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Canada school tries to stop hazing

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Excerpt:New students at a Saint John high school start the school year with their faces being coloured with markers by upper-year peers, part of a hazing ritual the principal said has become less severe in the face of an administrative crackdown.Grade 9 students at Simonds High School, called rookies, are traditionally initiated during the first two weeks of the school year.

School principal Gary Keating told CBC News that stopping hazing has been a priority at the school since he became principal eight years ago.

As part of the crackdown, any student found hazing a new student on school property will be suspended for a day. If caught again, the student will be sent home for the rest of the week.

Despite the punishments, Keating said, some students continue to haze their fellow classmates.

“I have kids myself that have gone through school, and I know that it happens. It’s kind of a ritual,” he said.

By Hank Nuwer

Journalist Hank Nuwer tracks hazing deaths in fraternities and schools. 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. In April of 2024, the Alaska Press Club awarded him first place in the Best Columnist division and Best Humorist, second place.

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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