By Katie Stobbart (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: April 3, 2013
Is it okay for people to willingly participate in embarrassing activities?
Apparently not.
This month, engineering students at Ryerson were condemned in the public eye because of a so-called hazing episode, where new student leaders crawled half-clothed through a cold, slushy puddle at the encouragement of senior students. The goal of this event was allegedly spirit-building, and it was completely voluntary.
Rose Ghamari, president of the Ryerson Engineering Student Society (RESS), told the Globe and Mail that “only half of the newly chosen student leaders took part in the optional event.”
Having been through a winter in Ontario myself, I’m not going to pretend I understand the foolishness of getting down on all fours, let alone underwear-clad, in an icy puddle. But the activity itself doesn’t seem so unusual – look at the Polar Bear Swim every year on the West Coast. Thousands of people participate in that event and are even celebrated in the media for taking the plunge, even though the activity is often associated with curing that hangover from New Year’s Eve partying. Yet prominent figures like Ryerson’s university president and even the Premier of Ontario have both expressed shock and disgust at the impropriety of engineering students’ actions.
The crux of the debacle seems to be the fact that a female student was slapped on the butt by a male student (though a spokesperson from Ryerson was paraphrased in the Globe and Mail clarifying that the students were friends, and the woman involved doesn’t plan to press for punishment). Apparently snowballs were also thrown at students participating in the crawl.
Was the crawl humiliating? Maybe. Was it fun? I can’t see how it would be. Was it hazing? I’m not sure.
StopHazing.org defines hazing as “any activity expected of someone joining a group that humiliates, degrades or risks emotional and/or physical harm, regardless of the person’s willingness to participate.” It sounds like the event might be hazing, but for one stumbling block: were students expected to participate?
Engineering students from Ryerson have paraded through downtown Toronto for years, thought this is the first time the event has gone this far. RESS representatives did apologize to the university for the nature of the event, though it was not planned as a hazing ritual.
Much of the media feedback on the issue seems to portray students as victims in the situation, declaring that peer pressure is what forces students to participate in the activity, so it’s not really voluntary. However, that’s not a standpoint that’s well-supported in our society: for example, if someone is pressured by their peers to riot or sell drugs or drive the getaway car, that person is still completely accountable for those actions because he or she ultimately chose to participate. The students who elected to participate in this case were adults, and capable of making their own sound decisions. They decided to do something they knew would be humiliating.
If it’s a hazing activity, then the RESS members involved should be reprimanded as the university sees fit. If it’s not hazing, perhaps there should be some effort put into defining what is and is not okay in university policies – when has an event gone too far? Draw the line so that it’s clear when someone has crossed it.
Ultimately, it boils down to this: crawling through a freezing puddle isn’t worth a crawl through the media circus.
