No holding back here.
The UCD Students’ Union have hit out at management in the university in a damning statement that comes in the wake of the revenge porn controversy that caused so much furore in the last two weeks.
On Friday evening, an investigation into allegations that as many as 200 people were involved in a Facebook group that posted nude pictures of female students and rated them found that the allegations were “unsubstantiated hearsay”.
You can read the full statement on the findings of the investigation here.
Before the investigation was concluded, the UCD Students’ Union had issued a statement promising to change ‘lad culture’ in the university and called on UCD management to help them implement a series of policy changes they believed were needed to “better map student experience of sexual harassment, assault, rape & revenge porn”.
The UCD Students’ Union have followed that statement with another one this morning that is damning of UCD management for their failure to act on matters with regard to sexual harassment, sexual consent and sexual violence despite assurances to the UCD SU that they would so.
The UCD SU statement also states that appeals for action in the last few days have been “answered impatiently or angrily” and that there were even allegations that “the entire situation was manipulated by the Students’ Union to advance their consent campaign”.
The statement, which you can read in full below, says that changes with regard to policing of sexual violence and education regarding sexual consent need to be introduced in third-level institutions across the country.
It also calls for the enactment of Government legislation “which specifically addresses revenge porn and offers the country a full statutory, legal definition of the term and act of sexual consent”.
Read the statement in full, issued by UCD Students’ Union Vice President & Consent Campaign Leader Hazel Beattie, below.
UCD Students’ Union – University Management & UCD 200
The current controversy over reports of a UCD revenge porn ring is being treated as a public relations matter rather than as a social policy issue to be addressed.
UCD does not have a designated sexual violence or abuse counsellor on campus nor does UCD have an official arrangement with existing sexual violence services for victims or a preventative action strategy for sexual violence.
These facts remain the same regardless of the lack of evidence supporting the existence of a specific image-sharing Facebook chat group on campus.
Now that their internal investigation into a revenge porn ring has been concluded, UCD management should commission a report into student experience of sexual harassment and violence and should further survey student understanding of sexual consent. Among other things, this report should review the need for a dedicated campus support service for survivors of sexual violence.
UCD Students’ Union have campaigned for these policy changes since last October. We have lobbied management for exactly this type of report and for a robustly promoted support service for survivors of sexual violence. We’ve also long pushed for an accessible and adequately communicated complaints procedure.
This campaign has been supported by the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, Rape Crisis Network Ireland, NUIG researchers and UCD experts on sexual violence.
University management initially assured us of their support but failed to accompany their assurances with action. We were met with reassurances in the new year but the focus has been on public relations since reports of a student revenge porn ring were published in a student newspaper.
Any appeals for action over the last few days have been answered impatiently or angrily. It has even been alleged that the entire situation was manipulated by the Students’ Union to advance their consent campaign. In this context, following UCD’s conclusion that the report of a revenge porn ring on campus was unsubstantiated, I fear calls for reform might continue to go ignored.
This state of affairs is not entirely particular to UCD — records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show a general laxity across Irish university campuses when it comes to correctly monitoring levels of sexual violence experienced by student populations. Rape Crisis Network Ireland have accused third level institutions of ignoring the extent of sexual violence on their campuses to protect their reputations.
Students’ Unions have worked to introduce consent workshops in places like Trinity College Dublin and NUI Galway. The need for these workshops cannot be understated given the gaping absence of a legal, statutory definition for sexual consent from Irish legislation. We’re currently lobbying UCD management for enough financial backing to sponsor similar initiatives for students of all academic programmes on campus but it’s a slow process.
Given Ireland’s rape conviction rate is 7%, you might think sexual consent and violence would be major electoral issues for the nation ahead of the general election; rape crisis centres experienced austerity cuts of over 1 million euros from 2008-2014; existing gaps in our cyber-harassment laws mean that revenge porn is not covered by any umbrella legislation and must be treated on a case-by-case basis; our basis for national policy is completely outdated and we need to carry out a comprehensive data survey on sexual violence.
In spite of these facts, however, many commentators approached the story of a revenge porn ring in UCD like an isolated incident. They refused to engage with it as symptomatic of a wider culture.
I wouldn’t hold back from criticizing UCD for inaction but the entire Irish law system needs to be reformed to better protect survivors of sexual violence. It is imperative that Government enact legislation which specifically addresses revenge porn and offers the country a full statutory, legal definition of the term and act of sexual consent.
As a nation, we must start asking serious questions about sexual consent and violence and we must address these questions to ourselves and to the people responsible for governing us.
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