Boys will be boys. Just not on the campus of Northern Arizona University.

As the university's crackdown on Pi Kappa Alpha shows, the days when pledges could be put at risk of injury and humiliated during initiation rites are gone. Branding pledges' buttocks with dry ice, pelting them with rotten fruit and forcing them to vomit might make for a good comedy movie, but this is real life.

The practices listed above, known as hazing, are supposedly tests of character and physical stamina that help the fraternity determine a pledge's suitability for membership. Like many rituals, hazing apparently has morphed from the relatively tame rites of a hundred years ago to ones that verge on the cruel and sadistic, not to mention physically risky.

Defenders cite the fact that pledges have consented to the treatment and that the excesses were errors of judgment by young people who don't deserve the penalty meted out to the fraternity: a five-year ban from campus.

But both legally and ethically, the university functions as in loco parentis, or a home away from home. Parents entrust their children to an institution that, at the very least, is expected to keep them safe from harm. Students agree to a code of conduct that establishes the ground rules for a safe campus: They can't put other students at risk of physical injury, mental harm or personal degradation.

There's no clause in the code that allows a student to waive the rules. And frankly, pledges aren't really giving their consent if they aren't told what is coming and if participation is mandatory as a condition for fraternity membership.

Are the anti-hazing rules reasonable? If the kinds of "tests" to which Pi Kappa Alpha subjected their pledges were critical to the mission of the fraternity (much like a firefighter trainee must carry a heavy hose for a certain distance), they might have a case for an exception to the code.

But let's face it: Fraternities are usually no more than social clubs with a patina of community service thrown in to justify what amounts to selective living arrangements. The fact that the university gives up scarce dormitory space for such an arrangement means it has the right to expect the fraternity to abide by campuswide rules. If those rules conflict with long-held admissions practices, then the fraternity needs to move off-campus.

We suppose we should be thankful that this round of hazing did not result in the kind of binge drinking and joy riding that has killed pledges at other universities. And yes, Pi Kappa Alpha did provide their pledges with goggles during the fruit-pelting test and garbage cans in which to vomit after forcing them to each eat a plate of jalapenos and drink a gallon of milk

But on balance, the case against Pi Kappa Alpha isn't even close — even their own responses to the charges concede violations of the NAU code of conduct and anti-hazing policy. If other fraternities are contemplating similar initiation rites, they now know where NAU has drawn the line. They cross it at their peril.