A Curse Of Cliques
There are good reasons toform tight-knit groups. But in America's high schools, they canbe harsh
BY ADAM COHEN

When the shooting finally stopped at Columbine High School,and students ran out of their hiding places to safety, some ofthe most hulking male students had stripped off their shirts.They weren't posing for the cameras. Word had spread through theschool that the "Trench Coat Mafia" was hunting forathletes, and at Columbine a polo shirt--and a white baseballcap--marked the wearer as a jock.

It was the first day in Columbine history that it wasdangerous to be a jock--and that kind of humiliation may havebeen just what the killers had in mind. Video games and the easyavailability of guns may have contributed to the Littletonhorror. But what role did the ingrained cliquishness of Americanhigh schools play? Part of the story is old: the embitteredoutcasts against the popular kids on campus. But what kind of newconflagrations should we expect if the Revenge of the Nerds cannow be played out to the firing of semiautomatics?

In the movie version of the 1950s, schools split into twocamps: the fresh-scrubbed kids (frats, preppies) and theleather-clad rebels (hoods, greasers). It's more complicatedthese days. Columbine's 1,935 students look a lot alike--mostlywhite, well off and primed for success. But students have notrouble ticking off a startling number of cliques--jocks, hockeykids (a separate group), preppies, stoners, gangbangers(gang-member wannabes), skaters (as in skateboarders) and, asthey say, nerds. Other high schools have variations on thesethemes. California has its surfer cliques, and Austin High Schoolin Texas has the hicks--or kickers--who show up at school incowboy boots, big hats and oversize belt buckles.

It's a cliche that jocks and cheerleaders rule, but it islargely true. While others plod through high school, they glide:their exploits celebrated in pep rallies and recorded in theschool paper and in trophy cases. "The jocks and thecheerleaders, yes, have the most clout," says BlakeMcConnell, a student at Sprayberry High School near Atlanta."They get out of punishment--even with the police. Joe Blowhas a wreck and has been drinking, and he gets the book thrown athim. The quarterback gets busted, and he gets a lightersentence."

At the other extreme are the Trench Coat Mafias of theworld--the kids on the margins. Each school has its own brand ofoutsiders with their own names--nerds, freaks, punks, ravers. Andeach group has its own way of standing out. At Atlanta'sSprayberry, says sophomore Shawn Cotter, "the outcasts aremainly people who dress up differently, guys who wear makeup anddress in feminine ways, people who wear black leather andchains."

But high school outcasts have moved beyond the chess club andthe audio-visual squad. Now they are wearing black T shirts,trench coats and hard-kicking Doc Martens. Many are also wearingface powder and black eyeliner. "A lot of it is just afront--a mass cry for attention," says McConnell."Mostly there's nothing behind it."

Still, the worst of high school fringe groups do seem moredisturbed than in the past. The awkward kids aren't just smilinginappropriately during science-lab frog dissections. Some highschools have white supremacist cliques. Then there are groupslike the Straight Edge, a presence at schools like Salt LakeCity's Kearns High School. They are puritanical punkers who areanti-drug, anti-alcohol, and anti-tobacco--and they are violent.If you smoke or drink in their presence, some Straight Edgerswill attack you with a baseball bat.

The so-called good cliques can do just as much as theoutsiders to foment trouble. There really is a Lord of the Fliesdynamic at work among kids. Even nice kids seem to spend a lot oftime being cruel to their less socially prominent peers. Socialscience literature is filled with the gritty details--categorizedunder headings like "the spiral of rejection." Pattiand Peter Adler, sociologists who do field research on cliques,found that a 17-year-old girl in one group they observed couldraise her status by getting a boy to spend money on her and breakup with another girl for her--and then dump him. Another cliquemember told a researcher that "one of the main things to dois to keep picking on unpopular kids because it's just fun todo."

The dynamics between cliques are often very raw, particularlyfor the groups at the extremes of the social spectrum: jocks andoutcasts. Even at the relatively well-integrated Liberty HighSchool in Bethlehem, Pa., it is not unheard of for the punks--whooften sport black clothing, tattoos and spiky hair--to be tauntedin the hallways. "They call 'em dirty, say stuff like 'Whydon't you bathe?'" says a student. Often it is the athleteswho dish out the abuse. Haakon Espeland, 14, switched out ofBrooklyn's Fort Hamilton High, where he was one of the"freaks." The reason he fled: a stream of abuse,starting on his first day at school, when "all these hugepeople beat on me, basically for being there."

Adolescents are psychologically fragile, and mistreatment fromschoolmates leaves deep wounds. Sometimes, says AugustanaUniversity education professor Larry Brendtro, "kids whofeel powerless and rejected are capable of doing horriblethings." Jason Sanchez, 15, a student at Phoenix's MountainPointe High School, understands why Harris and Klebold snapped:"If you go to school, and people make fun of you every day,and you don't have friends, it drives you to insanity."

There is probably no way to stop high schools from breakingdown into cliques. We may be hardwired for it. As early aspreschool, researchers have found, kids begin rejecting otherkids. And even in kindergarten, children have a good idea whichof their classmates are popular and which are not. But schoolscan take the edge off the situation through inclusiveness."I can't remember ever going to a pep rally and having theskaters show off their talents," says Curtis Cook, a parentat Phoenix's Desert Vista High School. Says New York Citypsychoanalyst Leon Hoffman: "All kids need to belong, and ifthey can't belong in a positive way at the school, they'll find away to belong to a marginal group like a cult or a gang."

The Columbine High shootings seem to have given at least somecliques around the country pause. At Trumbull High School inConnecticut, the Goths have stopped wearing their trademarktrench coats. And students in more mainstream cliques may be alittle more cautious about taunting students who don't fit in--ifonly out of an instinct for self-preservation. "I'm notgoing to talk about them anymore," says Nathalie Kirnon, aTrumbull freshman. "They might do it here."

--REPORTED BY HARRIET BAROVICK, DESAPHILADELPHIA AND ELAINE RIVERA/NEW YORK, LAURA LAUGHLIN/PHOENIX,JODIE MORSE/TRUMBULL AND DAVID NORDAN/ATLANTA