Penn State Frat Brothers and Privilege

The poll question: what privilege, if any, do you believe played a part in the charges being dropped for the 16 Penn State fraternity brothers who were involved in the death of Tim Piazza?

The most serious charges have been dropped: involuntary manslaughter and felony aggravated assault counts. The remaining charges include alcohol violations and hazing to reckless endangerment.

What led to the charges being dropped? In your opinion, if these young men came from a different situation-racial, economic, gender or otherwise, would the outcome have changed? Is this outcome fair to Tim and his family?

If you aren't familiar with the case, Tim was a freshman as Penn State. He was pledging for the fraternity and was a part of a hazing ritual where pledges were forced to chug vodka, beer and wine. There's surveillance footage of him falling head first down a flight of stairs.

He had obvious signs of a head injury and severe bruising from a ruptured spleen that would have been impossible to miss, but instead of calling 911 or getting help, the frat brothers waited until the following morning because they didn't want to get in trouble for drinking. Even after medical help arrived, no one told the EMTs about Tim's head injury. They tried to play it off like it was simply alcohol poisoning ("our friend is unconscious").

By then it was too late, and Tim passed away. He was 19 years old.

"Upon arrival, Piazza was rushed into surgery, where he was discovered to have a ruptured spleen and class IV hemorrhagic shock. His brain had swelled to the point that roughly half of his skull had to be removed to relieve the pressure. The surgeons attempting to save Timothy's life deemed the injuries to likely be nonrecoverable, and Timothy was pronounced dead in the early morning of February 4, 2017."