Violet RITES.

• Author: JACOBS, ANDREW
• Position: High school hazing

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...