Rhode Island lawmakers pass anti-hazing legislation for public-school sports

Under a bill passed June 8 by Rhode Island representatives, all state student-athletes would need to abide by an anti-hazing policy or face penalties and sanctions.

“As a retired educator, coach and former student athlete, I can state without reservation that hazing is degrading, abusive and dangerous,” said Democratic Rep. Joseph M. McNamara, Dist. 19, Warwick, Cranston, who helped introduce the legislation.

McNamara, House Education Committee chair, cited two instances that prompted the bill, which now awaits Gov. Dan McKee’s signature.

“Recently, there was an incident at Smithfield High School where five seniors locked a freshman in the bathroom while spraying him with Lysol, and another at Rogers High School in Newport where four teens were arrested for assaulting a student with special needs in a locker room.”

The legislation would set a statewide definition for hazing, with student-athletes signing an acknowledgement that policy violations “may result in the imposition of penalties and sanctions,” according to the local NBC and ABC affiliate.

“We’ve all worked hard to make schools safer, more welcoming and more inclusive,” McNamara said. “Athletics should not be an exception to that rule. Regardless of what form it takes, hazing creates an environment of trauma and humiliation, and we have to take it more seriously.”

‘A dangerous environment for its students’

Challenges related to hazing in public schools have surfaced in other states beyond Rhode Island.

Multiple families sued an Oklahoma school district in 2024, accusing former football coach Phillip Koons and his two sons of inappropriate, abusive behavior toward student athletes.

“The Ringling School District was a dangerous environment for its students,” the lawsuit concluded, accusing defendants of enabling a culture of hazing, bullying and harassment. “Ringling School District created the danger or increased plaintiffs’ vulnerability to the danger by effectively ignoring the toxic culture Philip Koons maintained.”

The lawsuit also cited similar allegations against Koons from previous positions – one at Tuttle Public School and another at Clinton High School – which the district knew before hiring him, plaintiffs noted.

“With regard to Cooper Koons and Sterling Koons, they were complicit with their father in the abuse and discrimination that went on in the Ringling program,” attorney Tod Mercer said. “They were right there with it. Unfortunately, many of the boys have stories to tell. Cooper Koons or Sterling Koons were involved in all the different things: verbal abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, and especially mental abuse and racial discrimination.”

Meanwhile, Kansas schools recently drew criticism for having an extremely narrow definition of “persistently dangerous schools,” despite multiple incidents of criminal offenses.

“During the 2021-2022 school year, no schools in the United States were reported as ‘persistently dangerous’, in spite of the Education Department’s Civil Rights Data Collection reporting 1.2 million violent offenses that same school year,” David Hicks observed for The Sentinel.