Eton College apologises after allegations pupils jeered visiting state schoolgirls

[sunnydaytoday0]

If true, why has no one been expelled?

www.theguardian.com/education/2022/nov/18/eton-college-apologises-after-allegations-pupils-jeered-visiting-state-schoolgirls

Private school sanctions a number of boys after investigation into misogynistic language and racial slurs.

Eton College has apologised and “sanctioned” a number of pupils after allegations that a group of girls visiting from a nearby state school were subjected to misogynistic language, racial slurs and jeering.

The boys’ private school near Windsor, Berkshire, told the BBC that an investigation took place into the incident which occurred during a speech by Nigel Farage last week.

A person, who said they were a parent of one of the girls who attended the speech, wrote on social media anonymously that the students were booed inside the lecture theatre and were subjected to “racial slurs” and “generally misogynistic comments”. They said of the private school pupils: “Their behaviour was awful.”
The poster also said that Eton boys had cheered Farage’s “worst comments on migrants and Covid”.

The college told the BBC it had apologised “unreservedly” for the “totally unacceptable” behaviour.

That’s the thing though isn’t it. I don’t think people realise that going to these schools has nothing to do with intelligence. They don’t get into these places because they are bright.

Two words: Prince Harry.

@AllPlayedOut I agree. The punishment is both very severe and completely appropriate.

Your posts make me think otherwise, considering the zeal with which you've continued to downplay their actions.

I'm also tired of people using children as a blanket term to excuse anything. Yes they might be "children" but they range from 13-18. Ages at which I'd expect anyone to know better than to subject others to racial abuse, let alone boys who are supposedly receiving one of the finest educations in the land. Children or not, I expect much more of a 13 year old than I do a 4 year old and that includes not behaving like this. I also expect more of their adult staff members too. I assume that they were present. Why was it allowed to continue?

My ex attended Eton. He was and is very pleasant person if rather damaged by being sent to a boarding school at a very young age, then to Eton and the severe bullying he was subjected to while there. Yet somehow this damage did not result in him racially abusing anyone.

@AllPlayedOut if it appears I am downplaying their actions that is my failing to not communicate my point properly. My point is about adults piling prejudice on a whole cohort children and somehow it is socially acceptable because they are "posh".

I agree that these children who used racial terms should be severely punished with suspension as a first action and further sanctions if it is ever repeated.

But to call thousands of children names because they go to a certain school is wrong.

Contempuous/unfeeling/entitled/twats/thick

Look at these words. Do people honestly feel morally comfortable using that language about school children (not just the offenders- ALL of them) based on the fact you don't like a handful of Tories?!

@duckbilly no one is saying anything to these children’s faces, but on an adults thread on mumsnet.
these ghastly children said awful things to other children, to their faces, and made them feel bullied due to the colour of their skin. I would want to see them expelled, only way they will learn to change some very ingrained behaviour.

Oh yes, that's the real issue here, protecting a bunch of over privileged children who are raised to believe that they're superior, from a mild insult. I think they'll survive if that's the worst they have to suffer. If only you were half so fervent in your defence of the actual victims but no, it's the tender feelings of the poor put upon Eton pupils that really matters.

I do actually feel sorry for many of them to an extent but not in the least because they're being called twats and it's a school that does produce more than it's fair share of twats. I feel sorry for those who have been sent away from their parents often at a very young age and who have been forced into the whole stiff upper lip ethos and taught to repress their feelings and their individuality as my ex was and as many continue to be.

I don't think its wrong to label then contemptuous and entitled, which are accurate descriptions of their behaviour and not insults.

Reading this article, www.theguardian.com/education/2021/aug/08/public-schoolboys-boris-johnson-sad-little-boys-richard-beard it seems that Eton and other public schools positively encourage and nurture those attitudes so this behaviour is not at all surprising.

I went to a private school. Thousands of children go to private schools. If they behaved like this they’d be expelled in a heartbeat. This school not only tolerates but encourages the idea that it’s pupils are the elite, that normal rules of behaviour don’t apply to them and that other people are lesser and can be treated as such.

This is not all about snobbery.

A lot of people who attended schools like Eton decided that they would send their children to other places because of the kind of mentality it creates. People have short memories but isolation, physical beating, mental beating, these are part of what happens.

Honestly, perhaps they have changed but boys dormitories are hell. Many men who attended Eton and places like it said how horrible it was. You must conform or you will not cope. You can't go home to your family and "be yourself"

@DuchessDandelion my issue is the generalisation of all children that attend a certain school are contemptuous/entitled/thick.

Not the offenders.

It is discriminatory

@duckbilly

Contempuous/unfeeling/entitled/twats/thick

Do you really stand by your assertion that the first three of these descriptors are ones people shouldn't feel 'morally comfortable' with?

These boys, who are privileged (that's not a biased description it's a fact) used abusive, racist and misogynist language to girls visiting from a state school.

Do you genuinely not believe that behaviour to be contemptuous, unfeeling and entitled?

@duckbilly very valid point. To clarify, I don't assume every pupil there is like that, but those who behaved that way in this example - absolutely. Doesn't necessary mean they will be when they grow up either (and I hope not).

@monsteramunch why is is this so hard to get across?

I am talking about the previous posters talking about a WHOLE school of children being contemptuous /thick/twats. They were generalising .

This is what I am challenging. Not on reference to the few perpetrators

@DuchessDandelion thank you

@AllPlayedOut, thank you, that article by Beard is very illuminating.

Is a suspension a severe punishment? no it isn't at all, its extremely mild, they will doubtless be tutored whilst on any suspension and in the case of parents not in this country, will remain at the school.

You are 100% focused on defending the feelings of perpetrators - not once have you said anything about the victims, its almost as if you think they shouldn't even have been there.

But on top of that, you defend a man who called for migrants to be left to drown in the channel.

Plus i did not call ALL Etonians twats, i said this will ensure Eton turns out a never ending stream of twats.

Children who racial abuse others are, imho, a lot worse than twats, its actually a criminal offence.

Any crime can be prosecuted as a hate crime if the offender has either:
demonstrated hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity
Or
been motivated by hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity.

I hope the parents of the girls can go down this route.

@walkinginsunshinekat I believe you to be misrepresenting me.

I do actually believe suspension to be a severe punishment. I do not think the first step should have been expulsion.

However, like you, I don't know the full facts as these have not been made public. If they are made public and are found to be more abhorrent than one imagines then perhaps I will rethink.

Farage was a democratically elected politicain. I don't particularly like or agree with him but I don't view his as an extremist who shouldn't be given a platform at all. That is not what I view to be a mature democratic society.

@duckbilly this sort of behaviour warrants straight to explusion. This sort of pupil (some in every school in the land, they are not santiconable, and become repeat offenders) will laugh at a suspension and, (hanging out as I sometimes do in this type of social circle not by choice but due to family) I suspect that their parents will be strangely proud that their dear boys spoke up and exercised their right to freedom of speech by abusing these girls.

@mrBanks so many assumptions.

Shakes head

@duckbilly so many years of exposure to these sort of people in my family and those of my DH. Assumptions based on a lot of knowledge.

There was a post on here not so long ago about a white boy in a minority white London school being badly bullied, attacked and racially abused by non white pupils. The mother got very little support from the school as far as I remember and I didn't see the usual uproar from those on here who are outraged at this case. It was also not in the MSM! In the end the advice the mother got from most posters was to take her son out of this school and move out of the area. Usual double standards.

@duckbilly Farage, like most UK MEPs unfortunately, was elected by a very small number of electors, he cannot possibly be compared to say a Con Lab or LD MP.

Once again, he called for migrants to be left to drown, Farage himself called the atmosphere at Eton "riotous"

Being elected doesn't automatically make somebody suitable to address school children.

I don't mean to mis represent you but maybe a slight shift to recognise the victims here might help?

My DD was bullied at an all white primary school (attacked with a tennis racket), after realising the school (Governors) was more interested in protecting the rights of the bullies, rather then my DD, i removed her to another school, best thing i ever did, she thrived there.

Children are children for a very short time, no point wasting time fighting battles you can't win.

As we see on this thread, many are also more concerned about the bullies and like "whataboutery" too.