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Hazing News

An analysis of the Andover case by Bill Kirk

Here is the link to the story.  Sisclosure: I am quoted. Moderator

excerpt:

he disturbing hazing of Andover students during a private summer basketball camp is more indication that such rituals among adolescents are becoming more sexualized and violent, experts say.

It’s gotten to the point where there appears to be two types of hazing — the old-fashioned kind of making people wear embarrassing clothing or get their heads shaved, and the more bizarre, abnormal rituals that lead to sexual humiliation or worse, said Hank Nuwer, an author of several books about hazing and a journalism professor at Franklin College in Franklin, Ind.

“I’m re-examining this,” said Nuwer, who’s doing research for another book on hazing. “Do we have to divide this into normal and abnormal?”

Nuwer has collected hundreds of examples from all over the country showing that new recruits in almost any organization can be victimized by vicious and sometimes overtly sexualized or violent hazing rituals.

“Hazing goes way back,” said Nuwer, who is keeping a close eye on the Andover incident, during which younger basketball players took part in a game of “ookie cookie” or “wet biscuit” in which the two participants raced to ejaculate on an Oreo cookie. The loser of the race had to eat his soiled cookie. They were urged to take part in the game by older players, who now face expulsion and possible criminal charges. A half-dozen other students face suspension as well. Andover head basketball coach David Fazio has been placed on paid administrative leave.

The Andover hazing took place during a Hoop Mountain overnight basketball camp at Stonehill College in Easton last July.

By Hank Nuwer

Journalist Hank Nuwer is the Alaska author of Hazing: Destroying Young Lives; Broken Pledges: The Deadly Rite of Hazing, High School Hazing, Wrongs of Passage and The Hazing Reader. He has written articles or columns on hazing for the Sunday Times of India, Toronto Globe & Mail, Harper's Magazine, Orlando Sentinel, The Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Times Sunday Magazine. His current book is Hazing: Destroying Young Lives from Indiana University Press. He is married to Malgorzata Wroblewska Nuwer of Warsaw, Poland and Fairbanks, Alaska. Nuwer is a former columnist for the Greenville (Ohio)Early Bird and former managing editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in Alaska.
Nuwer was named the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists columnist of the year in 2021 for his “After Darke” column in the Early Bird. He also won third place for the column in 2022 from the Indiana chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He and his wife Gosia, recently of Union City, Ind., have owned 20 acres in Alaska for many years. “The move is a sort-of coming home for us,” said Nuwer. As a journalist, he’s written about the Alaskan Iditarod sled-dog race and other Alaska topics. Read his musings in his blog at Real Alaska Daily--http://realalaskadaily.com and in his weekly column "Far from Randolph" in the Winchester Star-Gazette of Randolph County, Indiana.

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