Why sex assault veiled as hazing may be viewed as a 'rite of passage'

Kyle Fraser,a former student at Toronto's St. Michael's College School, said the "toxic environment"at the facility is part of the reason he was forced to leave, and it'swhy he's not surprised by the recent allegations of assault and sexual assault.

"That's the culture at that school. Those are the types of people that go to that school," said Fraser, who attended the all-boys Catholic school from 2009 to 2013.

Fraser, who said he was verbally harassed every day at the school, said while there are good students there,the ones who excelin sports and academics would putdown those who don't.

"So, it's a very toxic environment,"he said.

'Male-dominated environments'

And that toxicity, with the combined factors of an all-boys private school witha particular emphasis on sports and sports teamscould create the environment for these types of bullying andhazing incidents to occur,according to Margery Holman, akineticsassociateprofessor emeritus at the University of Windsor and co-author of thebook:Making the Team: Inside the World of Sport Hazing and Initiations.

"It's those male-dominated environments," said Holman.

"This is part of a history and tradition that is tolerated and accepted and peopleturn a blind eye to it.It's happening everywhere, not just at St. Mike's."

The school, whichteaches Grades 7 through 12,has been rocked by allegations that students were assaulted or sexually assaulted, and that these alleged attacks were captured on video and circulated among students at the school.

The school has, so far, expelled at least eight students in connection with the alleged incidents. Police sources have told The Canadian Press that at least one incidentinvolved members of the basketball team bullying a student and soaking him with water.

Those sources said another incident involvedthe football team, whena group of boys held down another student and allegedly sexually assaulted him with a broom handle.

"These are embeddedattitudes that aregoingto take a long time to change," Holman said. "It took along time to buildon them and itescalatesevery year....

"They try to one up each other from year to year to year."

'More and more common'

Susan Lipkins, a New York-based psychologist who specializes in hazing, says it'snot restricted toall-boys schoolsand that the practice, along with all types of bullying, can be found indifferent types of schools.

(Just this month, for example,avideo surfaced showing kidsbullying aNova Scotia teen with cerebral palsy; making him lie downin a stream as classmateswalked over him).

But, basedon her research, Lipkinssays sexualized hazing is becoming "more and more common" and is spreadingthrough the internet.

A 2014 BloombergNews report found that in the U.S., morethan 40 high school boys were sodomized with objects by their teammates in over a dozen alleged incidents reported in thatpast year, compared with about three incidents 10 years earlier.

"I think it is becoming more the norm. It's being accepted as a norm, as a rite of passage," Lipkins said. "It'sbecoming normalized for the kids and they are not really attending to how awful and usually how illegal these events are."

The whole concept of hazing, she said, is to maintain the status quo and hierarchy. And the quickest way to makea rookie or new person on ateam or group feel their lack of power and status is to humiliate them as quickly as possible.

"When you humiliate somebody in the sexual arena it'sinstant,and there's no way of fighting back," Lipkinssaid.

Girls are also sexually hazedby teammates, but such incidents among boys are muchmore common, she said.

Not part of 'sport ritual'

Meanwhile, some former students took to social media to defendSt. Mike's.

The allegations are "not part of sport ritual at the school," said one, DanteFantauzzi, on Twitter, and don't "reflect what they teach and what goes on in a locker room."

The recent news "does not in any way reflect the school community, brotherhood, rituals, or integrity of my brothers," tweeted Akil Thomas, another former student.

Debra Pepler, a psychology professor at York University's LaMarsh Centre for Childand Youth Research, said shebelievesincidents such as those alleged to have occurred at St. Mike's are an anomaly.

"I do think that extreme forms of bullying and if, in fact, pictures were taken and shared on cellphones,this is quite an unusual act."

Pepleralso referred to the most recent research on bullying conducted bythe World Health Organization. It found that the rates of youth reporting bullying in 2014 were 62 per cent lower than they were in 2006.

"So, generally, there's a trend forless bullying or fewer youth being involved in bullying than 12 years ago," she said.

However, boys do report that they've engaged in bullying at a higher rate than girls and report that they've sexually harassed others both boys and girls at a higher rate than girls do, Pepler said.

While you mayexpect that an all-boys school would have a higher rate of bullying, the likelihood of such actions depends on the climate within the school that's been established by school administrators and teachers, she said.

"If it's a climate where caring for others and being socially responsible is reinforced and constantly upheld, then there would be less likely to be bullying in the school,"Pepler said.

"If it's a climate that doesn't address inequities and exclusion and rejection and marginalization then it would be a school where you'd be more likely to see bullying."

With files from Ron Charles, OliviaStefanovichand The Canadian Press