Longtime Florida A&M Band Director Fired

CBS News is reporting that the longtime director of Florida A&M University's marching band was fired Wednesday amid the fallout from a drum major's suspected hazing death.

The move came as Florida's governor said that state investigators would join the probe and the college announced an independent review led by a former state attorney general, CBSNews.com reports.

Band member Robert Champion, 26, was found unresponsive on a bus parked outside an Orlando hotel on Saturday night after the school's football team lost to rival Bethune-Cookman. Champion, of Atlanta, was vomiting and had complained he couldn't breathe before he collapsed. Investigators believe hazing occurred before 911 was called.

Champion's cause of death wasn't known, and a spokeswoman with the medical examiner's office said it could take up to three months to learn exactly what killed him.

On Tuesday, the university president shuttered the marching band and the rest of the music department's performances as band director Julian White stood by. White, who graduated from the school with a music education degree, didn't comment at the news conference and a telephone message left at his home Wednesday was not immediately returned. He has 10 days to respond to his termination.

If Champion's death was the result of hazing, shame on all of those involved. Hazing needs to stop. Maybe Champion's untimely death will encourage students and institutions to change.

Read more at CBS News.

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