Free Republic

The recent brutal hazing incident involving high school students from a wealthy suburban Chicago community highlights the profound dystrophy that permeates the culture of America's modern youth. It is both an astonishingly disappointing incident and a prospectively wholly beneficial occurrence for future generations, should it be dealt with in a responsible and strategic manner. Why would dozens of otherwise highly respectful and capable teenagers commit such horrific acts? They were forced to, and by a most unlikely party: themselves. On an early Sunday afternoon in May, dozens of students of the academically excellent Glenbrook North High School of Northbrook, Illinois,...

With the mainstream media moving on to other things the school officials at Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook, Illinois decided to offer a resolution to a very disturbing problem. This problem led to 15 senior girls being charged with misdemeanor battery charges following a “powder-puff” football game that turned into a scene from Platoon. It would seem that the school officials have offered a deal to the 31 suspended students who are awaiting expulsion for their involvement in the melee. The deal would allow them to graduate with their class and have their grades frozen at the level they...

Two adults and a student were charged today with supplying alcohol to suburban Chicago high school students involved in the videotaped brutal hazing. Cook County State's Attorney Richard Devine said one woman was charged with purchasing three kegs of beer, two of which were found at the forest preserve where the hazing took place. Another woman was accused of allowing her home to be used for underaged drinking. The student was charged with unlawful possession of alcohol by a minor. Devine said that student brought the kegs to the May 4 ``powder puff'' event where Glenbrook North High School senior...

By now everyone has seen the videotape of the melee that was titled a powder-puff football game in Northbrook, Illinois. In times passed senior and junior girls would gather to compete in a game of football, usually around homecoming, in an attempt to highlight a time during the year when tradition and inclusion became a right of passage. In times passed participating in such an event was an almost certain guarantee of fond memories to come. Today, this right of passage has taken on a much different tone and disturbingly the memories being made are those most often found in...

Students disciplined in the violent melee involving Glenbrook North High School students might be facing more than just an ugly end to their high school days. Their college careers might also be on the line. About half of all U.S. colleges require incoming students to tell them about any serious trouble they've gotten into since they filled out their applications, including the University of Illinois, where, according to the high school's Web site, 174 Glenbrook North current seniors have enrolled. "There's a committee that evaluates each case," Robin Kaler, a spokesperson at the University's Urbana-Champaign campus, said Monday. "They look...

The video resembled a scene out of Lord of the Flies. A group of 17-year-old-girls, all in monochromatic yellow jerseys, the faces of some smeared with war paint, hurl chunks of mud, paint, and excrement at a helpless, cowering group of younger girls in the middle, smeared with a repugnantly unrecognizable cement-colored muck, and screaming for their lives. A crowd of fifty students dressed in standard suburban gear, fleeces, baseball caps, blue jeans, stand by and urge on the predators, who shift to lunging and beating, some with their bats, others with bare hands clenched into structures resembling the claws...

Can we officially stop worrying about girls now? From the sad and starving girls of Reviving Ophelia (Ballantine, $7.99) to the really mean girls of Queen Bees and Wannabes (Crown Publishers, $24), an entire industry is devoted to chick-related handwringing. The culture damages their fragile emotional lives, people say. Girls are afraid to speak up for themselves. Math teachers don't call on them. They bully each other to cope with their systemic oppression. Yet, somehow, teen girls seem to be doing just fine. They are proud of their bodies, showing off all manner of bellies below their baby-sized T-shirts. They...

<p>NORTHBROOK, Ill. — Authorities investigating a videotaped hazing (search) in which high school girls were pummeled and showered with feces, paint and garbage said Thursday they are trying to determine whether parents supplied beer and some of the filth. They also said criminal charges were likely.</p>