article from Chicago Tribune re hazing

[NinjaPoodle]

Chicago Tribune
May 26, 2003

Across U.S., hazing lives despite laws

By V. Dion Haynes
Tribune national correspondent

The activities of the Kappa Alpha Society at Cornell University
caused a national furor when one of its pledges, a young man from St. Louis, died after plunging into a canal during a hazing ritual.

Amid the screaming headlines and the editorial cartoons that
demonized the perpetrators, Illinois adopted what is believed to be the first anti-hazing law to deter activities at school subjecting
any student "to ridicule for the pastime of others."

That law was passed 102 years ago, on May 10, 1901, which makes the recent case involving students from Glenbrook North High School in north suburban Northbrook an example of a persistent problem.

The same year the law was passed, newspapers were abuzz over the death of a West Point cadet and the subsequent trial during which another young cadet, Douglas MacArthur, testified about rampant hazing at the academy.

Yet the practice continues, and the Glenbrook North case has focused new attention on the Illinois law, under which 15 students have been charged, and similar statutes in 42 other states.

Despite the nearly unanimous support among the states for such
legislation, anti-hazing advocates contend that the laws either are too weak or are overlooked.

Moreover, some experts assert that these laws and bans by schools may be making hazing more attractive to youths and pushing it underground, where the activities go unsupervised. Some also worry that, in this era of "Jackass: The Movie" and the "Fear Factor" reality television program, the dangers associated with hazing may be escalating.

"Kids are more desensitized to the hazards. The initiation rites of a generation ago may seem tame and lame to them," said Tom Hutton, staff attorney at the National School Boards Association, who has helped draft anti-hazing policies for numerous districts.

"They try to find more ways to go over the top," he said.

For generations, hazing has been an integral part of society's rite
of passage, regarded as a means used by police and fire departments, the military, medical schools, college fraternal organizations, high school athletes--and even some professional sports teams--to build character and camaraderie in recruits.

Anthropologists and other experts say the practice has been occurring for thousands of years. Plato referred to it, and Byzantine Emperor Justinian I banned its use in some cases. In the 4th Century, St. Augustine wrote about his experiences of being hazed by a group called the Eversores.

Scholar Hank Nuwer, who has chronicled high school and college hazing in three books, including "Wrongs of Passage" in 1999, explained the rationale in schools: "Newcomers were accused of being criminal or wild beasts, and [the older students justified hazing by asserting] they needed a ritualistic exorcism."

"Students would get hit with wooden objects or paddled with a book or frying pan," said Nuwer, who also teaches journalism at Franklin College and Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis.

Deaths spur legislation

Now, under the 43 state anti-hazing laws, spurred by dozens of
hazing-related deaths, the practice is deemed a crime punishable by fines or imprisonment.

Since the 1990s, most national fraternal organizations have banned hazing, replacing the physical and psychological intimidation at the center of their pledging activities with dramatically milder, largely meet-and-greet membership drives. High schools also have taken an anti-hazing stance as part of zero tolerance policies against bullying.

Victims' relatives and anti-hazing advocates, however, insist more
needs to be done to enforce such prohibitions.

In 1990, Alice Haben of Oswego, Ill., launched a campaign to toughen Illinois' 1901 anti-hazing law. The General Assembly amended the law in 1996, changing the crime from a misdemeanor to a felony if a victim is seriously injured or killed.

Haben acted after her 18-year-old son, Nick, died after being forced to drink large amounts of alcohol in an initiation ritual for a
lacrosse club at Western Illinois University. Hazing charges against the 12 men who allegedly forced her son to drink the alcohol were dropped, though Haben reached a settlement with them in a civil suit.

"Drunk driving 30 years ago was no big deal. But Mothers Against
Drunk Driving made it an issue, and it is now frowned upon," Haben said. "If people are made aware of what is happening with hazing, we can do the same thing."

Experts say these anti-hazing laws vary. For instance, New York and Texas are considered to have strong laws and impose severe penalties against perpetrators of hazing even if their victims agreed to participate. In North Carolina, which is considered to have a weaker law, prosecutors have applied the ban to public schools but not private ones.

South Carolina's law applies to fraternities, but not hazing
involving the Citadel military college or sports teams.

A 2000 study concluded that hazing affected nearly half of high
school students selected for the survey. The practice is routinely
used as initiation for sports teams, scholastic groups, bands and
even church youth organizations.

The study, called Initiation Rights in American High Schools, said 48 percent of students in select organizations were hazed and 30 percent performed illegal acts as part of initiation. Moreover, 71 percent of those subjected to hazing reported suffering negative consequences such as injury, falling grades or conflicts with parents.

"It's a lot more prevalent and pervasive than what we originally
thought," said Norman Pollard, director of counseling and student
development at Alfred University in Alfred, N.Y., the study's
co-author.

While the Glenbrook North case sparked widespread outrage and shock, it is hardly the most egregious example of hazing gone awry.

In March, 11 members of the Psi Epsilon Chi fraternity at Plattsburgh State University in New York were charged in connection with the death of a pledge, Walter Dean Jennings, whose brain swelled after he was forced to consume large amounts of water.

And last September, Kristin High and Kenitha Saafir, both students at California State University at Los Angeles, drowned while reportedly performing a pledging ritual for a citywide chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. The women, blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs, had been forced to run through strong currents at
a Los Angeles beach at night.

Though California has an anti-hazing law, the Los Angeles County
district attorney's office and the Los Angeles Police Department have
declined to file charges against the sorority, said Angela Reddock, a Los Angeles lawyer who is representing High's family in a civil suit against nine sorority sisters.

"Part of the family's frustration is that the [police] didn't conduct
a thorough investigation," Reddock said. "One of the officers said he didn't know there was an anti-hazing law in California."

In March, six months after High and Saafir died, Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.) introduced the Hazing Prohibition Act of 2003. The bill would amend the federal Higher Education Act of 1965, requiring schools to withhold for one year federal loan and grant money from students who haze others.

Fraternity group renounces practice

In a resolution, the North-American Interfraternity Conference, which
represents 66 fraternities, asserted its "continuing repudiation of
hazing." The organization offers chapters a booklet called
"Brotherhood Building Ideas," which suggests how members can "build trust, rapport, respect and unity without hazing."

The National Pan-Hellenic Council, which represents nine largely
black fraternities and sororities, adopted a similar policy.

"We have zero tolerance policies for hazing," said Ricardo Deveaux, national first vice president of the council. "Our national
presidents have come together and abolished pledging. We now have `membership intake' programs and [prospectives] are no longer required to perform tasks."

Copyright C 2003, Chicago Tribune