#shameonyouwarwick

[smcbride]

Warwick Police haven't prosecuted anyone for these vile rape threats and Warwick uni are now letting (some of?) the perpetrators back in to study at the same university alongside those they discussed threatening to rape.

Would you be happy sending your child here?

Warwick students suspended over rape threats allowed to return earlyly*_

Good point. How depressing.

Reminds me of that scene in The Accused when one of the rapists shouts at his friend... 'Call my dad'.

Reminds me of that scene in The Accused when one of the rapists shouts at his friend... 'Call my dad'.

There's something very American about this whole episode. It's reminscent of campus culture in the US where young men get away with an entire spectrum of sexual violence because of daddy-funded lawyers and a structural resistance to ruining the future careers of privileged young men.

I really hope this is a one-off that universities will learn from, and not the start of something more ominous for UK universities.

Someone else has said this up-thread, but they're the next Brett Kavanaughs. And they'll continue this behaviour everywhere they go because they've learned that if they put up enough of a fight, they'll win because they're wealthy, privileged white men. Plus ca change.

More recent, and probably more relevant, than Brett Kavanaugh: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Turner

Warwick can’t aspire to being Oxford, and would struggle to be Yale, but I suspect they regard Stanford as being a reasonable target to aim for. They’re already probably comparing themselves with UCB, just across the bay.

The university’s response was to have the Press DIrector aggressively question them about their sexual history. You believe this wouldn’t happen again because...?

I first met this director when I (a female) was in my 20s. He was in his 40s. That was some 20 years ago now.

He was completely intimidating and creepy. I've met him several times and I can't believe those young girls were questioned by him.

He really is quite a powerful character with lots of influence and sway over the media. It concerns me greatly to think he questioned them.

The petition has 62210 signatures, and you can watch that number increasing in real time at the rate of, if not one per second, not far off it. Warwick Business School probably have a module in their MBA on reputation management. Now they'll have some practical examples.

Not had a chance to catch up with thread so not sure if this mentioned already but there was a second group chat called boys 2.0 in which they didn't get what the big deal was as they chat way worse than that.

Haven't got a clue. Very very dangerous attitudes towards women. Hard to tarnish someone's whole life based on a group chat, but their attitudes and lack of remorse means I wouldn't trust any of them in the future.

If my son's felt like that I'd be fucking livid. Livid with myself for failing. Livid with them for being dicks. Apologising profusely to the girls and not getting lawyers involved.

Says a lot about the parents.

musicMerchandiseWebsite - according to the student who was interviewed by Victoria Derbyshire last week:
“The group chat was shown to me by one of the males that was involved.
He showed it to me and made it an active threat. He seemed very pleased about what was happening. He was showing me in an intimidating way. We were told later on that we should have been flattered by the contents of the messages. There were a lot of threats of gang rape. One of them, they spoke about wanting to gang rape me and then after they’ve discarded my body, they wanted to ejaculate all over it. They talked about my friend, they wanted to genitally mutilate her."

As had been said elsewhere, supposing it had been a group chat by people who were using the word "bomb" instead of "rape", with named targets - would it have been dismissed by police as mere words then?

Also, musicMerchandiseWebsite, I suggest you read this letter from one of the female students in reply to the Vice-Chancellor's unconvincing statement. Just for balance.
theboar.org/2019/02/to-stuart-croft-the-victims-should-always-have-been-the-focus/

We disagree. It is not about "mob-mentality" in the way you mean it, it is about "mob-mentality" in the form of the blatant misogyny which is still far too prevalent in many places, not only educational establishments. I don't think the men should be the focus, I think the victims should be. And I think they are victims, not least of the University's Chief Press Officer (male) who led the original investigation. If the men who participated in the group chat are to be allowed back on campus, it should at least be when the female students directly affected by their group chat have already left the university. And I think things would probably be very different if the women concerned or their parents could afford lawyers. That's the kind of "justice" I am talking about. As that open letter said: "Unlike the men involved, I do not have the finances or connections to sue a University. Perhaps if I did you would finally have treated me with the respect I deserve; the respect you have given to the perpetrators."
I definitely see similarities with Nick Sandmann, though obviously not the same ones as you do - I see a privileged, protected white male from private school whose parents have enough money to shut down criticism of his behaviour which might be seen "damage his reputation" and affect his professional future. But that is not the topic under discussion here. I think ReflectentMonatomism's reference to Brock Turner, above, is probably more apt in this case. I also wonder whether the university, whom the female students in question trusted to do the right thing by them initially, may have put the matter to the police in such a way that the police felt no need for the CPS to get involved, as the University may perhaps have said that in their opinion, an internal investigation would be sufficient, as it is my understanding that the women themselves did not go directly to the police. But that is mere speculation.
Personally, I am not advocating violence of any kind, but I am advocating fairness for the female students involved so that they can complete their studies in peace.

guilty for being white / male.
Yes, that was most definitely their offence

Warwick seem to have acted correctly
Warwick has fucked up, first of all by not simply expelling them, as other universities, such as Exeter, have done (in the Exeter case, the chat wasn’t even about, or intentionally shown to, specific individuals). Then by not applying its penalties consistently, thus allowing an appeal to succeed.

I actually agree with you about mob rule, and that does make me uncomfortable, but the fact that this outrage is happening doesn’t therefore mean that the university is in the right.

I also think there is a middle ground we might like to aim for between the response of a mob and reading a victim’s letter and only being able to understand it in terms of its rhetorical devices.

I would have thought it was obvious that I mentioned the Press Officer being male purely in the context of the rampant misogyny I was talking about and because he is described as a frightening, intimidating figure, who aggressively questioned two of the women about their sexual history at the internal investigation, which I am not alone in thinking he was the wrong person to be leading, given his position at the university.

I came to this thread as warwick is a town, I was wondering what warwick had done to be ashamed of

The university is in Westwood about 10 miles from warwick

It’s an awful incident and the university I think wrong to allow these men back to study amongst the woman they were targeting in their messages

Never mind, musicMerchandiseWebsite - you're entrenched in your position and I'm entrenched in mine.

Chat is a form of word, so is hate speech. So is threat and intimidation.

Mob mentality is very different to a petition. To me that's a bit like calling democracy mob mentality!

Sorry threat and intimidation can come in the form of words (and actions). So putting all forms of words under the same 'umbrella'.simr words are harmful, like intimidation.

"Warwick has fucked up". Agree. No way would I feel safe sending my daughter there!

Argumentum ad verecundiam?

If we're swapping pretentious Latin tags, it's much more ad hominem. It's hardly an appeal to authority, is it?

Warwick has fucked up, first of all by not simply expelling them, as other universities, such as Exeter, have done

I suspect that in the aftermath of this case, universities will take a much harder line and expel everyone within a large radius of the event, inviting them to take individual legal action if they don't like it. If the problem here is inconsistent outcomes, the obvious thing to do is take the hardest line with everyone. Exeter's actions appear to have been pretty impregnable.