high school hazing

[FuzzieAlum]

I know there are high schools and h.s groups that haze, but I was surprised to see this high school announcing it so opening on the web for everyone to see:
http://www.saskschools.ca/~kipling/grassroots/init.html

What's more, this page isn't the creation of one kid. It was an official school project (click on the grassroots link to find out more).

Is it just me or is this like saying, "Hey, sue us! Go right ahead! Our students are hazing, and we know it, and we don't even care!" (I'm assuming hazing isn't any more legal in Canada than it is in the U.S.)

[prophet]

I can't even type WTF because this deserves the whole What The Fuck! You must be joking, how can a school be glorifying hazing! Okay, where is the media on this one. If I was a reporter I would make a mockery of this school and its ideals of fun. I am so heated about this-this show of proud bullies. Hazing is being a bully towards another. I hope people now understand Hazing is not just a college Greek thing!
FKT

[chideltjen]

Yes... initiation exists because it's FUN! what a load of crap. I betcha those 9th graders are now growing up with severe mental issues. Can you imagine holding a grudge against the senior football captain as a scrawny frosh because he made you dress as a drag queen for the day? (That's just an example from my twisted mind... I don't know if that really happened...)

[XOMichelle]

I went to a hign school that had a long (read:50) year tradition of Freshman Orientation. Freshman were required to wear a beanie and a pin for three weeks (after the freshman-senior picnic till Homecoming). The senoirs, although not allowed to make us late for class, interfere with our studying, or do anyhting really mean to us, could ask us to carry books, write weird things on our beanies, or ask us to play games or do favors. The senoirs were required to wear a button with their name on it to identify them as seniors. Personally, I loved it. I had a big brother and a big sister. They took me out to lunch and talked to me during our orientation. I wanted people to ask me to bake things for them! We had a day where the seniors brought food and clothes, and we all got together and ate while they gave us costumes to wear for the rest of the day. Since our school had strict uniform, it was awesome to get to be the only people in the school who weren't wearing our normal drab outfits. Really, the whole thing was a popularity contest: the more the seniors paid attention to you, the cooler your peers thought you were.

Now, I know in the greek world this is 100% hazing: the senior members make the junior members do things they themselves are not doing. However, I thought the experience was fun and worthwhile. Freshman were allowed to not participate if they felt they were uncomfortable. Many of my friends didn't wear their beanies, and no one cared.

The school has since done away with the beanies, substituting T-shirts, and has made sure that the seniors can not and do not ask the freshman to do anything. This is much more PC, and really what the school should do, but this new method doesn't promote interaction like the traditional one. I was sad to see the tradition go, since it was so longstanding, and I had lots of fun doing it.

I know what you are thinking: How can she think this way? What a witch! But I really liked the attention on the other end, and the events were quite harmeless.
-Michelle

[NoShame_Gamma]

At my H.S. the Drill Team had a "tradition" of initiating its new members the day before our homecoming game. (Our homecoming is always against the same school and has been a HUGE rivalry for over 50 years. It's known as the "East L. A. Classic and for the last two years has been played at the L.A. Coliseum.) Anyway, it was sort of an obstacle course with stations set up around the football field and would take place while the football team was practicing. At the end of the "initiation" we would all hit the showers and then join the band on the field (by then the football team was done) for our night practice.

On a side note, I had fun doing it my first year in Drill. There wasn't any verbal or physical abuse, but a lot of sloppy make-up, hair do's, and dirty clothes. Plus, nobody ever complained. There were actually some girls who had never worn make-up because of allergies, so when they got to the make-up station, nothing happened to them.

[hoosier]

High school frat hazing injures three boys

Friday, August 02, 2002

By PETER POCHNA AND CHARLES AUSTIN
Staff Writers


Some Hawthorne High School students will soon face charges for a fraternity hazing incident that sent three boys to the hospital last weekend, police said Thursday.

Although police declined to comment on the nature of the injuries, a parent familiar with the incident said the injured youths - incoming freshmen - were severely paddled on their buttocks. The parent, as well as others familiar with the incident, said the investigation apparently is centering on Sigma Kappa Delta, a fraternity with a long and checkered history at Hawthorne High.

Police said the three boys were treated at The Valley Hospital following the incident Friday night in a wooded area just across the town line in Ridgewood. Investigators described the acts as criminal.

"I don't care how people might sugarcoat this - it was violence and we are not taking it lightly,'' said Ridgewood police Capt. Keith Killion.

He said the investigation is complicated because so many students were involved, but that some juveniles as well as young adults will be charged early next week. The charges could range from hazing, a disorderly persons offense, to the more serious crime of aggravated assault, he said.

A father of one of the alleged victims declined to discuss what happened to his son.

"I've got a lawyer, and I was advised not to comment on anything,'' the father said.

The incident puts the spotlight on a fraternity that has generated controversy several times since its founding more than 40 years ago.

Jayne Ace-Bosgra, a former head of the high school Parent Teacher Organization, said the group's activities may be "evolving out of control.''

She said her son, who graduated last year, was approached by SKD his freshman year. He declined to join and went on to have a great high school career, she said.

"As far as I'm concerned, they're just another organized gang," Ace-Bosgra said.

In 1986, Hawthorne's school board adopted a policy to suspend any students who belonged to fraternities, sororities, or secret societies.

School officials at the time said the clubs foster elitism, bigotry, and rowdy behavior.

Officials cited an incident in which a bus from a rival school was pelted with rocks and bottles after a football game.

School officials also said fraternity members had carved emblems into desks and spray-painted school walls.

They pointed to SKD and two other groups as the active fraternities.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the school district on behalf of some students and parents, arguing that the policy trampled on the students' First Amendment right of association.

The school dropped the policy, but kept rules banning the organizations from operating in school as well as forbidding students from wearing clothing adorned with fraternal symbols.

In 1990, about 20 SKD members wore their group's shirt to school.

They were told to turn the shirts inside out. At the time, students estimated that 80 of the 455 enrolled at the high school were members of SKD or other similar groups.

Hawthorne police Lt. Martin Boyd said the department has known about SKD and fraternities for years, but is unfamiliar with their activities.

They are "more or less secretive organizations,'' Boyd said.

He said SKD has had no particular trouble with police in the past.

Hawthorne school officials declined to return telephone calls on Thursday.

Mayor Fred Criscitelli said the school has done what it can to stop the fraternities' activities.

"I've never known them [SKD] to do any good deeds,'' the mayor said.

Peter Pochna's e-mail address is pochna@northjersey.com; Charles Austin's e-mail address is austin@northjersey.com

4499252

[madmax]

Do any national GLOs have high school chapters?

[hoosier]

There was a huge NIC fight some years ago about allowing the natl. mens GLOs to have chapters at junior colleges. Sigma Pi, I think, was actually founded at a junior college in Indiana.

Eventually junior college chapters were allowed by the NIC, but in spite of the hard-fought approval, few if any junior college chapters were chartered.

Most think we have enough problems with four-year collegians.

[chideltjen]

I have never even HEARD of fraternities and sororities being on a high school campus. Maybe it's cuz i went to private school but my brother attended a public school and there was no such thing. Are chapters in high schools a popular thing in different states? I have never heard of them until now.

[Cluey]

We had sororities and fraternities at my high school, most of which were patterned after some national group. I was actually a member of Anchors, which was patterned after Alpha Sigma Tau, I believe. We had 3 other "sororities" at my high school, though. "Recruitment" would go on during Club Day and if the officers liked you, they would invite you to their meeting later that night.

The weird thing was that there was only one fraternity. They threw parties all the time at different people's houses. That's pretty much all I remember them ever doing.

The worst hazing, though, didn't come from the sororities or fraternities; it came from the band. That is a whole other discussion completely...

[hoosier]

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.

[hoosier]

Hazing reveals dark side of school
Sunday, August 04, 2002

By CHARLES AUSTIN
Staff Writer


Last week, a shadowy fraternity of Hawthorne teenagers and young adults allegedly conducted an initiation ritual that left three youths badly hurt.

The identities of the alleged assailants remained unknown Friday, but could be revealed by early this week, when police in Ridgewood, where the incident occurred on July 26, say they expect to make arrests.

Police said they are withholding the names of the victims because they are minors. Parents familiar with the incident say the youths - incoming freshmen at Hawthorne High School - were severely paddled on the buttocks. Although police have declined to describe the injuries, they said the victims were hospitalized.

Meanwhile, the fraternity known as Sigma Delta Kappa, whose members allegedly took part in the hazing incident, is so secretive that Hawthorne authorities and average residents alike seemed to know little about it. Police said they had not had any prior difficulties with the group; residents said they knew of the hazing incident, but no one interviewed could provide names of current members of the group.

Part of the mystery may lie in history: The "fraternities" and "sororities" were once integral parts of teenage social life in Hawthorne. Though their influence has faded, there still is a mystique attached to the unofficial fraternities that have drawn Hawthorne High students into their circles for decades.

Former members describe the fraternities and sororities of the 1950s and 1960s as benign social clubs that would meet, conduct a little business, and then adjourn to the soda shop. Secret, ritualistic initiations - often involving being spanked by fraternity members - were an accepted part of teenage social life. Being a fraternity member meant having a group of special friends with similar interests. If there was a little rowdiness, said one parent, people looked the other way.

Today the remaining fraternities, SDK and another shadowy group known as Omega, reveal a dark side that repels many students and causes dismay among former members.

Some in town thought the organizations were dormant. Mayor Fred Crescitelli said he was "just beginning to learn" about the alleged activities of the fraternity.

Donna Shortway, whose family has run Shortway's Barn in Hawthorne, a bar and restaurant, for more than 50 years, agreed that hazing, especially paddling for the boys, was always a part of fraternity and sorority life. She remembers her brothers were eager to join the fraternities, but says she always thought the paddling was ridiculous.

"I cried when I knew they would have to go through it," she said.

Her brother Bill, a 1961 graduate of Hawthorne High School, remembers the fraternities and sororities as primarily social clubs that sometimes raised money for local charities. "And you were always considered a brother," he said. "Kids would look up to adults who had been members of their fraternity and give them special respect." Initiates were expected to have their fraternity book signed by all present and former members, he recalled.

Sororities also existed, said Donna Shortway, but generally without the punishing aspects of hazing. To prove their worthiness to join, girls would have to do things like carry the books of upper classmen or stand in public places and sing silly songs.

With their secrecy and the "hell nights" that were the initiation ceremonies, the fraternities and sororities were another way to express school spirit, or to be attached to a particular clique. Donna Shortway recalled, "I was absolutely thrilled when a sorority asked me to join."

In the 1980s, schools began banning the organizations from school property. An effort to suspend students who were members of the organizations failed on constitutional grounds but the school did ban students from wearing their insignia on school property, citing incidents of vandalism and rowdiness attributed to the fraternities.

The sororities slowly faded away, said Shirley English, another Shortway daughter who attended Hawthorne High and was a sorority member. But when her children passed through the school, the sororities had completely disappeared.

Current high school students say they know the fraternities are around, but they do not seem to be influential. "It's a scene I'd stay away from," said one senior, who did not want to reveal his name. His family has long been in Hawthorne and he said "I've heard that once they [the fraternity members] were a nice bunch of kids."

Another recent graduate, who now sometimes substitutes at Hawthorne High School, said that the fraternities seemed prominent when she entered the school in 1994, but were quickly fading away.

Ryan Defeo, who graduated from Hawthorne High School two years ago, speaks of the fraternities as vague, fringe entities of high school life. "I heard of them," he said, "but I never hung with that crowd." Like others, however, Defeo knew that paddling that had been a part of fraternity initiations.

Bill Shortway said each fraternity, usually designated by Greek letters, had their own signs. Sigma Kappa Delta was represented by a dog, he said, and another fraternity, Kappa Gamma Lambda, had a moose as its symbol. "There was discipline," he said, "if you talked out of turn at a meeting, you had to either pay a dollar or take a hit with the paddle."

Because it is believed that some Hawthorne graduates allegedly took part in the hazing, charges against adults are likely in the latest incident.

One high school senior not involved with a fraternity said, "This was a terrible mistake, and maybe people should learn from it."

[FuzzieAlum]

In answer to the question about national GLOs, I can only speak about the NPC, but it has a statement to the effect that it will have nothing to do with high school orgs.

[StarDust7381]

As long as things aren't harmful, I think pranks & other goofy requirements aren't bad. like XOMichelle, I would love the attetion from the members of a group with senority.

In HS, I was the youngest person to make the Varsity cheer team my sophmore year. I met soo many people through the girls and since I was the baby of the team I got special treatment & I loved it. It was realy cool knowing so many people but even better so many people who knew me and I didn't know them! At State Finals (HOORAH WE GOT TO GO!) I was told as a joke that I had to sleep in the bathtub & it was just all in fun. (My biggest concern was "well what if someone wants to take a shower??") So I went to go sleep in the bathtub & the girls took pictures and then told me it was a joke... I definetely remeber that season on the team better than any other. If it wasn't for the fact that I made the team during the winter term, I would have probably gotten to be especially close friends with the seniors who graduated that year. My subsequent years on the cheer squad, we had fun TPing the football players houses and they in turn to ours. Harmless pranks are awesome ways to create bonds between teammates, teams and between grade levels.

My sorority doesn't haze or require us to do any pranks which is a good policy but at the same time I was kinda dissapointed. I was looking forward to having to go out and do stupid pranks or jokes such as having to go do a solo seranade at a fraternity. (Esp at the houses with Josh Hartnett look-alikes) Half the time, during my pledge term I came up with silly ideas and talked some of the actives into acting them out with me. (i don't remember any of the jokes tho anymore tho)

Bottom line-I think as long as no one gets hurt, its all in fun, and the person is given a choice, its alright. It goes too far when the pranks are set up to hurt someone or have potential to be harmful.

[hoosier]

Bexar DA finds evidence of hazing

By Bridget Gutierrez
San Antonio Express-News

Web Posted : 08/14/2002 12:00 AM

A member of Churchill High School's highly decorated JROTC program hazed eight of his fellow cadets during a summer training session last month, an investigation by the Bexar County District Attorney's Office has concluded.

"I have screened the case and have determined that there is evidence of a hazing," Jill Mata, chief juvenile prosecutor, said Tuesday. "In looking at the offense, there are a lot of similarities between hazing and assault, but the elements in this case were more (clearly) hazing."

Last month, a 15-year-old boy told a North East School District police officer that another student had struck him repeatedly with a broom handle during a JROTC training session.

Because they are minors, the San Antonio Express-News has not released the boys' names.

Mata determined that eight boys had been hazed to "various degrees" when they were hit with the broom handle. Hazing is a Class B misdemeanor.

North East policy defines hazing as any intentional or reckless act — occurring on or off school property — that endangers the mental or physical health of a student for the "purpose of pledging, being initiated into, affiliating with, holding office in or maintaining membership" in any student group.

The district's punishment for hazing includes suspension, removal from extracurricular activities, district probation, placement in an alternative school or expulsion. This week, trustees toughened the policy by saying that student groups were responsible for reporting hazing and could be prohibited from competition if they participated.

"We have some children who are afraid of saying something because they don't want to hurt the team," Superintendent Richard Middleton said recently.

The 16-year-old whom officials have identified as the perpetrator at Churchill is expected to receive four to six months of informal probation, Mata said. That is unrelated to any punishment the school may impose.

bgutierrez@express-news.net