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News, Views and Careers for All of Higher Education

May 19, 2006

Jocks Gone Wild?

Now sharing space on a Web site near you: Female athletes parading in their sports bras and underwear, a gyrating male stripper giving lap dances to members of a women’s sports team and members of a college baseball team – dressed in lingerie – receiving buzz cuts.

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The subjects of the photos, as identified by Bob Reno, publisher of Badjocks.com, are athletes. Welcome to every athletic department press person’s worst nightmare.

Reno typically sticks to humor on his site, which debuted in 2000. But this week, he’s taken it in a different direction. After searching online for photos of apparent collegiate sports initiation rituals from 2003 to 2006, he posted 12 photo albums on Wednesday that he is calling the “Dirty Dozen.”

The athletic teams implicated on the Web site are (in order): Catholic University women’s lacrosse, Quinnipiac University baseball, University of California at Santa Barbara women’s lacrosse, Wake Forest University women’s volleyball, Fordham University women’s softball, Elon University men’s baseball, Fairleigh Dickinson University women’s softball, James Madison University women’s club soccer, Kenyon College men’s baseball, Princeton University cheerleading, Union College women’s soccer and University of Michigan men’s lacrosse.

Reno said his policy is to let college officials know about the photos before they appear on his site. “The schools don’t consider the site serious,” he said.

Maybe so, but they are certainly taking action. Northwestern University suspended its women’s soccer team and is investigating alleged hazing at a party after officials saw pictures posted on Reno’s site. Catholic University is investigating its women’s lacrosse program after photos posted on the Web site show a male stripper at an alleged initiation party. Quinnipiac University is looking into pictures taken of the university’s baseball team spraying whipped cream on a woman lying on the ground.

Elon University has taken disciplinary action against baseball players who violated the university’s hazing policies at a party last year, and the athletic department instituted a new policy barring students from posting inappropriate material online (both actions occurred prior to the pictures appearing on Badjocks). Wake Forest has launched an investigation into improper behavior by members of its volleyball team.

Many of those pictured in the photographs are women. In response to the Catholic University photo album, Susan Lipkins, a psychologist who specializes in hazing cases, wrote: “I believe in women’s liberation, I believe that this is taking equality to an extreme. It is also against the concepts of the women’s movement, which taught young women to respect their bodies, and not to treat themselves or others as sex objects.”

On many of the pages, due to a high volume of viewers, the full albums cannot be seen. Reno said his source for photos is webshots.com, a popular, free online photo sharing site often used by high school and college students. “For the most part, kids are real good about labeling the albums themselves,” Reno said. “They will either be wearing T-shirts with their school name or have the photos titled.”

Reno said he is glad the albums are attracting attention to his Web site, and he hopes that similar sites will pop up as a result. He said universities merely announcing that the actions go against their hazing policies isn’t enough. “The reason to do it is to try to make a difference and elevate the discussion,” he said. “If this makes administrators more aware, even if it tells students to stop posting the pictures, I’ll be pleased.”

— Elia Powers

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Comments

Hazing turns on many men

It seems that there is a great deal of hypocrisy in the media. Most men are ashamed to admit that the thought of women hazing other women is a great turn on. The issue of sexual repression must be addressed for hazing to stop. The reason sexuality is translated to violence is sexual repression. Fix sexual repression and hazing will stop.

Christian Peper, Hazing turns on many men, at 8:45 pm EDT on August 1, 2007

Is this really an opportunity for self-promotion?

I wish we had some clarification from Lipkins, about her quote. She seems to be saying that: 1) men and women should be “equal” (whatever that means); but 2) men will abuse each other and treat each other like sex objects, but women should not. She also seems to think that she has a monopoly on defining what the “women’s movement” means. Many women think of “the women’s movement” as being about sexual liberation and the right to be treated as a sex object. Whatever the case, I think none of this is any surprise, none of this behavior is new.

I, for one, would be glad if Catholic university students would behave better when off-campus, by 1) not drinking; and 2) speaking in inside voices, and CUA girls are way too loud in public because they drink so much.

Larry, at 7:35 am EDT on May 19, 2006

Hazing Photos

My problem with the piece is that there is no mention of the hazing that occurs in the fraternities and sororities. It’s not necessarily “jocks” doing the hazing in those cases.

Craig C, at 9:25 am EDT on May 19, 2006

Hazing Gone Wild

Well, Craig, you will have to wait for someone else to nab those darn hoodlums from Delta house.

The point of the badjocks.com, Craig, is to show that hazing extends beyond fraternities. Yes, Craig, sororities engage in the practice as do men’s and women’s teams. I am willing to wager somewhere, on a practice field, a band member or two or a dozen has been hazed.

Also, Craig, badjocks.com posts the school’s policies on hazing along with the photos. Ask college athletic administrators about hazing policies, and they will tell you, with a straight face, that there is no hazing going on with their athletic teams because they have a policy in place. Really? They may not be fraternities, but men’s and women’s teams at large and small schools DO engage in hazing regardless of high-minded statements from administrators.

If college athletic administrators really want to end hazing on their campus, then start by asking every member of a team for a definition of hazing. Dollar to doughnut says they will find unique definitions of hazing, and, when asked, each member will say that do not haze.

With that starting point, it is time to educate not dictate to our students what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior.

michael.levin@ttu.edu, at 10:00 am EDT on May 19, 2006

hypocrisy runs rampant when hazing is subject

According to high school and college student surveys, hazing is a near universal on athletic teams. We have to entertain the hypothesis that there are fundamental group processes that hazing rituals support, such as integration of new members into social groups requiring strong social norms and consensus to perform well. The question for the social scientist as well as the administrator is how to channel hazing impulses into positive, or at least non harmful and risky acts.

As long as adminstrators, experts and political leaders only point with alarm at hazing and try to stop it, it will be driven underground and become out of control and dangerous in the process. This is the usual result of proscribing any activity that itself is not harmful, until it becomes unregulated and out of control. The answer is not cheap or painless, for facing up to the need for hazing in these groups would open administrators and campuses to all kind of management risks and bad publicity from those who find fault with all forms of hazing. In short, as in every “war” against substances we don’t like, people we don’t like or practices we don’t like, it is the war itself that eventually brings about the harmful results that its proponents opposed in the beginning. Stopping the vicious circle becomes very difficult. Then the blaming, finger pointing and hypocrisy have their field days (pun intended).

Keith Johnson, at 11:20 am EDT on May 19, 2006

My Take On Hazing

I’d like to post a comment but I’m already on double-secret probation and if Dean Wormer found out I’d find myself in a lot of hot water.

thomassowellfan, at 12:35 pm EDT on May 19, 2006

what this really teaches our varsity sports teams is that they need a no-camera policy when they haze their new members.

meta, at 12:35 pm EDT on May 19, 2006

hazing-positive environments

As two posters indicate; there is quite a bit of positive things to be gained by homo- and lesbo-erotic hazing (especially at Catholic University) and it should be a crime for people to record these activities because it might make people think that Catholic University can’t attract serious students (which they can’t but that isn’t the point.)

My old firm tried to haze me, but their idea of hazing was a bonus. I felt so humiliated at the notion that they could buy my soul – and then brag about it – then I got used to it.

Larry, at 3:00 pm EDT on May 19, 2006

Since we all know that hazing has gone on for a long period of time, I wonder if reluctance to “crack down” on hazing is the result of past administration involvement in hazing. In other words, many administrators and othre college officials may have been hazed and engaged in hazing behaviors when they went to college. When it comes to many problems such as excessive drinking hazing, etc. on college campuses, one has to deal with the fact that a significant portion of the college going public (and by extension administrators, professors, etc.) was engaged in these behaviours when they were undergraduates. Until we have an actual open dialog about this problem and so-called “adults” actually confess to their bad past behaviour, I don’t see how these problems can actually be solved.

anon, at 11:10 pm EDT on May 19, 2006

Hazing

Seeing as this behavior is consented to be all students involved, the administration should direct their attention elsewhere.

Kevin, Undergraduate, at 2:05 pm EDT on May 23, 2006

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