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Rites & Wrongs

Hazing, be it silly or scary, is banned in many schools. But it still exists--just ask a freshman.

By Matthew Bowers The Virginian-Pilot http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SPL2300-0-3494&artno=0000238315&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=&res=Y&ren=Y&gov=Y&lnk=Y&ic=N Accessed on 03/29/2006 from SIRS Researcher via SIRS Knowledge Source <http://www.sirs.com>

 Five years haven't erased Casey Culpepper's menacing memories of entering ninth grade.

     It wasn't simply a bigger school, older students, or going out for volleyball. The threat of "initiation," a decades-old hazing tradition, haunted her all summer.

     That tradition "made the first week of school very terrifying for me," said Casey, now a sophomore at James Madison University in Harrisonburg. "Like every corner you walk around, you're afraid you're going to run into a senior...I had that freshman look. They could smell it."

     The initiation was this: Friends got snatched by seniors waiting outside after classes, and smeared with concoctions that included canned dog food, eggs, ketchup, mustard, horse manure and pet feces. Then they were hosed off so hard that it hurt. Casey escaped, but only because more than once her big sister Jill, then a senior, intervened.

     To many students and adults, "initiation" was just an expected part of the Western Branch High School experience. That changed last fall. Parents of hazed freshmen in one incident complained to Chesapeake police and, apparently for the first time, criminal charges resulted. Some students were expelled.

     Still, students returning Tuesday to public schools across South Hampton Roads--as well as their private-school peers already in classes--bring with them a variety of hazing practices, despite policies against it. They reflect what many researchers call a growing presence in high schools nationwide, even as the practice wanes in colleges, according to a report on hazing nationwide published last year.

     Male soccer players at Tallwood High in Virginia Beach have been trussed in tape and dumped outside girls' team members houses.

     Band members at Lake Taylor High in Norfolk have endured painful "beat-downs."

     Norfolk Academy tennis players annually poured cake batter ingredients on teammates.

     Freshmen all over get dumped into school trash cans or have "F's" scrawled on their hands. Drama students, service club members and athletes are made to wear costumes and sing, yodel and bark in schools and malls and restaurants.

     But researchers say it's easy for seemingly harmless, prank-like teasing to evolve into more harrowing activities.

     Adolescents commonly try to outdo one another. Their judgment is largely a work in progress, prodded by peer pressure and the need to belong, overdosed on gross-out TV shows such as "Fear Factor."

     Lines blur. The three Western Branch High victims last fall suffered welts from being pelted with frozen eggs, and their skin turned blue from being doused with chemically treated waste scooped out of a portable toilet, police said. The three must undergo regular HIV and hepatitis tests for two years, because of the bodily wastes thrown on them.

     "It gets more and more severe, and that unfortunately is where I've seen it go," said Susan C. Bon, who this year taught legal issues in education at Ohio's Ashland University. "Hazing is so dangerous because of the potential for crossing that line."

     Hazing generally refers to "rite-of-passage" activities expected of someone to join or remain in a group--activities that intimidate, humiliate, ridicule or risk emotional, physical or legal harm. It can vary widely, from wearing embarrassing outfits to sexual assault.

     "A very extreme form of bullying" is how Sara Jo Williams, director of Virginia Commonwealth University's Center for School-Community Collaboration, describes it.

     The law construes it more narrowly.

     Virginia's statute that makes hazing a crime added a limiting definition in 2003: The activity must "recklessly or intentionally endanger the health or safety of" or injure a student, whether or not the hazed student participates voluntarily. It's a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine. But expulsion was deleted as the only available school punishment, to leave educators more flexibility.

     "Criminal statutes should only be reserved for the worst things," explained Del. David B. Albo, a Republican from Fairfax County and a sponsor of the change. "Merely humiliating somebody--it's not nice, but it shouldn't give you a criminal record."

     Virginia is one of 44 states with laws prohibiting hazing, according to StopHazing.org, an online information site created by New Hampshire anti-hazing lobbyists. Three states require schools to take steps to prevent hazing, Bon said. Virginia is not one of them.

     A landmark 2000 study of U.S. high school hazing by Alfred University in New York found that almost half the students who joined school or youth organizations were hazed--1.5 million students a year--and more than a quarter were expected to perform potentially illegal acts.

     Sports teams attract much of the notoriety, but the study found that virtually all types of organizations hazed--it happened to one out of four youths joining church groups. Making news just this past year:

     • Iowa wrestlers were charged with hazing and assault, accused of forcing their exposed genitals against freshmen teammates' faces.

     • A New Hampshire private school suspended 15 seniors after freshmen were sprayed with food products, asked sexually explicit questions and made to simulate sex acts.

     • Minnesota seniors were charged with assault and other crimes for a traditional last-day-of-school paddling of rising ninth-graders.

     • In July, Texas officials began investigating complaints that three basketball players at a private school held down a younger teammate and rubbed their genitals on his head, neck and shoulders during a January road trip. The practice is common enough that it has a name: "tea-bagging."

     Hazing has been traced to the mid-1800s Navy. It began as a way to instill respect in younger sailors, according to the Pace Law Review, which reported on high school hazing last year. It got so bad that by 1874 Congress stepped in and made military hazing a court-martial offense.

     Similar activities then popped up in other institutions, including universities. Many schools began denouncing hazing in the early 1900s after two students in Texas and Maryland shot their hazers. Instead, the practice went underground and spread in secrecy among collegiate organizations, notably fraternities, and then to high schools.

     Hank Nuwer, an author, speaker and professor at Franklin College in Indiana, tracks high school hazing back 100 years to a possible 1905 incident in which a young Ohio teen died of pneumonia after classmates stuffed snow down his back.

     Hazers don't lack for creativity. Nuwer's online chronology catalogs incidents of branding, tarring, paddling, sodomy and electric shock, but also forcible leg-shaving, running with crackers clenched in buttocks, and videotaped games of naked Twister.

     Locally, students say initiation activities run more to silly costumes and empty threats. But not always.

     Male band members at Lake Taylor High in years past have endured what's known as the "freshmen beat-down," the "band beat-down" or "the treatment," where older members corner new ones and punch them in the arms, said several students who know about the practice but said they hadn't participated in it.

     "It's not hard enough to cry, but you'll feel it," said Ramon Jones, a senior.

     Ray Ilas, a senior Tallwood High School tennis player, said he had to drink a mixture of salad-bar fluids--pickle juice, olive juice, Thousand Island salad dressing--through a straw at a team party his first year.

     More commonly, variations of "Freshman Friday" are rumored early in the year at several schools. Threats are spread about stuffing first-year students into lockers, but typically they wind up only with "F's" scrawled on the backs of their hands.

     "It was like an urban legend kind of thing," said Ashley Wenners-Herron, a senior at Princess Anne High in Virginia Beach who got tagged twice--and did the same to a younger friend last year.

     However, at least one freshman at Tallwood High last year twice got dumped into school trash cans, students said. Sarah Kuhr, a graduate this year, said she helped pull him out.

     "I'm sure he was hurting inside, but outside he was laughing," she said. "I guess so he wouldn't look like a pansy to the older guys."

     Freshmen have literally been targets: for Silly String at Indian River High in Chesapeake, and for water balloons at Western Branch Highs band camp. At I.C. Norcom High in Portsmouth, they are assigned plain white T-shirts and nicknames by the band.

     Aarthy Thamodaran's tennis team at Norfolk Academy traditionally poured cake batter, eggs, chocolate syrup and the like on new players during an annual road trip to Richmond but stopped after school officials banned initiations.

     "I think they were just afraid that things had the potential to get out of hand," said Aarthy, who graduated this year. "Even though this was innocent, it had the potential to escalate."

     It's common for athletic teams to make the new guys lug ball bags and water to practice and to cut their hair. Costumes or strange outfits and signs are big at several schools.

     For most, students say, it's a laughing matter.

     "It's not a hazing kind of thing," said Crystal Johnston, a senior soccer player at Kellam High in Virginia Beach, adding that the initiates "enjoy the attention." She said her team rousts freshmen out of bed, dresses them in "funky clothes" from their own closets and makes them hold signs outside the school as buses roll up, bearing phrases such as "Honk if you want a date."

     "As much as I felt stupid walking down the hall," said Candice Sweeney, a sophomore softball player at Tallwood High made to wear her uniform and eye-black and mussed hair to school, "it was funny. It was just doing it for the team."

     Kristy Conley, a recent Tallwood graduate and softball player, said she had to yodel while covered in Band-Aids at a shopping center. "I wasn't really embarrassed, she said, because everybody else was doing it."

     But not everyone goes along.

     Students said a Tallwood soccer player objected last year to an attempt to tape him up for initiation at an off-campus team gathering. He fought back, a mini-brawl erupted, and the entire team later found itself in the principal's office.

     "The bottom line is, we don't condone that kind of behavior, and we kind of explained to them what could happen," Principal Jobynia Caldwell said. "This is not what team members do to each other. It was a teachable moment, rather than a punishable moment."

     Afterward she re-emphasized that team gatherings should include coaches or other chaperones and be held in public venues.

     At Cox High in Virginia Beach, Jack Lukic unhappily donned a costume and barked on command as part of a weeklong initiation into a theater group. He had gotten involved in plays for fun and for something extra to put on his college applications.

     On the second day, he begged off. He was told he had to accept the treatment, or he couldn't join. He quit.

     "It was just humiliating," Jack said. "You walk in, and they all laugh at you."

     Two years later, college-bound Jack has never returned to drama, in school or elsewhere.

     "I kind of had a bad taste for theater," he said.

     School officials stopped a similar practice at the Beach's Princess Anne High last fall, after the Western Branch High incident became public, Ashley Wenners-Herron said.

     All initiations aren't necessarily bad. But experts say the danger rises when it turns into an exercise of power. Mix in teens with little or no adult guidance, with immature ideas about what's appropriate and what's not, in packs where its easier to lose individual values--the "mob mentality"--and "that's when it can get out of hand," said Richard J. Hazler, professor of counselor education at Penn State University.

     In addition, adults may seem to condone hazing by accepting it as tradition, by not making distinctions between the severity of acts they experienced and what may be going on today, and by referring to it as "a normal part of growing up...and kids pick up on that," said Jonathan K. Appel, assistant professor in educational leadership and counseling at Old Dominion University.

     "It isn't necessarily behavior resulting from them being wild out-of-control criminals," Appel said. "They could be normal...Good kids do bad things with the lack of guidance."

     Escalation is common. Adults remember "initiation" at Western Branch High once consisted of being sprayed with perfume, made to sing aloud or pushing a pencil down the hall with your nose.

     By contrast, police said, last fall's publicized incident involved three freshmen standing in a water-filled ditch off a remote road, surrounded by many teens they didn't know--including non-students--who assaulted them with frozen and raw eggs, Mountain Dew bottles filled with urine, vomit that had been saved in sealed buckets, waste scooped out of a portable toilet, and deer and fox urine used for hunting.

     But freshmen often go along. Amanda House, now a junior, said she endured Western Branch Highs initiation three times "just for fun," albeit with less-foul materials.

     "The need to conform and be part of the group at that age is just immense," Appel said. "It would take a unique and strong person to not bend to the will of the group."

     "Everybody wants to be included," VCU's Williams said. "And they'll go to any extreme to be included."

     Western Branch High officials for years have opened the school year with written, public-address and in-person warnings against "initiation" activities. They weren't effective, Casey Culpepper said.

     "Everybody would just start to laugh, because everybody knew that nobody ever got punished for it," she said.

     Perhaps that's what shocked students, parents and others who complained of overkill last fall when police charged eight teenage boys, including seven students, with abduction or assault or both. The students were sentenced to probation and community service, and expelled from school. At least some have been allowed to return, however, for their senior year.

     This week, those warnings will be amplified, said Arthur V. Brandriff Jr., the school's principal for 37 years. School officials will emphasize their legal right to discipline students for actions off school property, if they're on their way to or from classes, he said.

     Officials also plan to emphasize that volunteering to be hazed also is wrong. Police will beef up their presence around the school, including officers on bicycles. And student leaders will be recruited to talk to their peers, under the assumption that students will listen to them more than to adults.

     A specific prohibition against hazing was added to the school division's policy in the fall, following a state directive. No other steps are planned, board members said. They're expecting that expelling hazers last fall put students on notice.

     "How many times," School Board member James A. Jay Leftwich Jr. asked, "are you supposed to tell somebody that you're not supposed to do something?"

     "Some of them were good kids," said Jack J. Bider, the Chesapeake Police detective stationed at the school. "It sounds like it could be an innocent thing when you're back. But you have to put yourself in these victim's positions."

     "School shouldn't be a place you're scared to go to, especially your first day."

"Powder Puff" Football Game Out of Bounds

     A muddy, violent girls' football "game" pushed high school hazing into the public eye. Television viewers around the world repeatedly saw the videotape in May 2003 of Chicago-area seniors beating and kicking their junior schoolmates and dumping buckets of urine, feces and animal entrails on them.

     Five students were hospitalized, one with a fractured skull and tailbone. Sixteen others were convicted of battery or alcohol charges, including Marnie Gaule. Thirty-three were expelled from school. Two mothers were convicted of providing beer to minors. Lawsuits were filed.

     Researchers say hazing occurs regularly in high schools nationwide, affecting many thousands annually.

Tips for Parents

     • Educate yourself. Read books on hazing from your library. Find out what your state's laws and school division's policies are concerning hazing.

     • Ask what measures your school or division is taking to prevent hazing and how they respond--the repercussions--when it occurs.

     • Ask your PTA or school administrators to invite police to talk to parents and students about hazing and the law.

     • Talk to other parents, especially of older children and your children's teammates. What have their children seen or experienced about hazing?

     • If your children have been hazed, tell school officials immediately. If physical abuse was involved, call police. Though your children may be reluctant to "tell on" peers, get details from them about the incident.

     • Set a good example--be independent yourself. Don't participate in activities that degrade people.

     • Encourage your children's individuality. Help them choose activities fostering positive social skills, and encourage them to choose friends who show them respect.

     • Most importantly, talk to your children. Make sure they know they can talk with you about anything that's making them uncomfortable.

     • Here's where you pull out the "if everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you, too?" speech. Remind them that they shouldn't feel pressured to do something, despite tradition or crowd mentality.

     • Talk specifically about hazing. Discuss how they should handle a hypothetical hazing situation. Don't lecture--it's more effective for your children to tell you what they'd do or what they think. Remind them that often it only takes one person to speak out or take a different action to change a situation, that it's important to tell them or school officials whenever students cause other students harm.

     • And explain that physical or mental abuse, big or small, shouldn't be part of joining groups or being "cool." It also could be illegal.

Sources: KidsHealth, StopHazing.org, Guidance Channel Online

News researcher Ann Kinken Johnson contributed to this report.

Reach Matthew Bowers at (757) 222-5120 or matthew.bowers@pilotonline.com.

Two

INDIANAPOLIS STAR (Indianapolis, IN) Nov. 17, 2004, n.p.

Reprinted by permission. Distributed by Tribune Media Services.

When Rites Are Wrong: Opponents of Hazing Mobilize Forces

By T.J. Banes The Indianapolis Star http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SPL2300-0-3494&artno=0000205419&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=&res=Y&ren=Y&gov=Y&lnk=Y&ic=N Accessed on 03/29/2006 from SIRS Researcher via SIRS Knowledge Source <http://www.sirs.com>

     A scar the size of a dime on Jessica Zimmerman's right hip tells the story of an event that changed her life forever.

     She was a freshman at DePauw University, among people she considered close friends. After inducing her to drink alcohol, they branded her with a lighted cigarette as part of an initiation.

     "If I had a daughter or a friend who wanted to pledge a sorority today, I wouldn't discourage her, but I'd make sure she knew how to set boundaries," says Zimmerman, now 26. She has a master's degree in mental health counseling and is four credits shy of her school counseling license.

     Hazing, as a rite of passage, has been documented in professional football, the military and other groups. But it is most associated with college fraternity life.

     A half-dozen "pledge paddles" line the wall of Sigma Nu's fraternity house TV room at Butler University, but they are for decoration only.

     "We don't haze; we don't believe in any of it," says Daniel Walt, a senior at Butler and a fraternity member.

     Sigma Nu does not allow hazing, but it does employ a seniority system: Younger members mop the floors more often than the older ones. That isn't unlike a football practice, in which rookies do the grunt work, such as lugging the veterans' shoulder pads from the locker room to the practice field and back. Like Sigma Nu, most Greek organizations agree not to haze initiates.

     Still, the number of hazing incidents nationwide continues to make headlines.

     Last year, Franklin College professor Hank Nuwer tracked more than 200 media reports of hazing throughout the United States; nearly double the number of reports two years ago. With a grant from the college, Nuwer plans to compile the most up-to-date listing of national hazing incidents. He says his current research shows that more incidents involved fraternities than sororities. The greatest increase was in high school athletics, says Nuwer.

     "Nobody really knows if the incidents are increasing, but the media is definitely more on top of it," says Nuwer. Part of that is making people understand what hazing is, added Nuwer.

     "Hazing means different things to different people," says Daniel Walt, who came to Butler from Quincy, Ill.

     He advises anyone considering joining a group to learn precisely what's involved in its initiation ritual. "You have to be clear with yourself: 'This is what I'm going to accept; if this happens, no.' Know what your limits are. And if you can't comfortably talk with (the members) about what makes you uncomfortable, then you're best not doing it."

Ritual Burning

     In Zimmerman's case, she didn't see it coming.

     As a condition of a lawsuit settlement between her and members of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, Zimmerman is not allowed to publicly discuss specifics of the ritual that took place in the fall of 1997. The incident, however, was widely publicized at the time, including a national report on ABC's "20/20," and in a book on hazing, "Wrongs of Passage," (Indiana University Press, $13.97) by Nuwer.

     Zimmerman's mother, Cindie Shaleen, who is organizing the first Indiana chapter of Mothers Against School Hazing (MASH, Inc.), says Zimmerman was one of six "pledges," or would-be members, taken into a darkened dorm room.

     Sorority members entered the room dressed in sheets, chanting, and encouraged the girls to drink alcohol. They then burned them with cigarettes, causing scars said to be "a family sign," "a tradition," recalls Shaleen. The next day, Zimmerman received medical treatment for the burns.

     People often think of hazing as paddling, drinking games and other "Animal House" behavior.

     Hazing ranges from seemingly innocuous activities such as blindfolding and scavenger hunts to dangerous, extreme physical punishments including sleep deprivation and excessive exercise, according to www.stophazing.org.

     Those involved often look at hazing as an unpleasant way of earning membership in a club, team or even military branch.

     The U.S. Department of Education requires colleges to report offenses. However, some psychological abuse such as insults or name-calling go unreported

     Some experts say laws and school bans might actually increase interest in hazing as a kind of secret taboo. Others say television shows such as "Jackass" and "Fear Factor" might contribute to the number of hazing incidents across the country.

Mothers List Tips on How to Stop Hazing, Bullying

The Indianapolis Star

     Mothers Against School Hazing Inc. (MASH), a nonprofit national organization, describes hazing as bullying, a negative act or words to hurt, embarrass or humiliate another person.

     Following are some tips the organization offers for parents and their children to stop bullying and hazing:

     • Refuse to be a spectator.

     • Report incidents. Tell school or university authorities.

     • Use distractions to stop the incident.

     • Befriend a lonely student who may be vulnerable to bullies.

     • Talk about hazing and bullying with friends, school counselors and parents.

     • If you or your child is subjected to bullying or hazing, seek medical attention and counseling.

     • Understand that feeling threatened is a form of hazing.

     • Educating children and young adults about hazing is the first step in stopping it.

On the Web:

www.mashinc.org, Mothers Against School Hazing.

www.stophazing.org, provides definitions, laws and resources about hazing.

www.hazing.hanknuwer.com, Hank Nuwer, author of four books on hazing.

www.campuspeak.com, Denver organization provides educational speakers and programs for college students and administrators.

Three

AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL Aug. 2000, pp. 18-23

Reprinted, with permission, from THE AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL, August 2000. Copyright 2000, the National School Boards Association. All rights reserved.

BRUTAL RITUALS, DANGEROUS RITES High School Hazing Grows Violent and Humiliating by Kevin Bushweller http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SPL2300-0-3494&artno=0000121184&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=&res=Y&ren=Y&gov=Y&lnk=Y&ic=N Accessed on 03/29/2006 from SIRS Researcher via SIRS Knowledge Source <http://www.sirs.com>

     Christopher Wall was afraid to go into the varsity football locker room at his Mansfield, Texas, high school. Once, he recalls, when a junior varsity player wandered into the locker room to retrieve some socks, he was wrestled to the floor and kicked by a gang of older kids.

     That's why Christopher stayed away. But one November morning, a coach told him to return his football equipment to the varsity locker room. Christopher figured he was safe just this once. But after he dropped off his gear and hurried to leave, teenage voices and shadows in the background made him uneasy.

     Suddenly, a bulkier, older varsity player stepped in front of him. The veteran player asked what grade he was in. Before 15-year-old Christopher could answer, a gang of boys emerged from the shadows and grabbed and punched him in the chest and shoulders. Christopher recalls: "I was thinking: I just need to get out." Trapped in a blur of flailing arms, the 5-foot-11-inch, 145-pound boy broke free. He raced past rows of lockers to a door leading outside.

     When he returned home, he told his mother he was having trouble breathing. According to a doctor's report provided to AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL, the group beating resulted in "contusions to the chest area" and a "mild appearance" of fluid in the lungs.

     Christopher's parents transferred their son to a private school.

     'IT JUST TERRIFIES AND APPALLS ME'

     This boy's experience, unfortunately, is no anomaly. A rash of increasingly violent and humiliating hazing incidents in high schools--especially on athletic teams--is alarming school officials across the country.

     In Trumbull, Conn., for example, nine members of a high school wrestling team were charged this winter with felonious assault and reckless endangerment for brutally hazing younger teammates. In that case, a 15-year-old wrestler was bound with tape, rolled up in a wrestling mat, and thrown against a wall. Then the boy was held down while teammates raped him with the handle of a plastic knife.

     In San Angelo, Texas, four varsity players allegedly beat a junior varsity player with a paddle made from a baseball bat. In Howard County, Md., younger high school soccer players were forced to stand bent over, facing a wall, while older players kicked soccer balls at them. One boy suffered a concussion when a ball knocked his head against a wall, according to the Baltimore Sun. And in Avon, Ind., an overnight high school football camp included nighttime beatings of younger players with electrical cords, belts, and tennis balls stuffed in socks.

     Hazing--the practice of seasoned veterans intimidating, humiliating, or physically punishing younger recruits as a rite of passage--is nothing new, of course. In recent years, some brutal hazing rituals in the military were captured on videotape and later aired on national television. Veteran soldiers who defended the brutality argue that it toughens new recruits for the mental and physical trials of war. In sports, to deflate young superstar egos, older teammates often humiliate rookie athletes. And, many college fraternities and sororities are notorious for their bizarre or potentially deadly initiation rites.

     Less known was how frequently this goes on in high schools, says Hank Nuwer, author of HIGH SCHOOL HAZING: WHEN RITES BECOME WRONGS. Over the past few years, Nuwer says, there has been an increasing number of reported cases in high schools, some of the incidents followed by costly lawsuits filed against school districts for failing to prevent hazing. Not only has the number of such incidents grown, he says, but so have the degree of violence involved and the pressure to perform humiliating simulated sex acts. In some instances, Nuwer says, human excrement has been rubbed on students' faces and older kids have urinated on younger ones, creating potentially serious health hazards. Most of the reported incidents involve athletic teams, but Nuwer says hazing occurs in other aspects of high school life as well.

     The only national survey of hazing shows it is probably more pervasive than most school officials would like to believe. Nearly eight of every 10 college athletes reported they experienced questionable or unacceptable initiation rites, according to an Alfred University study (http://www.alfred.edu/news/html/executive_summary.html). Of the 255,637 college athletes who reported being hazed in college during the 1998-99 academic year, more than four of every 10 said they were subjected to hazing in high school, and one of every 20 said it happened in middle school.

     In Christopher's case, Nuwer sees many of the typical signs of hazing: Older students intimidating younger ones. Gangs of kids fueling each other's aggression. A general fear, among younger players, of the veterans.

     Even so, school officials refuse to call Christopher's beating an incident of hazing. After Mansfield Independent School District police conducted an investigation and interviewed the 12 kids involved, says district spokesperson Sherilyn Conn, "it appeared to us not to be an organized hazing incident. It was not a premeditated plan." She says the district saw the beating more as a random act of aggression.

     Beyond that, says Conn, the punishment for the students involved was "swift and harsh." They were slapped with three to six days of in-school suspension and suspended for a few games if they were playing winter or spring sports. Says Conn: "We felt we made an absolute statement that this behavior would not be tolerated."

     Christopher and his parents see it differently. They believe a culture of intimidation and aggression existed in the locker room. That, they say, is what set the stage for their son's beating. "This is horrible that kids are doing this to other kids," says Rose Mary Wall, Christopher's mother. "It just terrifies and appalls me."

     In the cafeteria the day of the beating, Christopher says, some of the students involved were bragging: "Yeah, we got him." Worse still, after his parents reported the incident to school officials, Christopher says a friend called to tell him the older boys were angry. Christopher believes they wanted to settle the score: "I felt very fearful."

     'IT WAS A DISTURBING INCIDENT'

     On a cold December night in Essex, Vt., Lizzie Murtie--a 5-foot-1-inch, 100-pound, 14-year-old who collected Beanie Babies and worshipped the older girls on her high school gymnastics team--was trapped. She was standing in a parking lot, surrounded by a circle of cars and dozens of teenagers.

     Earlier that night, Lizzie had to don a tennis outfit and stand on a busy street corner and sing "I'm a little teapot, short and stout." After a few other relatively harmless initiation rituals, Lizzie thought the night was over and the kids would head back to a teammate's house for what had been billed to parents as a team sleepover.

     That's when the veteran gymnasts drove Lizzie and the other rookies to the parking lot. A boy was standing on the edge of the circle. One by one, the older girls ordered the younger ones to walk over to the boy, get on their knees, and put their hands behind their back. Then, they had to eat a banana that was protruding out of the boy's zipper.

     According to Lizzie's mother, Linda Murtie, if the rookie gymnasts didn't do what they were told, the older girls warned them they would not be considered part of the team. And, if they told anyone about what happened in that parking lot, they would get everyone in trouble--maybe even cause the gymnastics season to be canceled.

     Lizzie, fear and confusion swirling in her head, did what she was told to do. So did the other younger girls.

     The gymnastics season went on, and Lizzie competed. But she told nobody about the hazing. "After it happened, I tried to block it out of my mind, but I still knew it was there," she told AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL. "I got really depressed. I had trouble concentrating. My grades dropped. I didn't want to be around any of my friends. I just pretty much stayed at home in my room. I felt like I couldn't trust anybody. I had looked up to them, the seniors--most of them were good students, going on to college."

     Near the end of the school year, long after the gymnastics season ended, a parent overheard her daughter talking about the incident and reported it to the gymnastics coach. The Murties were contacted. Linda Murtie recalls her daughter crying that day and saying over and over: "I can finally tell you."

     That was more than three years ago. But Linda Murtie still bristles at what she considers a lackluster response from the school. She believes none of the students involved were punished.

     Mike Deweese, co-superintendent of the Chittenden Central Supervisory Union, which includes Essex High School, disagrees. Most of the students were held accountable, he says. Because the incident was reported to school officials near the end of a school year, Deweese says, the district gave the students involved three choices: They could choose not to attend graduation ceremonies, commit to 30 hours of community service, or put in 10 hours of work developing a school anti-hazing program. They all chose the community service, Deweese says, and only two of the 12 did not honor that commitment. Those two were seniors.

     All the sophomores and juniors returning for the next school year were put on athletic probation for a full year. And, Deweese says, the students paid for revisions to the school's yearbook to cover up surreptitious references to bananas in the "Locker Room Chatter" section of that year's edition.

     On one thing, though, Linda Murtie and Deweese do agree: "It was a disturbing incident," he says.

     'WHAT MAKES HAZING DIFFICULT IS THE ISSUE OF CONSENT'

     Fortunately, Lizzie bounced back. Next year, she will be the captain of her gymnastics team. And she's become a high-profile opponent of hazing in her state and in the nation. She lobbied the legislature to pass Vermont's first anti-hazing law and was invited to join the governor this spring when he signed the bill into law.

     But her lobbying for the law likely would have fallen on deaf ears if not for a disturbing hazing scandal this winter involving the much touted University of Vermont (UVM) hockey team, says Bill Sorrell, the state's attorney general. In a disgusting display of human behavior, UVM freshman hockey players were pressured to drink warm beer and eat seafood pie until they vomited and to participate in a bizarre ritual called the "elephant walk," in which the freshmen stripped off their clothes and stood in a line with other rookies. Older players ordered them to grab the genitals of the player in front of them and walk around the room without breaking the human chain.

     The incident made national headlines when a freshman player who endured it, but was later cut from the team, filed a lawsuit against the university for failing to prevent hazing. During a university investigation, virtually every player lied to investigators, according to Sorrell. When school officials learned that they had been deceived, the university president canceled the remainder of the team's season.

     The more Sorrell dug into the issue, he says, the more convinced he became that the Murtie family was right--Vermont needed an anti-hazing law. "What makes hazing difficult is the issue of consent," says Sorrell. "Some say 'I had a great time.' Others say 'I had a miserable time.' And others see it as a necessary evil." Psychologists say most students endure hazing and never tell anyone outside the group because of an overwhelming need to belong.

     Indeed, in Sorrell's follow-up investigation, a veteran UVM player defended the tradition: "I enjoyed it. It was fun. It's a bonding experience for us."

     "That's bull," says Art Taylor, a psychologist at the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University in Massachusetts. Humiliating hazing rituals are more likely to tear people apart, destroy trust, and cause feelings of hatred, he says. What's more, he suggests, boys and men who enjoy hazing others in brutal or humiliating ways are more likely to become abusive husbands or fathers.

     In the end, Vermont's anti-hazing law passed, but Sorrell believes it is not tough enough. The law provides for civil penalties of up to $5,000, but Sorrell wanted criminal penalties. Still, he says, it's a start. To begin with, the law makes it clear that a hazing victim's consent to endure a ritual is not a defense for the accused. The law also requires that all public school districts and colleges have anti-hazing policies in place by the 2001 school year. (For a breakdown of state-by-state anti-hazing laws, see http://www.stophazing.org/laws.html.)

     Over the past several months, Sorrell says, he's heard from a number of public school parents who say hazing is practiced in their children's schools. In light of that, he warns school officials against assuming "that [hazing] is not going on or hasn't gone on." Schools can't afford to turn a blind eye to hazing, he says, because it can range from "the silly to the deadly."

     Alice Haben knows the deadly consequences of hazing all too personally. Her son Nick--a muscular kid with a wide, welcoming smile--died in a college lacrosse team hazing incident at Western Illinois University in 1990. Now, Haben visits secondary schools and colleges to talk to students and educators about the dangers of hazing. "My point when I talk to young people is that they have to have control," she says.

     Nick was just 18 when he was pressured to consume extraordinary amounts of hard liquor and beer, jump over bonfires, do push-ups and sit-ups, and swim in a creek--all part of a day of hazing. Eventually, Nick passed out and fell into a coma. But instead of taking him to the hospital, his older teammates, the ones running the hazing ritual, left Nick on the ground while the initiation rituals continued, according to his mother. Later, a group of rookies carried him back to his dorm room, where he died. His mother laments: "It would have taken only one person to save my son's life."

     This year, Alice Haben is working with a group of parents in a school district in Illinois, where some parents are worried about the possibility of what Haben calls the "snowball effect." Each year, freshmen at the school are pressured to participate in a hazing ritual in which boys are forced to push a truck up a hill and girls have food smeared on their faces. But some parents fear that each successive class will try to outdo the previous one, inventing more dangerous or humiliating experiences. The event occurs off school grounds and not during school hours--still, Haben says, school officials need to confront it, especially if parents are worried.

     Even if hazing is not happening in high school, she says, high school administrators should address the issue before students go to college. If students are taught to refuse to participate in dangerous hazing rituals, she believes, someone's life could be saved. "It's a power struggle--[the hazers] are saying, 'I'm better than you and if you do what I say you'll be as good as me,'" says Haben. "Kids need to know they have choices."

     'WE JUST LIE IN FEAR ALL NIGHT'

     One difficult choice students have is to break the code of silence surrounding hazing. That's what happened last year at Avon High School in Avon, Ind.

     Marina Hennessy, a reporter for the school's student newspaper, THE ECHO, had read about a hazing incident involving a swimming team at a nearby high school. Boys were apparently sexually assaulted with objects as part of the hazing rituals.

     Marina didn't think anything like that could happen at her school. Indeed, she had heard that Avon's cross-country team practiced positive bonding rituals, such as rock climbing. Marina planned to write a fall sports roundup of these positive rituals. She started with the football team. And that's when her story took a decidedly different twist.

     At a summer overnight football camp, players told her, rookies on the varsity football team (most of them sophomores) were beaten with electrical cords, belts, and tennis balls wrapped in socks. Sometimes the beatings were random; sometimes the rookies were ordered to line up to be hit. A few boys told Marina they thought the beatings made stronger, better football players of the rookies. But she says most kids believed it was a cruel and pointless tradition. In her story, one boy tells Marina: "I kind of wish the coaches would do something about it; instead we just lie in fear all night."

     Pam Essex, an English and journalism teacher who serves as THE ECHO's faculty adviser, says the Avon principal, who has since been put on paid administrative leave for an unrelated matter, ordered Essex not to publish the story. The principal accused Marina of sensationalizing what was simply "youthful horseplay," according to Essex. But Marina's mother threatened that, if the story were killed, she would take it to the local newspaper or the school board. The principal backed off.

     In the aftermath, the football coach--who was unaware of the team's hazing traditions--resigned. Dick Helton, Avon superintendent, says the new football coach has canceled the overnight camp this year. If the camp is started up again, Helton promises there will be more vigilant adult supervision. School administrators and coaches also plan to institute more positive initiation rituals to build team unity. And, Helton says, the district is thinking of having a sports psychologist talk to student athletes about the dangers of hazing.

     As it is, the district has no specific anti-hazing policy because Helton believes current school policies addressing student behavior and conduct cover hazing. More important, Helton believes, is the fact that school officials are on the lookout.

     Still, Essex, a 23-year teaching veteran, worries. She was startled by the comments of some students' fathers. After Marina's story attracted coverage from the local newspaper and television stations, some fathers told Essex they didn't see what the big deal was about the traditional beatings: "Well, that's what happened when I was in high school."

     Essex says the younger football players had a much different reaction: "They came to me and said, 'Thank you for running that story.'"

     * * *

     TACKLING HAZING

     It's tempting to believe your student-athletes would never haze teammates. But think again, warns Art Taylor, a psychologist at the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University. "The more a school board and athletic director play ostrich and put their heads in the sand, the more they're going to get these kinds of problems."

     Anti-hazing experts say there are some commonsense ways to keep hazing out of your schools--and protect your district against legal action if a hazing incident occurs.

     - REACT IMMEDIATELY AND AGGRESSIVELY. At Glendale High school in Glendale, Calif., veteran football players chased younger players around the locker room, pinning victims on the floor or holding them against a wall while poking them in the pants with a sawed-off broom handle. When police investigated, none of the players said they were offended by the tradition. "They thought it was just goofing around," says Sgt. Rick Young of the Glendale City police department.

     Because nobody complained, and because the broom handle was not used to sexually assault any students, the police dropped the case. The school district could have brushed the incident off and moved on. But it didn't. "We took it much more seriously [than the police]," says Mike Livingston, coprincipal of the 3,500-student school. "We don't think it's horseplay."

     Students involved were suspended and made to do 40 hours of community service. Soon after, the school also created a policy that specifically banned hazing. What's more, Livingston says, school officials plan to hire locker-room security personnel.

     - HAVE A SPECIFIC ANTI-HAZING POLICY. Too often, anti-hazing policies are crafted only after an incident occurs. That's usually too late, says Douglas Fierberg, a Washington, D.C., attorney who has represented hazing victims in court cases. Schools without policies put themselves at greater risk of being sued.

     Fierberg says anti-hazing policies should define hazing and identify behaviors that are unacceptable. Beyond that, he says, a policy needs to be communicated to students and school officials. "Do you have coaches include it as a discussion item at the beginning of the season? Or is it just a case of [the coaches saying], 'Here's the sign-up sheet, and by the way, what's your jock size?'"

     - EDUCATE YOUR COACHES. Many coaches participated in hazing rituals when they were younger, and some might believe the experience made them tougher, says Hank Nuwer, author of HIGH SCHOOL HAZING: WHEN RITES BECOME WRONGS. But "if a coach gives tacit approval of hazing," Nuwer warns, "that'll kill you in court."

     A hazing scandal that led to the cancellation of the University of Vermont hockey season "set off a light bulb for all of us," says Jim Desmarais, executive director of the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association. This year, for the first time, the association's annual conference for high school athletic directors included a workshop on tactics for preventing hazing. Says Desmarais: "We need to heighten awareness."

     - HAVE ADULT SUPERVISION IN THE LOCKER ROOM. When Al Dobson became athletic director at New Hampshire's Lebanon High School, several coaches were not school employees. More often than Dobson liked, those coaches were late reaching the locker room because they were held up at their jobs. To ensure that there were adults in the locker room before the students arrived, he has tried to hire more coaches who work at the school. But sometimes that's easier said than done. It's difficult to find good coaches who also work in the school--and in some cases, men coach girls' teams and women coach boys' teams. That's why Glendale's Livingston says it's easier for his school to create a locker-room watchdog position.

     - SURVEY YOUR ALUMNI. Current students might not be willing to break the code of silence surrounding hazing, says Taylor, who suggests surveying alumni instead. What initiation rituals did they experience? Taylor says rituals are usually passed along from one class to the next.

     - PAY ATTENTION TO LITTLE THINGS. If you notice that older athletes aren't carrying equipment bags but younger ones are carrying two or three each, the older students are clearly bossing the younger ones around. And there could be more serious hazing behaviors going on, says Dobson: "It can escalate."

     For more resources on this topic, go to http://www.stophazing.org.--Kevin Bushweller

     * * *

     Kevin Bushweller (kbushweller@nsba.org) is a senior editor of AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL.

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