Just when you may have been thinking “we have come a long way baby,” news breaks out about disturbing practices during frosh week, the introduction to campus life for first-year university students. First there was St. Mary’s University in Halifax and then we saw it right here at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia.
I’ve been paying particular attention to this phenomenon because my granddaughter just headed out for her first year at university. Thankfully, she’s attending neither of the above schools of, um, higher learning.
Students tend to do a lot of silly things during what is essentially a hazing exercise mostly involving the overconsumption of alcohol.
But what I didn’t expect to discover was young people of both genders in their first days on both campuses being encouraged by more senior students to participate in a cheer that glorifies what social scientists refer to as “rape culture.” The particular little ditty — now available to the whole world on YouTube of course — it is about the joy of forcing underaged girls to have sex.
At both universities these events were supported by the administration. And, while you may think the folks supporting an activity would find out in advance what they might be providing resources for, both expressed “shock” when they were informed about this activity. Sauder spokesperson Andrew Riley told the Ubyssey student newspaper, which broke the story on that campus: “As far as I know, this issue doesn’t exist. I’ve never heard anything about this before.”
What I find a bit shocking is the revelation from some of the participants that this cheer has been part of frosh week for quite some time.
That appears to be the case at UBC’s Sauder School of Business, the place where they train the corporate leaders of tomorrow.
And according to the story in the Ubyssey, this isn’t the first time the cheer has caused ripples that would reach the remote shores of the administration. The paper quotes frosh co-chair Jacqueline
Chen, who said the cheers have been going on for many years and that the Commerce Undergraduate Society (made up of students in the Sauder School) was chastised in the past over it.
Oddly, her solution is to simply prevent news of this appalling activity from leaking out to the general population: “We had problems a very long time ago with the cheers being public in a sort of way and the Dean seeing. We let the groups know: if it happens in the group, it stays in the group.” Really.
She added that as a precaution, they should have any reference to this activity removed from social media. Unfortunately for Chen and her pals, that didn’t happen this time. A Sauder student tweeted the cheer, which was picked up by the Ubyssey.
UBC philosophy professor Scott Anderson told me he is no expert on freshman rituals but he sees frosh week activities as based on pressure to “fit in with the group.” He is, however, an expert on the subjects of sexual harassment and assault. The impact of the cheer is no small matter. He says it shows a “disregard” for women who have been “victims of sexual violence and sexual predation.”
As he also told the Ubyssey: this kind of chant is usually led by men who are in favoured positions in society so people want to curry favour by going along. But that cheering reinforces the victims “stigmatization and seems to make them the problem.” Anyone who complains is just spoiling the fun for others.
When the Sauder School of Business Administration did finally accept the facts, they moved quickly to staunch the reputational risk they were facing. Dean Robert Helsley struck a task force to look into the Sauder so-called rape cheer activity. They will report back Sept. 16. He’s also cutting support for the existing frosh program and says “starting this week faculty will be increasing emphasis in the curriculum on issues related to respect, dignity and ethics.”
And on Wednesday it was reported that two members of the student society executive responsible for frosh activities at Sauder resigned.
Now all of that is something worth cheering about.
