Prisoner # 1 : "What're you in for?"
Prisoner # 2 : "A riotous game of Truth or Dare."
Prisoner # 1 : (backs away slowly...)
Police are investigating reports of hazing involving several senior girls at St. Paul's School. The incidents allegedly involved groups in two dormitories at the private boarding school last weekend. Dean of Students Douglas J. Dickson said he learned about the incidents this week and reported them to police. He said the school also will investigate and consider disciplinary consequences for the young women involved.
"We're extremely disappointed in what's happened here at our school," Dickson said. Dickson said the school is offering counseling to all the girls involved.
School officials would not say what students had done that was considered hazing. They did say the behavior did not involve physical contact or physical harm.
Emphasis mine. What were these brutal actions that necessitated police involvement and counseling? You guessed it - Truth or Dare:
The Union Leader reported that multiple unnamed sources indicated the hazing was directed at about a dozen new girls and involved at least partial nudity in one of the two dormitories involved. The newspaper also reported the hazing in the second dormitory allegedly involved a "truth-or-dare" game with questions about sexual experiences.
Ooookay. Did I mention that I played Truth or Dare in slumber parties in sixth grade? I was a shy creature then and would have preferred other games, but come on. I was playing by choice. What's more, anyone can make something up for the "Truth" part, the extroverts can perform the "Dares," and everybody's happy.
And this is a crime?
Hazing is a crime in New Hampshire and is defined as any coercion or intimidation presented as a condition of initiation into a group and that might cause students to hurt themselves physically or psychologically.
I'm trying to decide who's more immature here - the girls who decided that it was good idea to play Truth or Dare, or the ones who need counseling because of it. I mean, come on, folks. There's no need for hazing that leaves somebody missing a limb, and outright bullying should be reported, but were these girls forced to play Truth or Dare? If so, how? What's to stop a normal 18-year-old girl from getting up, saying "good night," and retiring to her dorm room? This wasn't even a sorority hazing, from the information given; just a bunch of girls sitting around being goofy. And now facing criminal charges.
This keeps up, in 20 years college students won't even speak to each other.
Update: In my rash of blogging, and rush to judgment, yesterday, I screwed up; this is a boarding high school, not a private college. Doh! That makes the whole situation more understandable - but the fact that the girls in question do not seem to have been in a sorority, and don't seem to have been participating in any sort of organized hazing, yet were still prosecuted under an anti-hazing law, still bothers me.
Update #2 : A reader who apparently knows one of the victims in question says "As a friend of one of the girls who was the object of this little game...When someone forces anything down another person's throut, causing them to choke, cutting off their ability to breathe, it's not a game." The article notes that school officials specifically stated no physical contact occurred, which would suggest that somebody isn't being honest here.
Perhaps the what-seemed-like-an-overreaction on the part of school officials to the hazing - and the mention of counseling - should have tipped us off to the possibilty that a lot more occurred here than a simple game of Truth or Dare.
Update #3: Although I'm swamped with work, I have to spend a bit more time on this; there seems to be enough interest in this story to warrant further investigation.
This article gives a tad more detail about what happened:
The seniors woke the new girls up in the middle of the night, forcing them to simulate oral sex with bananas and answer sexually explicit questions, the employee said. St. Paul's determined the hazing was more severe in one of the dorms, Kittredge II, where five of the senior girls lived, than the other dorm, Ford...
None of the parents of the five girls who were suspended for a term wanted to talk about the incident.
Seniors arrived at St. Paul's on Sept. 9, and new students arrived the next day. The hazing occurred at some point over the weekend, before the other students arrived. St. Paul's started classes on Monday, Sept. 13.
The hazing has prompted a flurry of e-mails on the school's alumni Yahoo newsgroup, where alums have debated whether hazing occurred in their eras and asked whether having mixed-grade dorms contributed to the problem.
Isolated incidents of hazing have occurred at St. Paul's before, according to Dickson, and the school has handled other hazing cases like it has handled this one.
Interestingly, though, the hazing is now being denied, at least by some alleged victims:
At least some of the freshmen girls whom St. Paul's School officials say were hazed told the dean of students they were willing participants in a nighttime initiation activity. In a letter written to the dean before 15 seniors were suspended or the incident was reported to the police, freshmen from the Ford dormitory said they did not think anything bad had happened.
"We thought this night was a great way to get to know the seniors, as our leaders, and don't think that anything should have been done differently," the letter read. "Please take the fact that all of us decided to participate and did it comfortably into your disciplinary decision."
Last week, the school suspended 10 seniors from Ford for two weeks and five from another dorm, Kittredge II, for a term. St. Paul's found the seniors woke the new girls in the middle of the night and forced them to answer sexually explicit questions and simulate oral sex with bananas, according to an employee of the school who asked not to be named.
In their letter, the Ford freshmen relayed their version of the night, saying they had voluntarily gone with the seniors to the dorm basement, were given nicknames and played a truth-telling game called "Never have I ever."
"We were given candy and had a choice of whipped cream and a banana and a devil dog," the freshmen wrote. "Again, all of the new students wanted to participate and eat their food, meaning that no one was forced." The letter was signed Third Formers of Ford House, making it unclear whether all or just some of the freshmen wrote it.
The parents of one of the suspended students also deny hazing:
“If what my daughter did is hazing, then they have an epidemic of hazing on campus,” said Hilary Mullarkey of Long Island, N.Y., adding she knew of seniors in at least three other girls’ dorms who participated in similar behavior at the elite, Concord boarding school.
Dean of students Douglas J. Dickson denied the accusations. “We have no reports of any other hazing at the school. If we had reports of hazing, we would pursue it and we would act in the same way,” Dickson said.
Mullarkey and her husband, Robert, said no sexually explicit questions were asked of new Ford house students. But the Mullarkeys agreed what allegedly occurred in another dorm, Kittredge II, was hazing. They claim their daughter’s dorm was “painted with a Kit II brush” and claim the school unfairly singled out Ford house for punishment.
So now, some parents are talking. And their claims are consistent with the Concord Monitor's report that the hazing was "more severe" in Kit II than in Ford.
So what really happened? Who knows? Some freshmen apparently didn't have a problem with the hazing, but at least one must have complained for the school officials to discover the situation. It's possible that most or all the freshmen willingly went along with a situation that ended up being more traumatic than they had bargained for.
The school seems willing to stand its ground on the suspensions. Be interesting to see if more parents start talking; either we'll see a new rash of complaints, or another group of parents defending the hazers, or both.
Update # 4: Be sure to read the comments - N2P is showing up on the first page of Google for a search on "St Paul's School hazing," and two sets of parents have commented to counter the official claims. The Champlaign Channel has more on the parents - and students - who deny that hazing took place, and now parents are reporting that the college plans of the suspended seniors may be affected:
A tradition for welcoming new girls at St. Paul's School that got out of hand this month may have long-term consequences for the 15 senior girls suspended for hazing. "Our children's reputation and records have been permanently marred and their college hopes destroyed," reads a statement from parents including Hilary Mullarkey, whose daughter has been suspended for two weeks and must write a letter of apology.
She said she is one of several parents of seniors at the Ford House dormitory who believe school officials overreacted when they labeled events there hazing, contacted police and suspended the seniors involved...
Brenda Nordlund, the mother of a freshman, said her daughter described the events as fun. Nordlund's daughter does not live in Ford House or the other dormitory implicated in the hazing. "She had a great night that night," Nordlund said. "It was a welcoming party." Nordlund said she trusts school officials to handle anything inappropriate at other dormitories.
Mullarkey said that at her daughter's dorm, seniors gave the new students lewd nicknames that rhymed with their names. She said school officials also told her the Ford seniors disobeyed orders when they woke up the younger students that night.
At the Kittredge II dorm, some senior girls allegedly were topless and wearing war paint when they woke the new students, and later allegedly asked them to simulate oral sex on bananas.
The Kittredge seniors were suspended through the end of the term. No one affiliated with Kittredge II could be reached for comment for this story, but several former students agree events there went too far.
Sounds like the "tarred with the Kit II brush" theory is holding up.
Posted by kswygert at September 20, 2004 04:45 PM