Categories
Hazing News

Letter writer: How can hazing GO wrong when it is wrong?

Moderator: the point of Ruggles’ short note is clear here: engage in a sometimes dangerous, usually demeaning, always primitive or cruelly creative activity long enough and something bad will happen. Then there are consequences. Except in Arizona. Where the holes in Ms. Polk’s reasoning go deeper than the Grand Canyon’s chasms. HN

Ruggles’ letter below:

Defense by county attorney ludicrous

Apr. 8, 2006 12:00 AM

I was outraged when I read Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk’s response to recent media coverage of the appalling Bennett/Wheeler case (“Inaccurate reports twist facts in case of hazing gone wrong,” Opinions, Wednesday).She refers to the assault/abuse of 18 children as “hazing gone wrong.” I don’t know how hazing can go wrong when it is wrong.Hazing is never right; it’s never a prank or a joke. It’s meant to humiliate and to cause others to suffer.

Polk’s defense of the actions of the Yavapai County Attorney’s Office is ludicrous.–

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.

Leave a Reply