While it does not seem possible to sort of take a cookie cutter and dough to make 100 policies for 100 schools, certain guidelines are possible to make. I was requested by the National Federation of State High School Associations to offer some tips for writing a policy. Bearing in mind that I am not an attorney and therefore make this full disclaimer that legal advice may be different, here are some things I would recommend after years of researching this subject. This is a work in progress in a way, and I encourage input from students, parents, coaches, principals, advisors, attorneys, judges, police, and members of the public: contact me at hnuwer@iupui.edu with criticism or suggestions. June 14, 2002.

1) Schools need a definition. Here is one approximate definition as a starting point for your school, acknowledging that this is just a starting point and is being written by a journalist-teacher, not a lawyer. (Coming up with a definition takes time and must not allow special interests at a school to devise written loopholes). Hazing is any action or verbal abuse created intentionally (which may have unintended consequences) on or off school grounds, with or without the newcomer's consent, to produce fatigue, humiliation, a sense of being sexually assaulted or physically threatened, private or public ridicule, mental or physical harm or injury (including intoxication) to a person in the context of initiating that person into a student group. Also forbidden is all intimidation prior to a hazing or the invention of hazing acts that are conveyed to a newcomer to intimidate or frighten-even if the team or individual has no intent of doing those misdeeds. (At some point, an attorney should be brought into discussions to help devise a definition that protects both the students and the school, even while assuring the civil rights of all parties concerned, including hazed and hazer. For example, punishments should be same for each gender, especially if males and females are involved in same hazing as with band hazing. As another example, punishments may involve additional penalties if other circumstances occur such as forced drinking, giving alcohol to minors, assault or improper touching/taping/abuse of another person's body, gang activities, or destruction/theft of property).

2) Early on, schools need to decide if they want a hazing policy separately or a hazing, harassment, and bullying policy. All need to emphasize that wrong past traditions cannot be continued just because someone was abused or injured himself or herself. Just as we all have seen court trials where someone accused of a crime has been abused himself or herself, it is at best a mitigating circumstance and NEVER one that gets the hazer off the hook.

3) Schools need to have a statute of limitations in place for reporting non-criminal and criminal hazing. The latter is obviously more serious and should correspond to how long a student may have in the community "timewise" to successfully have a criminal hazing brought to court. Should a junior or senior be punished for a hazing that occurred two years earlier? Discussion before the fact is crucial here. Parents of sophomores who are punished for hazing frequently demand punishment for those who "taught" their sons or daughters to haze. In some cases (such as sexual assault or paddling), it may be most useful to get input from judges, police officers, or others in the community with specific legal knowledge.

4) Schools need to have a clear policy for action (e.g., getting help for an injured victim, reporting to police, counseling for victims and in some cases hazers) if a coach or teacher or outsider (parent, gang member, team member from another school at sports camp, an alum) joins in during a hazing or even orchestrates what happens. Sins of omission where a coach or teacher makes himself or herself scarce when a hazing is about to occur also need to be set down. Likewise, prevention methods need to be addressed. Students left unattended on a team bus while the coach or band director is off the bus have been scenarios that have gone badly wrong in terms of criminal hazing assaults and harassment that occurred. The policy needs to address what constitutes "reasonable" supervision.

5) Many hazing situations find parents thrust into the middle of the situation. Very few schools, if any, have a "Parent's Guide to Hazing." In this writer's opinion, having such a handbook for distribution can only help the school and the parent. Parental input can be useful here before the fact. After the fact, one sad thing about post-hazing controversy is how parents of hazers can make pariahs of victims, can give their sons or daughters justification for doing what had been tradition, etc. But parents of sophomore athletes or club members being punished for hazing have also demanded that juniors and seniors be punished for hazing offenses from a year or two ago. See number three.

6) A policy needs to frame and give examples of reasonable punishment for a hazing offense-again, distinguishing a major offense (or minor one in which something goes horribly wrong) from a minor offense.

7) Step by step guidelines as to what reasonable response a school will make if an infraction occurs (notifications of parents/schoolboard and or police, suspension from activities, judicial or school procedures).

8) Encourage serious studies of hazing. His New York state principal halted one coach's M.A. survey of other coaches in 2001. For background, panelists may want to obtain an August 1999 study by Alfred University that establishes how many athletes claim to have been hazed and how hazing frequently starts in junior high school or high school-creating an environment where hazing is acceptable.

9) Students need to be aware that hazing is not the same as discipline, that acceptance on a team comes from effort, ability, and coach/adviser decision making-not being able to endure foolish, humiliating or (potentially) dangerous/deadly practices.

10) Schools should consult the web site of attorney Douglas Fierberg who prosecutes high school and college hazing cases to get his no-nonsense take on what constitutes reasonable policies and post-hazing school action. http://www.hazinglaw.com/

11) Schools need to discuss how to deal with members of a team or club who may not be active participants in a hazing but who either encourage the heavy hazers by giving them a certain status or who do nothing when criminal, dangerous, or humiliating activity occurs right before their eyes. (This is too complex to discuss here. See my "Greekthink" chapter in Wrongs of Passage and my "High School Hazing" book, available from many libraries or from the publishers, Indiana University Press (Wrongs) and Franklin Watts (HS Hazing).

12) Punishments must fit the crime, not be decided by what the majority of parents want to occur. The punishment should serve as a deterrent, but the only way it can become a deterrent is if students are made aware of just how their lives and those of others can be affected by a single hazing incident-even one that is done and over in a few seconds.

a) If criminal hazing and/or hazing that amounts to a major school offense occurs such as assault and paddling, contact with another's body in an improper or offensive manner, physical abuse (e.g., hogtying someone and leaving the person in an embarrassing (as without clothes) or dangerous circumstance, the policy should allow for expulsion and/or suspension procedures. In cases of alleged criminal misconduct, police and/or a local prosecutor should take over the investigation, while a school may wish to investigate. It is not unusual for students to be suspended or punished, then face criminal penalties as well. A good policy and making students well aware of that policy goes a long way toward a hazing student's "I didn't know" defense.

b) Things get complicated when a potentially non-criminal event escalates because an accident occurs. At the college level, so many "harmless" pranks have gone wrong with permanent injury or, in a few cases, death resulting, that students need to be aware that they also will be held accountable for the more severe punishment if a hazing (that normally would get them just detention or a one-game or one-activity suspension) goes terribly wrong. EG, the student baseball player in Colorado who was paralyzed being made by veterans to slide into a mudhole on the diamond after severe rains. They also need to know that first-year students at the college level have retaliated, and this gets both groups in severe trouble when an assault and/or shooting occur. One student who had been hazed went to jail in 2002 for striking a hazer. The new students need to know that their rights end short of retaliation with assault or by banding together to do reverse hazing. Too few policies address this issue.

How to Attack Hazing: This is the information I gave ABC 20/20
http://abcnews.go.com/onair/2020/2020_000601_hshazing_feature.html that was put on the 20/20 web site:

Hank Nuwer, author of High School Hazing: When Rites Become Wrongs offers these suggestions to help curtail this pervasive problem:

• Help establish welcome programs for first-year and transfer students. Rites of passage are integral and valuable in welcoming new members to a group or students to a school, but mentoring programs are more constructive than pledging rituals.
• Reconsider all traditions in all school groups. The school choir is just as likely as the football team to have its own traditions. Faculty members need to be aware of what goes on in each group.
• Urge your school to adopt a statement of awareness. Signing a written statement agreeing to a specific policy raises awareness of hazing and instills a sense of accountability in all participants.
• Foster a spirit of camaraderie. One form of hazing is having younger students perform chores like carrying equipment. If everyone shares in these responsibilities, a better team spirit is created.
• Require supervision at all group functions. Simply having an adult or teacher present at all times can go a long way in deterring hazing and preventing groups of kids from getting out of hand.
• Don't cover up hazing incidents. A "conspiracy of silence" often feeds off itself and becomes difficult to stop. If you witness an episode of hazing, report it immediately so it can be dealt with right away.
• Eliminate the risk of hazing. Only a zero-tolerance attitude will create an environment in which hazing is not accepted. Letting episodes slide is counter-productive to stopping hazing.
• Contact hazing activists for guidance. Don't lead the crusade alone. Anti-hazing activists and groups are there to assist those less experienced in fighting a widespread problem.
• Don't confuse discipline with abuse. Working hard, fostering teamwork, enforcing rules and learning fundamentals are all part of discipline and should be accepted by players and students. Shoving or verbally taunting someone is abuse and should never be tolerated by anyone.

--Hank Huwer

PS: Several people have asked for an institutional definition of hazing that seems to fit. Here is the Cornell University definition -- I like it. I would include team even if that is somewhat redundant, and I've put that into parentheses.

It reads: "Hazing is defined as an act that, as an explicit or implicit condition for initiation to, admission into, affiliation with, or continued membership in a group or organization (team), could be seen by a reasonable person as endangering the physical health of an individual or as causing mental distress to an individual through, for example, humiliating, intimidating, or demeaning treatment; destroys or removes public or private property; involves the consumption of alcohol, other drugs, or other substances; or violates any of the policies of the University."