Editorial: Hazing can't be dismissed

Hazing can be easy to dismiss as a common team-building activity, or even a comic exercise.

It isn’t.

Hazing is that time-honored practice of taking new members of an organization and putting them through a series of ritualized tests or torments. It might be beatings or degrading psychological abuse. It might be trial by alcohol or something sexual. It is most closely associated with college fraternities, like the now-defunct Penn State chapter of Beta Theta Pi where pledge Timothy Piazza sustained fatal injuries in 2017.

Rituals are often a part of organizations and their initiations and progressions, from baptisms to graduations. Hazing is where ritual takes a turn. The difference is about power and control.

Which is why it is sad to see the behavior taking root with younger groups.

On Jan. 16, Greater Latrobe School District contacted state police about a possible hazing incident.

This wasn’t about a college fraternity. It wasn’t even high school. It was the junior high wrestling team.

Both the district and police are investigating, with Trooper Steve Limani saying the incident is being looked at as an assault. The school district can’t say much because of privacy and personnel issues.

But police are reviewing video provided by the district. They are looking at what happened and deciding whether it was a crime.

In Pennsylvania, hazing is a crime. It’s been a crime for years. In 2016, Gov. Tom Wolf signed one law that put secondary schools under the state’s anti-hazing umbrella. In 2018, he signed another — named for Piazza — that strengthened the law, made hazing that resulted in serious injury or death a felony and demanded reporting.

What the law can’t do is make people treat hazing like the potentially deadly threat it is. And we should, because even if kids don’t die, they can get hurt physically and mentally.

Hazing is passed down like an heirloom. It tells the lie that it is building rather than breaking. It promises that someday the victim will get to be the perpetrator. It is a kind of domestic violence as the price of admission to join a chosen family.

Hazing can’t be dismissed as kids being kids. It’s not a rite. It’s a wrong.