University of Warwick suspends 11 students over rape jokes

For the record I'm one of the least racist people you'll ever meet so I resent your implication.

It's not the comments that matter its the intent behind them.If there is malice and genuine hatred behind them then yeah punish them.If not then don't.You can't just judge on words alone you have to see the intent behind the word and the context its in.Its like when a black person like kanye west uses the word ******. Its fine for him to use the word because hes black and he's using it ironically.If a white person does it's deemed less acceptable.They both said the same word though.Surely its just as offensive if either of them say it.Yet its not generally deemed so because the intent is different.

I care about what people really think not some ill judged comments on facebook. I've made jokes that could be sexist such as telling a woman to get back in the kitchen.Does that mean I hate women? No.Its just dark humour and poking fun at those attitudes in a kind of subtle way.Clearly its too subtle for a lot of people to get otherwise we would't even be having this debate.

Acceptable to who?

the authorities are right to clamp down on "humour"... it is a symptom of free thought which is antithetical to a productive cohesive society.

1. Society in terms of a publicly funded institution.
2. The student community, many of who will find it highly offensive.
3. The university, which is keen to uphold its code of conduct and protect its reputation. The reputation of which these students hoped to benefit from.

Everyone using the defence of free speech on this thread shows exactly where the problem lies.

Free speech is purely a legal term, it simply means that an individual cannot be prosecuted for voicing an opinion. It doesn't mean you can say what you like and have immunity from any consequences that occur as a result. Freedom of speech means, yes, you can have an opinion, but it also means other people can challenge you about it. Freedom of speech means, yes, you can be as nasty and disgusting and hate-filled as you like, but it also means that you will undoubtedly get backlash should what you say be deemed offensive. You can't say the things these guys have said and expect not to get pulled up about it when it becomes public. As an adult you, and only you, are completely responsible for your own actions and words, you're not a child anymore. I only hope these morons get punished adequately, why can't people just be nice for a change?

I'll file this under my "grow a pair" dossier.

And as this thread proves, they have many eager lemmings to help them pursue their cause, because of some abstract bogeyman known as "hate".

Personally I don't think that messages in a private group chat have anything to do with the wider community, or that the fact they are offended should matter. Unless such messages can be considered to be dangerous, I say that it should only matter whether they are acceptable to the people in the chat itself (since they are the only ones who should be concerning themselves with its contents)

Classic.



You're right context does matter but you seemed to have completely missed it. Maaaaybe 'n****s' could be construed as a joke if said casually, but not after talking about how 'racism is class' and after calling black people 'coons'. It is therefore not a joke and calling black people 'coons' IS NEVER A JOKE.

I'm done talking to racist sympathisers like you, you guys are almost just as bad.

Edit: As other people have mentioned they said a lot of other disgusting things too.

What you say doesnt really matter though compared to what the Uni rules say and they have broken those

They have been suspended, not expelled.

Their lives haven't been ruined.

Racist remarks were only one aspect of why they were in breach. I dont believe you argument holds because it has much to do with the impact on other people about whether it is to be viewed as racist or offensive. If you follow that line of argument you are hiding behind the it was all a joke, we found it funny, so everyone else has to as well line of argument. It isnt a winner.

They look guilty on the disrepute charge and the respect and dignity breach. Bit cringe that several of them were reps for the uni in dealings with the local Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre.

Time for a gap year i'd think or clearing for some of them.

Well, time to close the thread then! What else are we here to discuss?

Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences. If you want to be an ******** then go ahead, but the University has every right to kick you.

Sorry that is unfair.
I was just emphasising the fact no matter what people think about free speech the Uni has its own agenda to do with being brought into disrepute. Even if no one complained they could proceed on that basis.

Suspended basically means expelled...who gets suspended for a couple of days at uni? This isnt college or gcse....

I totally agree that the university is right to do what they did. They have a reputation to uphold after all. I'm trying to discuss the morality of their actions

Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences. If you want to be an ******** then go ahead, but the University has every right to kick you.

Let's ignore for a minute the original incident this thread is about, and take this discussion a level higher:
- Do I have the freedom to harass someone online because I disagree with their point of view?
- Do I have the freedom to harass their employer, demanding them to fire the person?
- Do I have the freedom to maybe "hunt them down" and confront them in the street?

Am I allowed to do those things even if they did not commit a crime? This has been happening plenty, actually. "Freedom from consequence" is a nice pretext used by sinister people with ulterior motives it seems.

Let's ignore all the legal standards for a minute, tell me where you would personally draw the line. Harassing them? Targeting their family members? Maybe beating them up, you know... if they happen to be "fascists"? These things have happened to political dissidents in countries belonging to Western-style democracies over the past decade, and most of it is coming from the far-left that seems to proudly proclaim recently "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequence" while in various cases by now administering mob justice to people they disagree with. Look no further than Antifa.

"Freedom from consequence" analogically also doesn't mean freedom from even further consequence. For example, if anyone where to try and slap me in the street because they didn't like something I said elsewhere (no matter what it is)... you can be sure they wouldn't get away with it under any scenario. Not at all.

Now... let's reapply this principle through the legal system: if you're going to abuse the "freedom from consequence" excuse to oppress people expressing opinions, they'll retaliate eventually. You seem to forget that they can also dish out "consequences". You can only force the lid down on the saucepan for so long before you either burn yourself, it overflows, or maybe even cracks and gets mess all over you.

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With that behind me... I'll comment on the actual article. These kinds of 'jokes' repulse me. But even then, I find that invoking the power of authority to deal with people like this has been increasingly overused over the recent decade(s), and although 10 years ago I'd agree with expelling them, I've changed my mind in response to all the far-left radical crap that I think is a much bigger problem these days... as it is often expressed in the open, in public, and often quite shamelessly advocates, ahem, "consequences" of the illegal variety to be exercised on people they disagree with.

It's a matter of priorities.

I believe it would have been quite sufficient to just expose these people in the local student paper, and been given a stiff warning from the university administrators. Be certain, they would have been very unpopular for it. Rape is no longer "mainstream" or remotely popular or funny in Western culture. Yes, we do have feminists to thank for that. But we also have them to thank for increasingly overstepping certain boundaries themselves now, who not at all infrequently still claim that we live in a "rape culture". Bullshyt. We do not.

I've changed my mind in response to all the far-left radical crap that I think is a much bigger problem these days... as it is often expressed in the open, in public, and often quite shamelessly advocates, ahem, "consequences" of the illegal variety to be exercised on people they disagree with. And that goes undisciplined regardless. Yet these people get hammered even in the national newspaper.