Editorial: The toxic nostalgia of hazing rituals

When news of a seventh-grader shot by a nonlethal, but still painful, weapon during the Sonoma Valley High School hazing ritual known as “Fugitive Night” hit social media, the victim blaming was almost instantaneous. “If middle schoolers don’t want to be shot at, they should have stay home that night,” was a sentiment shared by both parents and students. “It’s all in good fun.”

“Fugitive Night” requires willing eighth-graders to sprint across town, trying to avoid being shot or caught by the upper classmen chasing them from roaming vehicles.

Some former graduates even opined how today’s rising freshmen had it easy, only darting from the Plaza to the high school. “In my day, we had to run from Altimira!” Like people living in an endless loop of the 1980s hazing-heavy high school flick “Dazed and Confused,” there was a sense of pride and nostalgia in remembering what some called a rite of passage.

But let’s, for a second, put ourselves in this young girl’s shoes. She steps out of a local restaurant, only to see what appears to be a firearm pointed at her and her friends from a passing car. In a country that has become synonymous with mass shootings, an understandably panicked mindset takes over. Yes, the welt she received will fade. The trauma she felt may take longer to subside, her mother says.

Hazing, of course, is nothing new on campuses across America. In March, four Petaluma High School students were charged with multiple counts of assault and battery, including two felony counts, related to an alleged incident of hazing on the football team. The students allegedly brutalized a junior varsity player before practice, an incident that was filmed and shared on social media channels.

Up at Sonoma State University, Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity was the first to be suspended on campus, following a hazing incident in 2018. Older students were said to have paddled and intimidated “pledges” who were applying to the frat. SSU can be applauded for taking swift action by banning the frat for five years.

Many movies from 1980s and 1990s celebrate cruelty between classmates as part of the growing up process. We have normalized the infliction of pain and terror, making some commenters feel defensive of this increasingly out of touch pageantry. Not to mention creating the expectation that such discomfort is, in fact, an important part of growing up.

The National Study of Student Hazing found that 55% of college students who take part in clubs, teams and organizations experience hazing, a number that jumps to 76% percent for the Greek system. It’s so common, many students don’t think to question the negative consequences. Nor do many parents, it seems.

The practice is so normalized, even high-profile deaths don’t slow it. "Tradition“ can’t dismiss college students like Timothy Piazza, 19, who died at Penn State in 2017, or Max Gruver, who also succumbed to alcohol poisoning at Louisiana State University in 2018.

“There has been at least one university hazing death each year from 1969 to 2021. According to Franklin College journalism professor Hank Nuwer, over 200 university hazing deaths have occurred since 1838, with 40 deaths between 2007 and 2017 alone,” according to Wikipedia.

Anything that kills that many young people can’t be classified as “harmless fun.” It’s time for the adults in the room to discourage these “youthful acts of indiscretion,” and set better expectations so middle-schoolers don’t need to be shot at by airsoft rifles and paintball guns to feel like they belong.