Despite penalties, hazing continues
Despite penalties, hazing continues
Gary Pettus •
[email protected] • September 27, 2009
Jackson State University last week punished 45 members of the Sonic Boom, the school's nationally recognized marching band, for an alleged off-campus hazing incident.
Also last week, a Mississippi man was punished for his role in a hazing incident involving the Southern University band in a Louisiana court.
Jeremy Dixon, 23, of Natchez was put on probation Wednesday after pleading no contest to criminal conspiracy to commit second-degree battery and misdemeanor hazing. He was one of seven band members charged with hazing band members before the Bayou Classic in New Orleans.
In spite of harsh penalties for hazing, including student suspensions and possible jail time, the practice persists - kept alive by tradition, fear of rejection, peer pressure, secrecy and misplaced revenge.
"It may be a stretch, but to me it seems a bit like child abuse," said Joe Paul, vice president of student affairs at the University of Southern Mississippi.
"Victims of hazing have said to me, 'When I get over to the other side of this, I'm going to make sure it doesn't happen again to anyone.'
"Then they end up continuing the behavior on someone else. It's the same pattern."
The pattern can be deadly.
Since 1837, 154 people have died from hazing at American colleges, national hazing expert and author Hank Nuwer has reported.
Between September 2008 and February 2009, six students died.
Paul's child-abuse comparison is valid, said Angela Herzog, a clinical psychologist in Jackson. Often, child-abuse victims subject their own children to the treatment they endured.
"Hazing, like child abuse, is what you know," Herzog said.
"With hazing, there is the added component of peer pressure. Things people vow they would never do otherwise, they give in to the presence of peers."
Hazing is any humiliating, degrading, abusive activity expected of those hoping to join a group, regardless of their willingness to participate.
That is, "In order for someone to be accepted, they have to suffer," Herzog said.
Patrick Bridgeman was accepted as a member of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity at Millsaps College, where he graduated in 2002.
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