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Saturday, August 3, 2002
Cheer camp hazing leads to dismissals
By Marianne Love
Staff Writer
AZUSA -- When cheerleading starts up this school year, some girls on the Gladstone High School squad will be watching from a distance. Doreine Ramirez says she's being singled out for a minor prank.

School district officials say the 15-year-old broke the rules.

Ramirez, an incoming junior, was one of six girls who were either kicked off the cheer squad or suspended because of an initiation prank during a July 12-14 camp they attended at UCLA.

With her pompoms Doreine Ramirez, a Gladstone High School junior, poses in her Azusa bedroom. (SARAH REINGEWIRTZ/SGVN)

"I'm shocked," Ramirez said Thursday. "I don't think I did anything wrong."

The teen said early July 14, she and other varsity members went into the room of the junior varsity girls and toilet papered and put eye shadow and eyeliner on the sleeping girls' faces and crackers and candy on their bed.

"Last year when I was on junior varsity the girls did it to us. Why should we get kicked off this year?" Ramirez said.

Ramirez claims cheer adviser Teri Garcia looked the other way in the past.

Garcia, part of the school administration team handing out the disciplinary action, refused to comment about the incident. The school principal could not be reached for comment.

Azusa Unified School District officials support the administration.

"The school administration at Gladstone did a thorough investigation of what took place and after reviewing that information and looking back at the contracts ... they determined the disciplinary action," Art Hiett, senior director of pupil personnel services, said. "The district office reviewed (the action) and felt the appropriate decision was made."

Hiett said the decision was not based on similar behaviors by other groups in the past, only the actions of the girls attending the cheer camp and the contract they signed before going.

Gladstone's pep squad constitution does not address cheer camps in particular, but, in a letter sent to the parents dated July 7, they were asked to remind their children "that we will not only follow GHS pep squad rules, but also UCA (sic) camp rules. This includes no hazing of any type."

Hazing is usually associated with college fraternities or sororities.

Up until eight years ago, hazing went on at cheer camps held on the campus of the University of Mississippi until officials were forced to change its policies, Rusty Cooper, assistant director of camps and conference, said.

"There was one squad in particular that waited to get to camp to have that type of activity and was constantly in trouble with our camp officials and the university's cheerleader association," Cooper said. "As far as the discipline they had to endure once they got back home, I couldn't speak to ... but, that type of activity is fairly common."

Cooper said the turning point was complaints and the clean up that followed.

"They'd bring anything from sardines to cat food and make the biggest mess," he said. "It was ... hazing. We decided not only for liability purposes, but also because of the tremendous mess and cut it out all together."

While mom Lorraine Ramirez doesn't condone her daughter's action, she can't understand why school officials are making such a big deal over the incident.

"Doreine came home last year crying and upset,"Ramirez said. "I told her it's all in fun. That's what happens. Don't take it so seriously."

Now the older Ramirez is wondering if she should have reacted differently, especially in light of the cheer squad toilet papering her home last year, soaping the sidewalks in front of her house and pouring ketchup and spraying shaving cream in the family's driveway.

"Still I told (Doreine) it was all in fun," the mom said, adding that now the family is out $850 on cheerleading costs.

-- Marianne Love can be reached at (626) 962-8811, Ext. 2108, or by e-mail at marianne.lovesgvn.com.