. She took off the blindfold to find she was sitting alone at a house on a gravel road.
“I thought, ‘Oh, they are going to come and get me,’” Nicholas said. “And they didn’t.”
She scrambled around to find a phone because they had taken hers, but she couldn't find out where she was.
Three hours passed before the women returned to the vehicle. Nicholas said she considered getting out and walking.
“Instead of going to find me, they left me,” Nicholas said. “They didn’t want to admit that they had messed up.”
Nicholas made it through the rituals despite the anxiety and depression it was causing her. She said she believed she would be strong enough to stay in the society long enough to change it from the inside.
After induction, she finally found out what really happened that night in the car.
“They said, ‘Haha, please don’t tell anyone. We just forgot you,’” Nicholas said. “I think that was it. Here are these women who are supposed to care about me, and they forgot me in a car for three hours.”
Section 6.18 of the Anti-Hazing Policy prohibits kidnapping or abandonment in student organizations.
Nicholas said a Student Conduct investigation began shortly after she was inducted. She said she was unaware if her incident had caused it.
According to the director of Student Conduct Nick Wiard, Student Conduct could not verify whether the investigation took place.
"The Office of Student Conduct doesn’t currently share information about alleged policy concerns, investigations or cases involving student organizations," Wiard said.
Wiard said student organizations will eventually implement the same system of publishing conduct reports that Greek Life has put in place recently.
According to Nicholas, women in the Cater Society who had gone through the Student Conduct investigation of the Squires in 2016 began to prep those who were to be questioned.
The Squires were found in violation of Auburn University's Anti-Hazing policy in 2016. Nicholas said the women were aware of what to expect after having been through the first Student Conduct investigation and were, in theory, able to “prep them” on what to expect.
Nicholas said she refused to continue going to the meetings after she realized they were preparing them for questioning.
Nicholas said the GroupMe chat between the Cater women blew up the night after she was questioned with people asking, "Who told?"
She left the society in summer 2017.
“If you are really empowering women in their lives, why are you doing it in a way that strips them of the ability to be the best leader they can be?” Nicholas said.
"The Cater Society Honorary upholds a strict
Efforts to reach the president, vice president, secretary and treasurer of the 2017-18 Cater Society in response to the hazing allegations prior to publication of the story were unsuccessful.
Catherine Scibetta, the potential member who graduated in 2017, said she did not make it through the induction period because of the pressure and exclusivity of the group.
"I ended up leaving for several reasons, hazing included," said Scibetta, who served as president of University Program Council.
Scibetta said during rituals they were not allowed to wear red and there was name-calling involved in the meetings. She said she never felt uncomfortable but said there were things the women said that were unnecessary.
In one instance, the women made the new society members wear all denim and berated them as they walked out.
“They made these mean comments when we were leaving wherever we were, like, ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, you all look ridiculous,’ and ‘Hope you brought something to cover up in,’” Scibetta said.
Section 6.22 of the Anti-Hazing Policy states that “Any activity that would be viewed by a reasonable person as subjecting any person to embarrassment, degradation or humiliation” is prohibited and considered hazing under University rule.
She was taken places, just as Nicholas was, and was completely unaware of where she was.
“I didn’t feel like we accurately represented the campus’ climate,” Scibetta said of the society. “There was no way for us to advance the position of all women on Auburn’s campus if we didn’t represent those women.”
She didn't see a way to change it without the group being disbanded as a whole, and that did not seem possible because of its deep roots on campus.
“It is much more than 15 powerful women on campus. It is staff. It is advisers. It is
Nicholas added that there was negative influence from some older Cater women, encouraging the current members to continue with the hazing practices.
Scibetta said the rituals did not seem historical or native to the group's start. It seemed as if someone along the way felt hazing was necessary to garner loyalty, Scibetta said.
The Cater Society was once called The Hearts and was created in response to the foundation of the Spades, a predominantly male society of similar influence and exclusivity.
“If you are trying to promote inclusion and diversity on a very, very white campus in a very Southern part of the country, you can’t have [exclusive societies],” Scibetta said. “It is countering everything you are doing with inclusion and diversity.”
Nicholas said she became fed up with being told she was a disappointment during the "rituals," and she did not see how their practices could be empowering women.
“If we are talking about women empowering women and equality of genders, I don’t think you can do that in the dark,” Nicholas said. “You have to do that in the light.”
If you or someone you know was the victim of hazing, you can submit reports to the University here . You can also reach The Plainsman at editor@theplainsman.com or submit secure tips through our news tips reporting options.
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