Hazing Prevention: Strategies for Healthy Rites of Passage

Hazing is a complicated problem that jeopardizes the learning environment and poses serious safety risks to students. K-12 schools, colleges, and universities must ensure that degrading and humiliating acts aren’t part of a student’s initiation experience. With a strong anti-hazing policy, effective training, and continued responsiveness to potential hazing problems, institutions can help students create healthy rites of passage.

This report examines the issue of hazing and provides detailed steps to prevent it at your school.

• Hazing is when an activity expected of someone joining or participating in a group humiliates, degrades, abuses, or endangers the person, regardless of the person’s willingness.
• Many students believe that for an activity to constitute hazing, the victim must be unwilling; your anti-hazing policy should state that an activity is hazing even if the person willingly participates.
• Hazing is common — research indicates that half of all college students were exposed to dangerous rites of passage while in high school.