A Curse Of Cliques

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

It was the first day in Columbine history that it was dangerous to be a jock--and that kind of humiliation may have been just what the killers had in mind. Video games and the easy availability of guns may have contributed to the Littleton horror. But what role did the ingrained cliquishness of American high schools play? Part of the story is old: the embittered outcasts against the popular kids on campus. But what kind of new conflagrations should we expect if the Revenge of the Nerds can now be played out to the firing of semiautomatics?

In the movie version of the 1950s, schools split into two camps: the fresh-scrubbed kids (frats, preppies) and the leather-clad rebels (hoods, greasers). It's more complicated these days. Columbine's 1,935 students look a lot alike--mostly white, well off and primed for success. But students have no trouble ticking off a startling number of cliques--jocks, hockey kids (a separate group), preppies, stoners, gangbangers (gang-member wannabes), skaters (as in skateboarders) and, as they say, nerds. Other high schools have variations on these themes. California has its surfer cliques, and Austin High School in Texas has the hicks--or kickers--who show up at school in cowboy boots, big hats and oversize belt buckles.

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

At the other extreme are the Trench Coat Mafias of the world--the kids on the margins. Each school has its own brand of outsiders with their own names--nerds, freaks, punks, ravers. And each group has its own way of standing out. At Atlanta's Sprayberry, says sophomore Shawn Cotter, "the outcasts are mainly people who dress up differently, guys who wear makeup and dress in feminine ways, people who wear black leather and chains."

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