NationalPost – Laura Brooks plays for the Dalhousie University women’s hockey team, a team that doesn’t actually play any games, because it only has five players. All five are rookies. There used to be 22 players, a mix of rookies and seniors, and of second- and third-years, but then 17 of them were suspended by university administrators this month, and the season forfeited, after details emerged that the five rookies, Ms. Brooks among them, were subjected to “hazing” at a team party last fall. Ms. Brooks recounted the details of the event, a team tradition, in a recent interview with CBC radio. She said the rookies were made to “dress up” in a blazer and tie, put Vaseline in their hair and answer “questions.” There was a scavenger hunt, drinking games and a gross snack — sardines, piled high with hot peppers and slathered in whip cream — to gobble down. Rookies who wanted to leave the party early were escorted home. Rookies too drunk to leave were provided with pajamas, a place to sleep and breakfast the next morning.“It was not awful,” Ms. Brooks told CBC. “It was not a big deal.”

Brenda Morrison is the director of the Centre for Restorative Justice at Simon Fraser University. She says the folly of zero tolerance policies is well documented in schools, and in our criminal justice system, where the contest is between the state and the criminal and the victim impact often discounted as collateral damage. “Zero tolerance policies are blind to the realities of social life, they are a one-size fits all model and they don’t build understanding, don’t necessarily deter others from participating in the same behaviour and they definitely don’t address the issues at the heart of the indiscretion,”

Last week the players wrote Mr. Traves a letter, signed by all 22 team members, including the rookie who informed her parents about the team party, who in turn told the coach who in turn told the university administration and got the puck bouncing, bringing us to where we are today. Says Dalhousie spokesperson Charles Crosby: “The university has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to hazing or initiation rituals.

Thank God for Brenda Morrison! She’s the first rational person I’ve ever heard that works at a college. If this was a Bat Mitzvah I’d throw her in a chair and be hoisting her to the rafters right now.

“Zero tolerance policies are blind to the realities of social life, they are a one-size fits all model and they don’t build understanding, don’t necessarily deter others from participating in the same behaviour and they definitely don’t address the issues at the heart of the indiscretion,”

AMEN SISTA! Preach! Preach! Preach! I know I’ve pointed out this out before, but it never ceases to amaze me that the people charged with educating our kids are always at the center of these zero tolerance and pussification stories. Like the goal of teachers and administrators should be to teach kids to think for themselves. To use their brain and commons sense when making decisions. But how can we expect that to happen when moron administrators like Charles Crosby defend all their decisions by saying they have a “zero tolerance policy.” Seriously what’s the point of even having humans as teachers? Just program robots and you could do the same thing. It just makes no sense. Clearly this hazing was not a big deal. To suspend everybody and force them to cancel their season is the pussification of America at it’s finest and everything that is wrong with our educational system and country today.

PS – The girl whose mother tattled on the team must be wicked popular right now huh?