Students face ‘savage’ hazing culture at Newcastle colleges: National Union of Students

Anti sexual violence advocacy group End Rape On Campus Australia released a video this week pieced together from footage of University of Newcastle students – publicly available online – engaged in the shocking acts.

“I think it gives us an insight into the pretty savage hazing culture that exists in universities across Australia,” Mark Pace, president of the National Union of Students, told Fairfax Media.

Read more: Students participate in hazing, drinking off genitals in ‘appalling’ video

“The environment is that a lot of these students are coming to a college that is far away from home and they often don’t have any friends. All they want to do is fit in, make friends and feel part of the community. Unfortunately these intentions are manipulated by [more] senior students at the university and a lot of the extreme activities are normalised.

“I find it very hard to believe that any students at college at Newcastle would voluntarily drink beer from each other’s scrotums. I don’t think that’s something people would normally do.”

The University of Newcastle has condemned the actions of students depicted in the video and labelled the behaviour “appalling”.

Vice Chancellor Caroline McMillen told Newcastle radio on Tuesday morning that a thorough investigation was underway and consequences would be “severe”.

But Mr Pace told Fairfax Media he believed the uni owed an apology to students involved in the hazings.

“I believe if the university is going to take meaningful action in this, the first thing it needs to do is apologise, firstly to the students that have been forced into the hazing initiation activity and secondly they need to apologise to the wider community that this culture has been able to manifest in the first place,” he said.

Newcastle University Students’ Association president Christy Mullen said the footage reflected a wider societal problem with “binge drinking culture, toxic masculinity and sexual harassment and violence, which NUSA condemns” – not a failure of university and college systems.

“The university, NUSA and the colleges have been working on changing this culture and it can’t change overnight, but it has been improving,” she said.

“Throughout O-Week and Resfest [start of year celebrations], there is now less of a focus on social events around drinking. We have to continue to support students to be able to report through the correct channels and to continue to educate them about consent.”

University of Newcastle academic deputy vice chancellor Professor Darrell Evans said anyone from the university community who witnessed or experienced “unacceptable behaviour” should reach out for help via the UON Talking to Someone web page.

“We take all allegations of student misconduct seriously and act swiftly to investigate and address reports of offensive behaviour within the university community,” he said.

“We are unable to comment on the specifics of individual cases. Any incident where a member of our community is being subjected to unacceptable behaviour is one incident too many.  

“The university has worked hard to improve our support processes over recent years. We will continue to work with staff, student groups and support organisations to ensure that a range of support and reporting options are available for our students.”