Would you report this group chat?

This sounds, at best, very odd. From friends who work at them, I hear that universities can be a bit like this in some blurring of professional and personal boundaries. I can’t think of other professional settings where the chat you’re describing would be acceptable (even setting aside sensitive content), because it’s a mixture of employees and students.

Then there are the obvious issues like power imbalance between staff and students, given that students are technically adults but usually still very young, etc. Then there’s the inappropriate content itself.

Agree with @Flibberdigibbit : ‘If you leave it, you miss out on any help that may be available in it - but staying leaves you subject to their rants and what sounds like conversations a lot of us would have no time for. This isn’t really a freedom of speech issue.’

I think there’s no issue at all in raising a concern if you want to. A key point is that this group is meant to offer maths support and either it does that professionally or it arguably shouldn’t exist as a maths support group. The people who want to are presumably welcome to have a separate chat to discuss whatever they want (though I still think a mixture of staff and students in a social chat is problematic).

Offering study support in such a way that some feel excluded because of inappropriate/irrelevant discussion topics is potentially an ethical issue because you can’t have some students benefitting from support and others not. It definitely doesn’t sound like a maths chat at the moment! I think you have genuine grounds for raising it as a concern from this angle if you want to avoid other angles.

@NoBinturongsHereMate Not at all. A lecturer used to be able to chat to students about anything. If they bored you then you zoned out.

But in this day and age do you really think the events described here happened. A person who supposedly works in an organisation well used to compromise and expressing themself politely in cases where is a dispute and on their second degree so not a niave fresher is unable to tell someone if they are being inappropriate, This is supposed to be happening in a university where the chance of 100 students and staff in a chat not having one woke enough to complain already is zero. Then you add that really offensive response to someone disagreeing with them.

Report it, and force people who wish to speak freely underground. Create a public/private split where we toe the line in public, fear that walls have ears, and whisper in private.

it creates a wonderful society for all when we police each other constantly. Do it. It’s your duty.

The relationship in this chat is formed through the university and their paid employees and students paying for a service from the university. That's the only reason it exists. So anyone employed by the university participating in the chat has to reflect the values of the university. It's not a question of 'they are all adults so it doesn't matter'. It very much does matter. If the university States it has certain values then their employees have to uphold them when representing it in their paid capacity.
It doesn't say much for that professional working for the university that they don't realise this. The critism around benefits claimants or any targeted group creates a hostile environment for them and is not inclusive.
I would very much report it to the university.

I am so very pleased you wrote this :)

This is exactly who the OP is. She has made it abundantly clear that she actually believes that anyone who disagrees with her is her inferior and those who speak words that enrage her have no right to exist.

She actually believes this.

And what a temper she must have to have shone such a horrifying spotlight upon herself.

And just think, if this is what she is willing to say in public, one can only imagine the thoughts that must caper through her head.

The OP is definitively not the good person in the Whatsapp Group, but she's very good at "othering" those who dare to speak words or think thoughts she disapproves of.

And she is also very markedly not superior to anybody on this thread, or this site. In fact, anybody who can make statements like that would struggle to find any sort of high horse that could support them 😅

People who support Orwellian dictates are always pretty awful people, but I have rarely seen one so openly admit it.

Thank you. Most sincerely. 😘

My University has a report and support function for stuff like this.

It sounds completely inappropriate and leaves both staff and students open to all kinds of disciplinary action.

As for the ' You can't say anything these days ' posters...once again, hate speech is different from free speech, and even free speech doesn't mean free from consequences.

Yes, exactly, you should try not to be a horrible cunt. It's lovely you have that self awareness though :)

I would stay in the chat group as it may be useful as per its intended purpose. As to the unpleasantness, it's always useful to know what sort of people you are dealing with. Reporting people to the authorities will not change their natures, at best it will continue behind closed doors. Note it to yourself and move on.

@anyolddinosaur you're still missing the point that the chair's problem.with their child's school is a personal matter. They should not be bringing it into their university student group.

I think you've mistaken free speech for free speech without consequences.

I agree. I also work in HE (professional services) and this is wildly inappropriate and unprofessional. I've just had to do a load of training about staff/student boundaries (in response I suspect to a case of coercive control in a relationship between an undergraduate and a lecturer) and we are strongly advised not to give personal contact details to students. This would be taken very seriously where I work.

You can have a friendly social relationship with your students without ranting to them about your personal life on WhatsApp and getting into slanging matches.
I can't really understand the logic of a group like this for module support either, that's what Moodle/Canvas is for.

I'm afraid I'm another one of these woke snowflakes who would always challenge ableist and discriminatory language, both in the work place and out of it; and I make no apologies for that.

I think the pp was just using it as an example.

I expect that she’s very well suited to the upper levels of the Civil Service, and that wasn’t meant to be a compliment.

This is by far the most relevant response. This is the issue with the group chat.
I find the content of the chat distasteful and it makes the whole thing just nasty, especially as publicly the tutors etc are pretending to be inclusive.
But it's sending students for support on the mathematics to this chat on university time is the heart of the issue.

I think there's a couple of issues:

First is that it is billed as a support for module chat, which means students may feel like they have to join it or remain in it otherwise they're at a disadvantage. This means it's not as simple as saying just leave the group if you don't like the content as it's not a fully free decision.

Second is the nature of the chat when it is billed as something related to the university (even if not endorsed by it). It should still be professional.

Both these mean I think you should report it, by taking screenshot of the conversation and emailing (from a new email address if you wish to be anonymous) or by talking to someone you trust eg student support, departmental head, or the report it now process within your department / university. This should all be confidential (ie your name isn't down as the person who reports it). Don't report it within the platform itself, it needs reporting to the university.

The other thing is I'm not sure if it's a whatsapp chat? If it is this seems strange to me from a privacy point of view - I'm a lecturer and I don't give my personal number to students, neither would I have their number. It feels like it is blurring professional boundaries and could also be a GDPR issue.

I'm sorry you've had this experience. Please consider reporting it to your university, it would be taken very seriously where I work.

And then you hear about the group chat with the met police that shared extreme racist & sexist views, that talked about raping a female colleague, tasering children and the disabled. You know, the group Wayne Couzins was a member of.

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of responsibility.

If this is a tutor chairing an official support forum, absolutely report. Would you be okay with him talking like this in lectures or seminars? It’s no different because it’s online. People shouldn’t have to put up with this sort of thing in order to access the actual support for their studies.

I don't doubt it would be stressful. It would be wonderful if no employee was ever dismissed, and that we did not need employment tribunals. However thousands of wrongful dismissal cases are heard are every year.

Given that, what is it about this particular case - found in favour of the complainant - that is so interesting and emblamatic of "how ridiculous things have become"?

The whole post is awful . OP thinks she’s championing bad attitudes in a chat group yet here’s she’s telling everyone she’s better than the rest because she’s at university and then wishing someone gone from the world . You couldn’t make it up lol if it wasn’t so sad .
OP clearly can’t cope with any views except her own and outside of her university echo chamber she’s going to get ripped apart in real life .

Crikey, didn’t take long for your mask to slip, did it. That’s second comment was appalling.

It’s unethical and unprofessional. And potentially constitutes hate speech. Report it.

For info, we have had groups like this reported at our HEI. It has caused problems and HR would want to know.

I don’t feel that this issue is about free speech, it’s about professionalism. People including the tutor can say what they want on their own social media, but in a group chat for student support it’s just inappropriate for the tutor to be moaning about their personal life or making jokes about politics/disabilities etc. This is a chat for maths students, not his/her private group chat of friends.

I would screen shot the most unprofessional messages and the squabbling if it’s quite bad (maybe blurring out the names of students) and email it to the university and head of department. You can create a new email address to stay anonymous. I know some tutors are quite friendly with students which is fine, but they shouldn’t be using the student support chat for personal views, personal problems or topical debates

@NoBinturongsHereMate We havent seen the comments. They could be discriminatory, they could be complaints that the child's school are poorly handling a child with special needs. There are schools with no idea how to properly manage behavioural problems and it is not discriminatory to say that.

The chat has been going on for 2 years and during that time it's become less professional and more social. Fair enough for the OP to go to the module chair and say she is unhappy with that and would like a chat that just focused on maths questions. A more social chat is not necessarily a problem unless you think lecturers should never chat socially to their students. Most people would regard that as silly and it would be a considerable change from when I was at uni.

So we come back to what actually was said? It offended OP but she has shown she is easily offended and isnt interested in any view but her own. She isnt prepared to speak out openly though. So she isnt sufficiently confident of her view to publicly call the comments out. Either the comments are so bad she should complain in the group or they are not and she should leave.

Yet you appear to be the lone offended in a group of dozens of your peers.

The second part of your reply is just horrific. Possibly one of the most chilling things i've read on MN.