Hazing

Hazing: from high school to college

Sharon Thompson
Dr. Nicks
Business English Composition II
February 3, 2010
Hazing: From high school to college

Hazing is a very serious act that is sometimes associated with bullying. Hazing is defined as an activity expected of someone joining a group that humiliates, degrades, risks emotional and or physical harm regardless of the person’s willingness to participate (Hazing, 2010). Newcomers, football rookies, the freshmen class, new cheerleaders, and fraternity/sorority pledges must often endure pointless, humiliating, and sometimes dangerous rituals to gain acceptance within these groups. The group’s intentions are really to have a team building activity; however this is not the case. Hazing can very quickly turn from a harmless prank into a dangerous situation. So, although high school hazing may start out and seem harmless, it can escalate to being harmful, dangerous, and illegal as it crosses over into college.
Hazing has become so dangerous that numerous people have been harmed, and this has only occurred because the act has gone too far. Take for example, Casey Culpepper. All she wanted to do was join the volleyball team in her first year in high school. She knew there was a threat of an “initiation” and it haunted her the entire summer. One day seniors attacked Casey and friends after class and they were smeared with canned dog food, eggs, ketchup, mustard, horse manure, and pet feces. Then they were hosed off so hard that it hurt (Bushweller, 2000). Other students at the same high school were attacked with chemicals and waste from portable toilets. These students must now take powerful HIV drugs and undergo frequent AIDS screenings (Bushweller, 2000). Their lives will never be the same after this harmful experience. Some students that have been hazed can even experience a kind of post traumatic stress disorder, a condition soldiers in combat sometimes suffer from when exposed to horror, terror, or shame....