Warwick Rape Joke Students- 3 expelled 2 banned for a year, rest fined.

Well I am sorry to burst your bubble but you will find many people in the world who joke around with rape. It might not seem ethical but do they care? Are they actually going to do it? No, they are just having a laugh. See nothing wrong with that
I am not supporting rape just telling you

But you see the thing is RAR, the reason why they got banned is because of how unethical it is. The university is setting a social standard. “Having a laugh” doesn’t constitute a pass in this situation.

Has anybody read 'The Crucible', or perhaps '1984'? These comments were made in a private group chat, the University has no right to punish them at all, in fact, they have done absolutely nothing wrong. They have not hurt anyone, nor have they committed a crime, and yet they are hounded and punished as if they were criminals. You might find their jokes offensive, but offence itself is entirely subjective, and these were jokes made in private. We have no right to police the thoughts and conversations of others. If you don't like someones jokes, don't read them, and if you find something so offensive that its causing you an issue, then its you that has a problem. It seems so awful to have grown up in a time when liberty, free speech and peoples basic human rights are being thrown away on a whim because somebody said something in private, and it made somebody else feel sad.

If you don't like someones jokes, don't read them..

Nobody should find rape funny! Even if it was used as a joke.

What has happened to British society that some university students think it is amusing to talk about who they should rape? Not only that, people defend them as if there's nothing wrong with such utterances. Something has gone badly wrong.

No, they didn't make stupid jokes about rape, they talked about who they thought they should rape, no 'set up' no 'punch line' plain and simple statements of intent. Even had they merely made jokes about rape they deserved serious punishment by the university but it was more than that, it was a repeated statement of intent to rape their female classmates.

How can you judge their intentions? They said the comments were jokes, no one was actually raped. You’re not a mind reader

If you don't like a uni's policies about respecting other students., don't go.

That's exactly my point. I can't know for certain what a person's intentions are when they say they should rape so-and-so student, neither can you or anyone else.They may have been working their way up to an actual rape or it may have all been perverted rhetoric. My point is that it is reasonable to take someone seriously when it becomes apparent that in a private conversation they have made a plain statement about committing a serious crime such as this. Of course when found out they are likely to say they were 'just joking', I wouldn't expect them to say any different regardless of their actual intentions at the time. It would be exactly the same had they been discussing murder or a terrorist plot. Remember, they weren't talking about rape in some abstract way they were suggesting they should rape specific individuals or groups at their university. There's a point at which the sentences we utter cannot just be brushed off, or at least shouldn't be, because we're a 'frat boy' or because we claim we were just 'having an innocent laugh'.

How much reality have you experienced and how do you think it is any different to what the Warwick students have witnessed?

Your opinion that banning homosexual is based on modern society thinking it is wrong to ban homosexuality. You are just as blinded by your society's biases as anyone.

As making supposedly objective decisions on morality, you are going to be making a lot of arbitrary decisions and you have not provided a framework under which these decisions should take place. What is top stop Warwick Uni disciplining people for not being opposed to homosexuality? Or should unis' morality be "whatever TSRian Joe So-And-So thinks is right"? The current society's morality is the only thing we have to go off. If sending jokes in private is accepted by society, then you have to accept that.

Again, completely agree on this. Things you say can’t be taken back and I fail to understand why some others don’t accept that words have consequences just as actions would.

What has happened to British society that some university students think it is amusing to talk about who they should rape? Not only that, people defend them as if there's nothing wrong with such utterances. Something has gone badly wrong.

I've witnessed enough not to make jokes like they do.

Well I hope I'm a bit less blinded than 'anyone' but of course I'm significantly influenced by my society. What's your point?

I'm not making objective decisions on morality, I'm making objective decisions on the meaning of words by looking at the objective context for them.

The current society's morality is always changed and being debated, so I'm engaging in that debate! I'm not really seeing what point you're trying to make overall here.

...There is something wrong with them, but there's also something wrong with policing the private utterances of individuals.

What?? Someone should have sat them down??? Are you in pre-school?

Why do we have this brigade of “sympathisers” whenever grown adults do incredibly stupid stuff? These people are studying in one of the top unis in the country, if not the world. The idea that they were “joking” or ignorant is reckless.

We should stop trying to justify this sort of behaviour. I am sure that if it was your sister, mother or daughter, you wont be writing rubbish like that. I think the Warwick administration did not do enough. They should have reported it to the police to be charged.

I used to side with “compassion” until i realised that it is this sort of jokish behviour that evolves into criminal acts. First, it is a joking comment about women, blacks or Jews, then someone decides to act on it.

We need to wake up. Our generation is going down the toilet.

Once something has become public though then it has to be addressed and addressed according to the content. If the police think there's a possible offence they should be expected to consider investigating. If the university think there's a possible breach of its rules and policies they should be expected to consider an appropriate response. Who decides what an appropriate response is? The university. Don't like that? Shouldn't have enrolled - any university would do the same kind of thing in the same kind of circumstances. Going to university is to be in the grown-up world where there there are grown-up consequences to actions and words.

Have you heard of gallows humour? You don't have a clue what backgrounds these people have.

If you reread your own post and then see my response, you will understand what I am actually saying. I am not going to repeat myself when I have already made my case clearly.

I agree the police should be free to investigate anything they think could be a crime, whether it's private or not, of course.

Yes the university decides, however I think it is being influenced by the public feelings of people like you in that, so i think people like me should debate that feeling away, and then the university won't make that decision!

My concern regarding private speech becoming public is that it's not these guys fault that their speech became public and so it seems unjust to punish them as if it were public.