While demeaning initiation rites into the hyper-competitive world of major junior hockey have recently scandalized the public, they are not confined to this sport, or even to sport: they also take place in universities, in fraternities and sororities, just like in the military for generations. Slippages still exist, and the debate to find the best way to put an end to these traumatic initiations returns to the rhythm of cases that come to light.
In writings dating from the Middle Ages, there are already references to initiation rites taking place within universities.
Thereafter, modest attempts to regulate them suggest that excesses had shocked the authorities by then. A 1495 law issued by the University of Leipzig, Germany, prohibited students “from tormenting, harassing […] to scream in a terrifying voice, and to physically abuse…” their freshman peers.
150 years ago, the phenomenon was already described as a scourge on our continent. An 1873 edition of the New York Times headlined, “West Point: Hazing at the Academy, an evil that should be eradicated entirely.”
If the initiations include harmless and even playful rituals, they also count in their sad picture of amputations, brain deaths, psychological traumas and even deaths, almost everywhere in the world.
In Quebec, we remember that in 2005, eyes – horrified – had turned to the football team of McGill University. An 18-year-old recruit, D’Arcy McKeown, reported being sodomized with a broom during an initiation ritual called “Dr. Broom”.
Shortly after, the Montreal establishment had set out clear directives on the acts which are not tolerated within the framework of initiations. For example: simulation of sexual acts, flogging and sleep deprivation, among many others.
Despite these efforts, another case shook the prestigious university in 2015 – which is not, however, the only one in Quebec to have seen initiations degenerate. This time the basketball team was involved. A student reported that he was forcibly shoved over his head with a pillowcase and stripped of his clothes except for his underpants. Then, a 40-ounce liquor bottle was taped to his mouth with strong tape and he was ordered to engage in sex games with partially undressed female students.
The law to the rescue?
In the United States, 44 of the 50 states have passed laws to prohibit initiations in one way or another, reports the American organization StopHazing. France has also legislated: “hazing”, as the French call it, in 1998 became an offense punishable by six months’ imprisonment and a hefty fine.
In Quebec, no law specifically targets initiation rituals.
However, this is not necessary, according to the professor of criminal law at the University of Sherbrooke Simon Roy. “The Criminal Code already has everything you need,” he says without hesitation.
A penetration with a stick, “it is clearly a sexual assault”, he explains, specifying that “the aggressor does not have to have a sexual motive” to be found guilty of this offense.
To the defendants who might say that “it’s just a game, just for fun”, the professor retorts, in a sharp tone, that “it’s not a defense. There is no joke when it comes to sexual assault”.
Force young athletes to suffocate for hours in overheated toilets? “It’s sequestration”, continues the teacher.
As for the other gestures that would have been made by former players of the Major Junior Hockey League, such as urinating on a young athlete or hitting him, “these are assaults,” he says. “And that includes those who aided or encouraged” people to commit these acts, including holding back the young person who was being initiated. They can be convicted of the same offense as the one who strikes, says Professor Roy.
On video | “Homoerotic” initiations in the hypermasculine world of hockey
The latter also recalls that there is no deadline for filing criminal charges. In short, if a young person was attacked during an initiation 20 years ago, he can file a complaint tomorrow at the police station.
But then, why do we see so few cases before the criminal courts? For there to be convictions, the young people must denounce the aggressors, and this is where the problem lies, according to the professor: it can be untenable for a young person to denounce a team in which he wants to join. integrate and on which his sporting future depends.
Erase gray areas
Professor and researcher in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management at the University of Manitoba Jay Johnson believes that it could be useful to have a specific law that lists illegal acts: sports officials and universities would thus benefit from clear guidelines. Because there are “grey areas”, says the author of the book Making the Team: Inside the World of Sports Initiations and Hazing, pointing out that even athletes encountered in the course of his research did not understand that they had been subjected to aggression.
Moreover, rituals are often “normalized” by this very simple fact: those who subject others to them have themselves already experienced them in the past, explains the professor. And some see no problem with it.
“One of the obstacles is a culture that wants to preserve its right to do such initiations. There is this feeling of being part of a tradition. And it’s always harder than you think to change a culture. »
In Quebec, a sexual initiation denounced by law students at the University of Montreal in 2016 led the government to toy with the idea of outright banning initiations. In the end, he chose instead to impose on post-secondary institutions the adoption of a policy to prevent sexual violence. In 2020, the Legault government created an independent officer position to handle athlete complaints related to assault and harassment in sport.
Professor Johnson, who conducted the first pan-Canadian study examining initiations, acknowledges the efforts made since the publication of his book in 2004, and notes that there have been advances. But not to the point of eradicating the problem.
Universities and athletic associations aren’t doing enough to get rid of demeaning and violent initiations, he says. According to him, it is necessary in particular to bet on education programs intended for students and sports recruits, on forums where they could discuss integration activities with coaches and on clearly defined sanctions.
After studying the phenomenon for years, the professor remains convinced that rites of passage are important: different activities, without humiliating acts, should therefore be offered to young people by granting them the resources necessary to carry them out.