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Letter in today’s Boston Herald

Harassment and hazing

The recent and swift cultural change regarding sexual harassment in this country is remarkable and truly unprecedented (“A win for decency, a warning for the GOP,” Dec. 14). The #MeToo movement has given victims of sexual harassment a voice that is finally being heard.

Much like sexual harassment, hazing is another centuries-old practice that must stop. Colleges and universities have anti-hazing policies that are effectively nothing more than marketing tools to allay the fears of parents. In reality, many schools continue to turn a blind eye. Schools hide behind the fact that most fraternity and sorority houses are “privately” owned, and therefore, the school has no jurisdiction. With the two recent hazing deaths of young men at Penn State and Texas State universities, we as a society must say enough is enough.

As in cases of sexual harassment, we must hold people accountable and put an end to hazing.

— Denyse Richter, Portsmouth, N.H.

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. 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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