The Legal Framework of High School Hazing

Legal Brief

You’ve seen the headlines: High school football players in Maryland and New Jersey accused of sexually assaulting teammates with broomsticks, cheerleaders in Utah smearing peanut butter on a squad member with allergies, marching band members in Ohio covering newcomers in plastic wrap and throwing them into a lake.

It’s unclear whether high school hazing is on the rise or is just getting more notoriety through smartphones and social media. Regard-less, it’s now a high-profile problem garnering the attention of school officials, law enforcement and state legislatures across the country.

Like in-person or cyber bullying, hazing involves targeted harassment of fellow students, yet there are important differences. Bullying seeks to exclude or ostracize the student victim. Hazing usually involves organized rituals framed as rites of passage to include students in some exclusive group. This is significant, from a legal standpoint, because those on the receiving end often know what’s coming and, in a very narrow sense, may consent to some measure of it — until, of course, things turn tragic and someone gets hurt or even killed.