Either 1 tasteless joke is wrong (and by extension 100 SCs of them are wrong) or 1 tasteless joke is not wrong (and by extension 100 SCs of them are not wrong). I don't see how the large number changes anything, other than perhaps suggesting these were not said "for joke reasons". In that case, I think the university should be more concerned with rapes these students have committed and less concerned with jokes said in a private chat.
@999tigger did you put this poll on? Mediation? I think you've been doing too much of ACAS grievance advice. "Causes actual harm" because it concerned particular students -- wrong. Those students would not, in the expectation of the posters in the GC, have ever seen the info.
Interest that I mention ACAS, the process of grievance meetings are underpinned by natural justice, so an employer cannot behave contrary to this. The university should review the messages i
n vacuo and use the principles of natural justice to objectively assess the situation, and the specific culpability of participants' particular acts and so on, and should not consider reputation (which does not depend on the in vacuo culpability of the participants, namely because the participants never expected the private information to be leaked (nor should they have an expectation such information
might be leaked, unless those jokes are inherently
in vacuo culpable)).
I disagree that it normalises behaviour, because tasteless jokes are told because they are shocking. They are based on a societal rejection of an idea, a rejection you implicitly have also, which you shock others by exploiting for humorous effect. If it were "normalised" then it would not be shock humour. It would be making a joke about a kettle, inherently normal and not shock worthy. Its being normal would mean it would lose shock value. I can only see one scenario where people might joke about this even though they do not find it shocking, and that is when it involves genuine rapists. I find it rather unlikely these students are monsters of this order.