In a statement after the verdict, Mr. Foltz’s parents, Shari and Cory Foltz, said they grieved not only for their son but also for the men on trial. They said such deaths would continue until Greek organizations and the universities that support them “end hazing for good.”

“We will not rest until hazing is eradicated on all university campuses,” they said.

On March 4, 2021, Mr. Foltz, a business major from Delaware, Ohio, attended a Pi Kappa Alpha event at an off-campus house, prosecutors said. Attendance, they added, was considered mandatory.

The new members, so-called “littles” or “little brothers” (most of them underage), were each given a bottle of about one liter of liquor, which they were expected to consume by the end of the event, according to prosecutors, who said that Mr. Foltz consumed “nearly all” of his bottle of bourbon.

When paramedics arrived at Mr. Foltz’s apartment, his roommate was performing CPR, but Mr. Foltz was no longer breathing, they said. He was taken to Wood County Hospital and later transferred to Toledo Hospital, where he died on March 7.

The county coroner ruled his death an accident “as the result of a fatal level of alcohol intoxication during a hazing incident,” according to Mr. Dobson, who said that Mr. Foltz’s blood-alcohol level had been four times the legal limit.

In April 2021, Bowling Green, which is 20 miles south of Toledo, announced that it had expelled the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity after placing it on an interim suspension. That month, eight men, seven of them Bowling Green students, were indicted in connection with Mr. Foltz’s death.