Viral Video Shows University of Iowa Frat Hazing Incident That Ended in Arrest
“shows 56 male pledges in a dirty basement, many with shirts removed and blindfolded”
A video clip that has gone viral on Twitter/X shows a fraternity hazing incident at the University of Iowa in which young men are blindfolded and, in some cases, shirtless, while tied up in the basement of the frat house.
The incident actually happened in 2024, and the fraternity has been suspended until 2029.
CBS News in Iowa reports:
Nearly 20m views: Bodycam shows dozens of shirtless pledges in Iowa frat basement
Disturbing video of an alleged 2024 hazing incident at the University of Iowa’s Alpha Delta Phi fraternity is now going viral after it is posted to YouTube and posted on X.
The X (formally Twitter) version has nearly 20 million views.
The body cam video, which was part of court case discovery in an arrest related to the incident, shows 56 male pledges in a dirty basement, many with shirts removed and blindfolded.
That body cam video was recorded when a fire alarm went off at the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity and emergency crews came into the house to investigate.
Iowa City Police say 21-year-old Joseph Gaya was arrested after he continually interfered with its investigation.
According to the criminal complaint, Gaya was told to step away several times by officers before putting himself between them and witnesses. Charges against Gaya were later dropped.
University of Iowa Police and the University of Iowa Office of Student Accountability immediately investigated the incident and suspended Alpha Delta Phi on Feb. 25, 2025.
More from FOX News:
Following an investigation conducted by the University of Iowa, school officials determined the fraternity had violated campus policies regarding hazing, according to the school’s website.
“University of Iowa Police and the University of Iowa Office of Student Accountability investigated the incident and suspended Alpha Delta Phi on Feb. 25, 2025. The earliest reinstatement date is July 2029,” the school said in a statement. “One person was charged with interference with official acts in November of 2024; the charges were later dismissed.”
In light of the suspension, the fraternity’s national office reportedly appealed the university’s decision following their own investigation, insisting that two fraternity members bear “sole responsibility” for the incident, according to the Press-Citizen.
“Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity is aware of the footage from a 2024 incident at the University of Iowa and remains steadfast in its zero-tolerance hazing policy,” Alpha Delta Phi’s national chapter said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “Immediately following the incident, an independent, third-party investigation was conducted, and the individuals responsible were removed from membership. Subsequently, the chapter received thorough anti-hazing education and continues to engage in organization-wide hazing prevention programming.”
The video on Twitter/X has been viewed almost 50 million times:
The footage from the Iowa Alpha Delta Phi hazing discovery is WILD.
A fire alarm went off, police arrived and discovered pledges in the dirty basement blindfolded and shirtless.
The two guys initially talking to police did not help the fraternity's case pic.twitter.com/zUMe6QL0hw
— Tim Jones (@TimothyJones92) February 18, 2026
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
People who will make themselves subject to this sort of thing, all to join a drinking club, are nothing but sheep.
Then again, I’ve never been a joiner.
It is not to join a “drinking club”. The real purpose of fraternities is to provide a pipeline to top corporate jobs after graduation. You are either one of the club or you aren’t. If the CEO is of the frat, he will only hire fellow frat boys who shared in criminal acts while in college to be insiders with access to the best perks. It ensures camaraderie and omerta.
Realistically most of these kids are thinking about the next keg party and chugging booze; not how to burnish their résumés and grease their career paths.
Well, it is only U of Iowa. If it were Harvard or Yale, you can bet their career paths will be first on their minds.
Those schools have “final clubs” and “secret societies” more than Greek orgs.
Variation on Groucho Marx but if being a frat boy means more than my expertise, I’d question the quality of management.
I certainly wouldn’t want to work in such an environment. I prefer to work with high-functioning people who can do their jobs. I have a severe dislike of incompetents.
I’m sure they are minimally competent, most of the time. The point of hiring insiders in a club is to steal lots of money and get perks like banging female employees. In the 196os, the middle and upper management of big corporations expected sex from all female employees on their immediate staff and only hired hot ones for that reason. This in fact is one of the reasons federal civil rights laws were passed to give people not in the old boys club a DEI path to get into big corporations.
Sheep idiot sheep
This is an exaggeration of a real phenomenon. Being in the same frat as the CEO will not get your hired nor keep you from getting fired from the company. What it will do is get your foot in the door. It will take your resume out from the pool of other applicants and put you in the “interview these candidates” stack. Sometimes, that’s 75% of the journey.
Fraternities and professional organizations are networking organizations. They offer advantages, not assured outcomes.
Yeah, I’d never allow myself to be treated like that. It’s a matter of self-respect. But, like you, I’m not a “joiner” (nor a carpenter, nyuk, nyuk) of social clubs. I’m very self contained. When I was a boy, my mother would punish me for my misdeeds by making me stand in a corner or by sending me to my room. She learned neither had an effect on me because I could get into my own head and my physical location didn’t matter to me. The entire world, and more, was in my head.
Virtue signal received, loud & clear.
I had a lot of fun in college. Too much, in fact. My social life was responsible for my not getting my Ph.D., my M.D., J.D. and at least two Nobel Prizes.
But never once did I ever come close to the nonsense described in this article. Heck, if this was part of the Animal House script, it would have been cut.
Bunch of idiots.
lol, me too
Believe me, I lost lots of opportunities because I was having too much fun at the wrong time
Yeah, lots of really dumb crap is done in fraternity settings. Fortunately I never had a son who might be tempted to engage in similarly retarded activities as his father did in college.
Still some of my closest friends, but there was plenty of stupid buffonery way-back-when.
My undergrad school didn’t allow fraternities. But the kids did have drinking parties. Very wild drinking parties that charged admission. They did this until Pennsylvania tightened up its drinking laws.
Will someone please explain what the fuss is about? Shirtless, blindfolded boys in a dirty basement. BFD!
All there voluntarily, no less.
…aaaaaaand that’s why I don’t care.
Well, what is it you dont comprehend?
Looking at the video, my first thought is, the pledges aren’t talking because they probably think this is all part of the hazing and they think it’s a loyalty test.
You wonder why people do things they never think they would be part of.. for what
These are the idiots in charge of Big companies, law firms?
What, were they peeing in corners, what about dedicating?
I mean this is crazy sick
You don’t have to be a frat boy to be an idiot.
What about the “skull and bones” crap?
I wonder what they did?
We had a young man in the navy commit suicide over a hazing incident.
Happens in many group setting like sport teams and military groups. The marching band groups were especially brutal.
Geez, wasn’t there a classic book we read in high school about this?…..
Something to think about, a 50+ pledge class is pretty good. Like really good, since fraternities have a pretty bad rap these days. Like the kid that eats dog food, there are a few idiots. In this case they were in charge. My college classes in the stone ages say we naturally form social groups. Some form in dorm. Some form in neighborhood, some form around like interests like religions. In college there were some 36 + frats. Some were for business, some were for Engineering, some for sports, some for socials to meet girls. Just like some college clubs, it was interest based.
Shoot, I worked for major corporations that did some pretty stupid thing and call it team building, like having someone fall backwards and the team catches them.
Is it strange, yeah. There is not much here. Was someone hurt? I remember a few people ended up in the hospital for drinking too much in the dorms.
I was told it was a good network. Could be. I don’t know. Ask the Bushes. Ask John Kerry.. I know people that bonded in the military. Ask people that bonded in scouts.
Question, what was illegal that they were doing? Weird, yes. Hazing, does not sound like it with third party review having two member removed on appeal. It really is a non story.
I remember one guy in the dorms passing out with his shirt off and the girls used permanent markers on him. His nick name was El Marco there after.
If you want a good story, how about the mentally ill guy living in his mother’s basement saying Epstein was eating kids. That’s a good story.
Can’t see what was illegal here.
Standing in a basement? Pretty sure I do that at least every single day.
Being shirtless?
Even being voluntarily blindfolded.
What was the crime?
There was none.
And everyone understands that the fraternity statement was a lie, right? They’re not going to end the torment of pledges.
I’m definitely failing to see the big deal.
I’m also laughing at a bunch of people on here who pretend they never did anything they didn’t want to do in order to get something they wanted.
This is the weakest “hazing” incident I’ve ever seen.
Oh yeah I’m 100% a GDI before you make assumptions. It felt like too much time and money spent to me. I couldn’t bring myself to pay for friends or sex (which is ultimately what most of those guys want) when I had zero net worth.
My fraternity experience never led to any job, even part-time. I built friendships that have lasted 50,years. We provided ourselves housing and organized events. I tried two sports for the first time. We had advisers from our alums. We had programs to build good character. At least part of it stuck with me.
My national fraternity suspends chapters that show problems like whatever was going on here. Keeping the undergraduates in line is a constant task.
I support this chapter being suspended.
Kick everybody out and recruit from scratch. It needs to be done sometimes.