Bullying and hazing thrive in silence—and that is what makes them so dangerous. Recent reporting, including Rick Westhead’s We Breed Lions, underscores what many families learn the hard way: these dynamics are not isolated, and they are not confined to one school, one team, or one community. When institutions treat cruelty as “tradition,” protect reputations over people, or respond with half-measures, the harm tends to escalate, reporting channels tend to fail, and the truth often surfaces only after the damage is irreversible.

Bullying and hazing can look like a hundred small acts—or one catastrophic event. It can include group-chat harassment, threats, stalking, humiliation rituals, coerced “initiations,” forced consumption of alcohol or substances, physical assaults framed as “pranks,” sexualized conduct, retaliation for reporting, and targeted hostility toward LGBTQ+ and transgender students or teammates. The impact is often cumulative: anxiety and depression, withdrawal from school or activities, self-harm risk, injuries requiring medical care, and lasting disruption to education and family stability. In these cases, the question is not whether conflict exists in groups; it is whether the adults and institutions responsible for safety responded reasonably—or allowed preventable harm to continue.

Elite sports environments deserve special attention. In high-intensity sports settings, like varsity or ‘AAA’ hockey teams, power and access are concentrated: playing time, roster spots, recruiting exposure, and scholarships can hinge on staying in the “right” circle. That pressure can turn bullying into a tool of control and hazing into a gatekeeping mechanism—enforced not only by teammates but sometimes enabled, minimized, or directly carried out by coaches and staff. These situations often include retaliation for speaking up, forced “team bonding” rituals, humiliation framed as “toughness,” and isolation of the athlete who refuses to comply. The legal and factual work in these cases focuses on supervision, reporting channels, coaching conduct, and the organization’s actual practices—not just what policies say on paper—because the dynamics are frequently systemic and predictable in the season-to-season culture of a program.

Like other complex cases, these claims are record-driven and time-sensitive. When bullying or hazing occurs, families should prioritize safety and documentation: preserve messages and screenshots; save emails and incident reports; record dates, names, and locations; identify witnesses; and request copies of relevant policies and procedures. Early reporting matters because it creates a contemporaneous record and can trigger protective steps. In Washington’s K–12 system, districts must adopt and implement policies and procedures addressing harassment, intimidation, and bullying, including designated points of contact and communication requirements.

These matters typically progress in phases. First comes stabilization: stopping ongoing harm, preserving evidence, and pushing institutions to take protective measures consistent with their own policies. Next comes investigation: what the institution knew, when it knew it, what it did, what it failed to do, and whether the response was timely and effective. Then comes the legal framing—often a combination of negligence-based theories, civil-rights theories depending on the facts, and, in higher-education hazing cases. In the most serious cases, the litigation also focuses on retaliation and cover-up dynamics—because the harm is frequently compounded when the first report triggers isolation, discipline of the victim, or pressure to “move on.”

This office approaches bullying and hazing cases with the same posture as any high-stakes civil matter: build the record early, narrow the factual disputes, and force accountability through disciplined advocacy. The goal is straightforward—safety first, clarity second, and a resolution that reflects the true cost of what occurred, not the institution’s preferred narrative. Parker’s perspective here is not merely professional: as a former AAA and varsity athlete who also played Junior A hockey in Canada, Parker understands firsthand how elite team cultures can be toxic.