Is hazing freshman a beneficial tradition or a dangerous act?

BY RION TURNER

When have you ever felt closer to someone after being physically and/or mentally harassed by them? Chances are, the answer is never. The process of being subject to public harassment and ridicule is called hazing.

Hazing is directed at someone trying to join a club, fraternity or a new institution, such as a school. We probably all know about the recent dragging scandal that occurred the first week of school: freshmen were zip-tied together and dragged down the hill at Piedmont Park hill. Dragging is unnecessary, unsafe and pointless.

Not only is there no point to dragging, but it is also dangerous for the freshman who are dragged. The freshmen victims dragged across a grassy hill could have hurt their backs on rocks that were carelessly overlooked, or injured their arms or hurt their legs as they were being pulled by them.

The risk of injury and mental trauma is not worth the dragging, and after the ordeal is over with, nothing has been achieved. There is no reward in hazing.

Dragging also gives the school a horrible reputation among parents who are thinking of sending their children to Grady. Why would a parent want their child attending a high school where freshmen are dragged by upperclassmen as a twisted form of initiation? Students should not have to be afraid to attend school.

This form of bullying can also get an individual in a fair amount of trouble with the school administrators, who punish the hazers by sending them to tribunal where getting expelled or suspended is an all-too-real possibility.

Beyond school punishments, hazers can also get in trouble with the local law enforcement. By law, dragging someone down a hill is considered assault. Furthermore, with the addition of zip-tying a person’s hands together before the dragging, the hazer could be accused of false imprisonment. This is a felony.

Think about it. All of these consequences because the hazer simply dragged someone down a hill? I’m not sure about you, but to me that doesn’t seem like it is worth it.

All in all, hazing is a useless and dangerous activity that no one should take part in. Hazing not only hurts the victims; it can seriously hurt the participating seniors who face punishment from the very institution they are supposedly representing when they haze.  You could be expelled and/or imprisoned for taking part in hazing.

These consequences outweigh the end results of hazing and therefore should not be practiced anywhere, let alone at Grady. As a senior, I completely renounce the practice of dragging freshmen as a form of initiation for freshmen and the amusement for upperclassmen.

It is personally embarrassing that some of my classmates would take the time to participate in the hazing of freshmen students. It is evident that the rewards are next to nothing compared to the large amount of trouble an individual could get into after being caught hazing, or assaulting, in the eyes of the law and their fellow students.