Students who were booted out of University of Warwick after threatening to rape female undergraduates are to be allowed to return to their studies later this year.
A total of 11 men were involved in a Facebook group chat in which they joked about assaulting women and encouraged each other to rape specific fellow students. They group members faced “a fierce backlash last year when screenshots of the disturbing messages were revealed”, reports Metro.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
At one point, a user wrote: “Rape her in the street while everybody watches.” Another responded that it “wouldn’t even be unfair”.
Some of the messages also contained racist and anti-Semitic slurs, says the Daily Mirror.
The row was first reported last summer by Warwick student newspaper The Boar.
A disciplinary investigation was subsequently launched by the university, in response to complaints from girls named in the messages, and five of the group chat students were suspended.
Two were banned for ten years - but have now had that reduced to one year after appealing to the university. Another two were excluded for one year, and one was given a lifetime campus ban.
This means “four out of the five of the men initially suspended will rejoin classes in September 2019”, says the BBC.
Prior to the appeal decision, the university had said that “the two original complainants should have completed their degrees before any of those five individuals are due to return to campus”.
But following the verdict, one of the women told The Boar: “I wanted to do a master’s here but that’s not an option anymore. Other girls who were named and talked about in the chat are still going to be here next year in the same department.”
In an open letter to the university, another of the female students targeted in the chat said: “We were discussed so violently. We were humiliated, as if for sport. These boys were my friends - like my brothers. And they destroyed me.
“You expect us to return from semesters abroad and study alongside these men? It is a source of shame for past, present and future Warwick alumni that you lack the courage to stand by us.”
Warwick Students’ Union president Liam Jackson told the newspaper: “It is absolutely clear that the university’s disciplinary processes need changing as soon as possible, and the union will continue to push for this in the coming days and weeks.”
In a statement, the university said: “[Our] focus since the conclusion of the investigation and disciplinary processes has been, and remains, to work to ensure that anyone involved in this matter who remains student at Warwick is able to complete their studies while minimising any further contact between the original complainants and anyone who received a sanction from the discipline committee.”
-
Taps could run dry in drought-stricken TehranUnder the Radar President warns that unless rationing eases water crisis, citizens may have to evacuate the capital
-
Alaska faces earth-shaking loss as seismic monitoring stations shutterIN THE SPOTLIGHT NOAA cuts have left the western seaboard without a crucial resource to measure, understand and predict tsunamis
-
10 great advent calendars for everyone (including the dog)The Week Recommends Countdown with cocktails, jams and Legos
-
Why are professors trying to escape their jobs?Under the Radar The Facebook group that offers a look inside the crisis in higher education
-
The pros and cons of affirmative actionPros and Cons Even before the Supreme Court struck it down, affirmative action was a highly divisive practice
-
English literature: is it doomed?Speed Read Arts and humanities courses are under attack thanks to a shift to ‘skills-led’ learning
-
Are UK classrooms a new political battleground?Speed Read Government has issued new guidance on political neutrality in schools
-
Kathleen Stock resigns: the ‘hounding’ of an academic on the front line of transgender rights debateSpeed Read Sussex University students claim ‘trans and non-binary students are safer and happier for it’
-
How 100,000 ‘lost children’ disappeared from UK school systemSpeed Read Experts warn that vulnerable pupils may be recruited by gangs after failing to return to education post-lockdown
-
Why is the government planning to cut arts education funding by 50%?Speed Read Proposal described by critics as ‘catastrophic’ and ‘an attack on the future of UK arts’
-
Schools do not spread Covid-19, multiple studies findSpeed Read Reports from Germany, Norway and the WHO conclude schoolchildren are not vector of infection
