Four-time state championship Bingham High drill team, the Minerettes, has been accused of forcing underage girls to disrobe as part of an initiation party--or else eat dog feces.

Date:   10/8/2007 7:54:13 PM ( 17 y ago)

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A Bingham High Drill Team alumnus has come forward out of the quiet to reveal a sexua| hazing at a beginning of the year traditional sleepover last summer where she witnessed the captain of the drill team forcing girls to stand up alone and disrobe in various poses in a truth or dare game. "It's one thing to undress in the locker room preparing for a performance--but it's another thing to be held up individually and humiliated in a peer pressure moment that you don't want to participate in. This is exactly what the captain of the drill team should not have been teaching--that you must be cornered, forced and sexualized to be accepted by your peers. I can’t believe these girls thought this was funny, because it is completely the opposite,” said Jessica Dalling, a former Minerette who earned two state championships with the Minerettes while she was a sophomore and a junior. Jessica quit the Minerette drill team her senior year out of disgust with the actions of her fellow team members. When the girls and some parents expressed discomfort to the coaches, Morgan Meredith and Cicily Oldham, Morgan responded by asking one victim to try out for a different team because “she didn’t fit in”. "It is so inappropriate to sexualize young 15 year-old girls who just want to fit in with their new team. And words cannot express how furious I am at the coaches because they actually retaliated against the victims. And the ridicule hasn't stopped. What kind of coach what allow this? What kind of coach would set these examples for these young girls? She made the victims the ‘bad guys’ which is totally untrue." Dalling said. Dalling decided to come forward after last week's East High School hazing incident in which the coach kicked the abusers off the team. Inspired, Dalling felt she had a responsibility to end the rumors that have been circulating at Bingham High School in which team members have accused the victims of lying about what happened and to bring attention to the issue that no one on a team should ever be sexualized or humiliated against their will. Dalling knows the victims and said the victims have experienced severe emotional, physical, and spiritual trauma as a result of the sexua| hazings and the retaliation that followed when they came forward to the coach. “It is ethically and morally wrong and I am out to spread the word to every drill team, every football team, every school organization that this is unacceptable. People don’t realize how serious this is, and it needs to stop now. It doesn’t matter if you’re the President of the club or a new member. No one should ever have to go through this ever.”
 

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