Harrison Kowiak was 19 years old when he died after schoolmates pummeled him on a pitch-black field in Hickory, North Carolina. It was part of a fraternity hazing.
Determined to protect other students, Kowiak’s mother Lianne devoted herself to fighting hazing. She thought she had a powerful ally in U.S. Representative Frederica Wilson, who calls herself the “Haze Buster” and backed Florida’s tough anti-hazing law as a member of the state legislature in 2005.