An August 1999 study by Alfred University establishes that 79 percent of male and female athletes playing for NCAA team are being hazed as a condition of joining college athletic teams. Of those hazed in college, 5 percent said they were first hazed in middle school; another 42 percent reported that they experienced their first hazing initiation in high school sports.

We will never fully achieve the goals of providing students with safe learning environments and consistent models for appropriate conduct until we stop sports teams and other school groups from forcing new members to endure physically and emotionally harmful abuse as a rite of passage. To do this we must first discard the worthless notions that hazing is or can be a legitimate rite of passage, or that young people who succumb to the pressures of classmates are just getting what they ask for or deserve. Hazing is a crime that hurts and degrades vulnerable young people.

All States must criminalize group initiations which threaten or are likely to cause serious physical or psychological injury. Wrongdoers must be prevented from using the victim’s supposed consent as a defense to the crime because hazing is a crime which is uniquely perpetrated through the use of overwhelming group pressure and coercion.

School districts need to incorporate these principles into comprehensive anti-hazing policies which give specific illustrations of prohibited conduct. Anti-hazing policies must be linked to campus codes of conduct which authorize school officials to expel wrongdoers and terminate tolerant coaches or teachers. The anti-hazing policy must be widely communicated at the beginning of each school year to staff, students, and parents, and coaching staffs must be required to report all  alleged incidents of hazing to school officials.

Finally, and of critical importance, the school must demonstrate leadership, responsiveness, and support by enforcing its school policies and affirming students' rights to learn and join teams in a safe environment. The victim may have physical injuries, suicidal impulses, day and nightmares and other emotional problems. Compounding this is the fact that the student will also be thrown into the center of a divisive controversy involving coaches, parents, friends and teammates. The school must lead by providing all available resources -including counseling and prompt access to judicial affairs proceedings - to victims.

Douglas E. Fierberg is a trial lawyer and partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Bode & Grenier, L.L.P.