Three black students have been charged with beating a woman during hazing rituals for a university marching band just weeks before a drummer was killed in similar circumstances

The assault by members of the historically black Florida A&M University band was so severe that the victim's thigh bone was broken, police said. Sean Hobson, 23, Aaron Golson, 19, and James Harris, 22, are accused of punching Bria Shante Hunter and attacking her with a ruler. Hunter told police that days later the pain became so unbearable that she went to the hospital. Besides her broken thigh bone, she had suffered blood clots in her legs. Hobson and Golson were charged with hazing and battery, and Harris was charged with hazing. These events have exposed a hazing tradition that has long haunted the historically black university. Former clarinet player Ivery Luckey was hospitalized after he said he was paddled - or spanked around the buttocks - around 300 times in 1998. Three years later, band member Marcus Parker suffered kidney damage because of a beating with a paddle.