Violet RITES.

HIGH SCHOOL HAZING IS TAKING MORE EXTREME FORMS, BRINGING CALLS FOR THE ABUSE TO STOP

At a suburban Baltimore high school, 14 boys' varsity soccer players drag several freshmen across a muddy field and force them to stand against a wall, then kick soccer balls at them from close range. Two students are injured during the incident, one of whom suffers a concussion. In Great Neck, New York, 10 high school football players beat a freshman soccer player, leaving him severely bruised. At a high school near Dallas, 13 varsity football players punch out a group of junior varsity players who dare to enter the varsity locker room. One student is taken to an emergency room with fluid in his lungs.

For those who monitor hazing, incidents like these--all of which have occurred in the past year--are disturbing evidence that nasty initiation rites are no longer just the stuff of college fraternities and military-school barracks. Juvenile stunts and punishing endurance tests have long been a part of high school, particularly in athletics, but educators and students say the rituals have grown more vicious in recent years, mirroring both the rise in reckless college hazing and the overall escalation of violence in the U.S.

"Hazing has changed from the goofy high jinks of the '50s and '60s to something that is remarkably brutal and vicious," says Gary Powell, a hazing expert in Cincinnati who writes a legal newsletter for schools and fraternities. "Like society itself, it has become more violent."

Experts generally define hazing as a test given by a group to initiate new members. Unlike one-on-one bullying, which has no broader social purpose, this initiation rite is a way for groups to redefine an outsider as an insider. Although there are no comprehensive statistics on high school hazing, a survey of major newspapers across the country found 28 serious incidents since the start of the school year, many involving beatings, sexual assaults with objects, or instances in which students were restrained with duct tape. During the same period a year ago, eight such incidents were reported.

THE SPORTING LIFE

In high schools, the vast majority of hazing involves athletics--incidents occur more than three times as often as in all other types of activities combined --because coaches believe that it will bond players and increase achievement. "They figure boys will be boys, and they just look the other way," says Tom Howard, the athletic director at Farmingdale High School in Farmingdale, New York. Brian Rahill of Columbus, Ohio, who runs a Web site called stophazing.org, strongly disagrees with the idea that hazing promotes cohesion. "Hazing doesn't bring people together," says Rahill. "It only breeds animosity and separates people."

By and large, the hazers are boys who are competing in contact sports like football and wrestling, but there is hazing among girls as well. Lizzie Murtie, 16, of Essex Junction, Vermont, for example, testified before the state legislature last month about being hazed as a freshman member of he: high school's gymnastics team, whet she and others were forced to eat bananas out of boys' pants.

CRIMINAL CHARGES

A particularly harsh example of hazing at a Trumbull, Connecticut, high school this year has attracted nationwide attention. Members of the wrestling team abused 15-year-old teammate, drawing the attention of the police after his parents saw bruises on his body and reported the incident.

Over the span of a month, investigators said, this sophomore had been spat on, hogtied, held inside a gymnasium locker, slammed into walls, and held down while others forced the handle of a plastic knife into his rectum.

Three team members have been charged as adults with assault and unlawful restraint. Five others have been charged as juveniles, so the details of those cases are confidential. School officials at Trumbull have denied any knowledge that the wrestling team has had a hazing tradition. But the 1999 high school yearbook refers to--and celebrates--some of the hazing practices, as does a team videotape made of a wrestling match. A lawyer for one of the defendants that hazing at the school in some form, dates back at least 30

Mention the word hazing to high school athletes, and most will deny it exists. But ask them how they usher new players into their ranks, and they readily describe a tradition of practical jokes and organized roughhousing intended to disgrace, degrade, and terrify. Standing outside the locker room of North Babylon High School in Babylon, New York, members of the Bulldogs football team say their annual "Freshman Friday" is a way of inducting younger members into their "family."

"THEY KNOW WE'RE PLAYING"

On one such Friday, the locker room lights were shut off, and freshmen players were roughed up, slapped around, and slammed into the lockers. "They know we're playing," says Jonathan Hines, 15, a starting tackle. But in the fall, after hitting one boy a little too forcefully and making him cry, Hines says, he received a four-day suspension. Asked if he regretted the episode, he says, "I was just mad because I got suspended."

Beyond that spurt of violence each fall, newcomers to North Babylon's football team are subjected to relatively benign acts of submission, like serving water to seniors or being ridiculed at team dinners while they stand on tables and sing. Each season the coaches warn against malicious behavior, the players say, but the admonition is generally ignored.

Some schools have decided that the only way to eliminate this violence is to ban all forms of initiation rituals. Vin Iovino, the athletic director at New Canaan High School in Connecticut, says his school began cracking down on hazing several years ago after a student who was forced to carry a cinder block all day with his arms in chains dropped the block on his toe, breaking it. That same year, members of the girls' soccer team were blindfolded, put on a train, and sent to a seedy train station in a neighboring community.

"No matter how mild the form of initiation, we feel that it's demeaning to the kids and a distraction in the classroom," says Iovino. Still, some students object to the policy (see Opinion, page 26).

The group bonding that is sought through hazing makes it more difficult to fight the abuse. The peer pressure to be included is so intense that most of those subjected to hazing refuse to talk about it. "You rat out your teammates and it's the end for you," says Hank Nuwer, author of the recently published book High School Hazing.

BREAKING THE CYCLE

Those working to combat hazing say the best way to break the cycle is by holding coaches and school officials accountable while educating students about the dangers of such behavior. Eileen Stevens, a Sayville, New York, mother whose son died of alcohol poisoning during a college hazing incident 22 years ago, says the ideal place to start is in high schools, or even middle schools, where mythological yarns about the glories of hazing are first spun. Over the years, Stevens has spoken to 40 high schools, usually after a disruptive hazing incident. "It has become so deeply rooted in our culture," says Stevens. "So many kids glamorize hazing, they almost look forward to it when they get to college."

But parents who once might have brushed off hazing rites as adolescent foolery now see them as dangerous and sadistic bullying. In many cases, it is parents, not students, who notify the authorities after learning of a hazing incident. And school officials, sobered by a spate of lawsuits that have found them liable for the behavior of students, have started to confront an activity they might have ignored in the past.

"The whole notion of kids just being kids has changed," says Douglas Fierberg, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., who has represented several high school students injured during hazing. "As a result of high-profile incidents, parents have come to expect that when they send their kids to school, they do so with the understanding that the school will control and prevent wrongdoing."

MIRRORING SOCIETY

To some educators, the rise in sadistic hazing is further proof that America has lost its bearings. As family bonds weaken and relationships between adults and children become more adversarial, teenagers are desperate for inclusion in groups that help fill the void, educators say. And without the guidance and input of adults, kids invent initiation rites that employ abuse and humiliation as a means of proving loyalty and self-worth.

Rachel Lauer, a psychologist at Pace University in New York City who has studied hazing, says many students were so eager to belong to a group that they submitted to treatment they knew was wrong.

"In addition to companionship and comfort, there's a certain amount of prestige in belonging," she says. "And the harder it is to get in, the more prestigious it is."

IT'S THE LAW

When eight Seattle seniors dragged four underclassmen down to a lake, doused them in shaving cream and beer, and forced them into the cold water, they thought they were pulling a harmless prank.

In fact, they were breaking the law. Hazing has become illegal virtually throughout the country.

Although the specifics vary among the 40 states with anti-hazing laws, one element remains consistent: when the hazing activities endanger the mental or physical health of anyone, whether a participant or an innocent bystander, they become a crime. In Utah, merely causing one to feel shame or embarrassment as a prerequisite for joining a school organization is illegal. And while the hazers have routinely cited the victim's consent as either an excuse or a defense, courts have consistently rejected that rationale.

Clearly, hazing in the first degree, as it's known in many states, is no longer just an issue for the student council. But how frequently are these hazing laws enforced? The vague legal definition of hazing makes it hard to prove. Prosecutors have a better chance convicting someone on an alternate charge, such as assault or reckless endangerment. (Any physical abuse is covered by criminal laws against assault.) According to hazing expert Hank Nuwer, anti-hazing laws serve mainly as a deterrent. "That way," he says, "kids know that what they're doing is wrong."

--Ian Bassin

RELATED ARTICLE: WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE HAZED

So you've just joined your high school croquet team, and now a few senior members are explaining your initiation. "What?" you say, incredulity growing by the instant. "My head can't fit through that wicket."

That's hazing: a sticky wicket for many teens. Allow something humiliating or painful to be done to you and join the club, or don't join at all. Peer pressure can feel huge at such moments. Experts say teens all too often go along with hazing despite feeling uncomfortable about it. But they also say there are ways to deal. Here's a guide:

1. Know what hazing is. As unpleasant as bullying is, it isn't hazing, which is an organized initiation ritual, often accompanied by demands for humiliating or degrading behavior. identify it early, and you can say no before it gets out of hand.

2. Leave. Try to remember that you have the right to say no at any time. If no doesn't do the job, walk away.

3. Don't isolate yourself. If it makes you feel weird, it likely makes a lot of other people feel weird, too. The experts suggest finding a friend, a parent, a trusted teacher, or a counselor to talk to. "They've got to be able to trust somebody," says Joanne Laird, assistant principal of Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, California, where an anti-hazing program called Link Crew has reduced hazing. "if you're being hazed, you're not feeling trust."

4. Don't worry if you can't stop it by yourself. Most experts say that stopping hazing requires a concerted effort by teachers and administrators. "It's definitely got to be done at the institutional level," says Brian Rahill, a former fraternity hazing victim who runs a Web site, www.stophazing.com. "There's a culture of hazing. You grow up learning that it's OK-so when things go out of control, you don't even realize it."

--Peter Vilbig

ANDREW JACOBS is a reporter for The New York Times.