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= Lancaster University Snowsports Society Scandal =

Summary
The Lancaster University Snowsports Society Scandal took place on October 12, 2018, where the Snowsports Society had their first social event of the year, “LUSS Social #1: White Tee Social”. Photos of society members wearing t-shirts with handwritten slogans at the event were later released online on November 12, exposing the incident to the public. Major press in the UK such as the BBC News, Daily Mail and The Independent reported the scandal, with the written slogans deemed as ‘offensive’ and ‘hate speech’.

The photos were first uploaded to the Facebook page of Sugarhouse, the nightclub established and run by the Lancaster University Students’ Union (also known as LUSU). Some of the offensive slogans that were written on the t-shirt include: “Sandyhook woz bantz”, “I like 12-year-olds”, “Jimmy Savile was misunderstood”, “fuck gay rights”, “I’ve got muscles cus dad raped me”, “Tory cunt”, “Gary Glitter innocent”, “Free Tommy Robinson”, “Mandela touched kids” etc. The photos were taken down from the Sugarhouse Facebook page on October 15, three days after the incident took place, and an internal investigation conducted by LUSU was launched on the same day.

The Snowsports Society and all activities regarding the society have been suspended since then.

Chloe Long, a member of the internal investigation panel and a BME officer of LUSU, posted the confidential evidence of the scandal on her Facebook a month after the incident happened. She was temporarily suspended from her role as a student union member for an alleged breach of confidentiality 48 hours after releasing the photos online.

Lancaster University Students' Union (LUSU) Investigation
After the information of the incident was released publicly online on November 12, 2018, Lancaster University Students’ Union (LUSU) then released a statement regarding the incident on the same day. The following paragraph is the original statement released by LUSU:"'Information has entered the public domain today (November 12, 2018) about an incident earlier this term involving members of one of our student clubs.The union was investigating allegations that inappropriate and offensive material had been written on students’ clothing during a ‘white t-shirt’ social. We take allegations of this kind very seriously and the matter is being handled in line with our disciplinary procedures. As a students’ union we believe that it is important to ensure that our members are given a fair hearing, and as soon as we were made aware of the incident, we launched a full investigation. The club was immediately suspended, and a panel was convened to consider the available evidence and decide any appropriate sanctions against the students’ union group. This panel has already agreed that the behaviour fell far below the standards that were expected. Members of the panel were due to meet again this week to finalise sanctions against the club. Regrettably, details of the investigation have entered the public domain before this meeting could take place, compromising the panel and jeopardising the fairness of the investigation. The union is currently considering how to move forward from this in a way that is fair to all concerned.'"

Investigation timeline
The investigation timeline provided by LUSU: It has also been claimed that the students’ union was quicker to react to the release of confidential information than it was to the behaviour of members of the Snowsports group. The students’ union refutes this claim. The timeline of events is as follows:

Conclusion of investigation
Lancaster University Students’ Union has released an article to conclude the investigation on November 17, 2018. According to the article, LUSU will be exploring restorative justice options with the local Community Cohesion team. LUSU stated that it launched this investigation on its own initiative, and no complaints were received in relation to the social at the time. The scope of the students’ union’s investigation was to consider disciplinary matters in relation to the Lancaster University Snowsports Society. The students’ union has now concluded the matter and carried out its responsibilities laid out in its Code of Conduct and associated governance.

LUSU has also stated that it will now be for Lancaster University to consider whether further disciplinary action will be initiated in relation to individuals following the decision of the panel as evidence gathered by the students’ union in its investigation will be made available to the university. The students’ union emphasised their opinion regarding the incident in the article, saying "behaviour of some of the students involved in this social was completely unacceptable. Members of the club have acknowledged that they made a serious error of judgment and have expressed remorse for their behaviour."

A new Code of Conduct panel appointed by the students’ union met on November 16, 2018 and agreed formal sanctions against Lancaster University Students’ Union Snowsports’ Club after offensive material and hate speech was written on students’ clothing during a ‘white t-shirt’ social. The panel, composed of three current Lancaster University students, agreed that the behaviour of students on the social was absolutely unacceptable and against the values of the students’ union and that the following sanctions should be made:


 * A formal, public apology statement should be made by the club to the university community concerning the offence their behaviour has caused. The club executive themselves were eager to do this. The group be placed on probation for a period of two years. Any further breaches of the students’ union Code of Conduct or disciplinary matters involving the university during this time, would lead to an automatic one-year suspension
 * For a period of two years, the Lancaster University Students’ Union Snowsports Executive Committee will be required to undertake the following training in addition to what is already required: 1) Bystander Intervention Training 2) Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Training 3) Hate Speech Awareness Training – an external facilitator is being identified for this
 * For a period of two years, the club will be required to submit notification of socials in advance to the students’ union for formal approval and these socials must be risk assessed and/where appropriate limits set on numbers able to attend. Members of the executive are also required to have attended all the appropriate and relevant training prior to these socials going ahead.
 * The Snowsports Club will have a time-limited suspension placed on them for the running of ‘social’ events/activities. The definition of this being any activity [official or unofficial] that doesn’t include competing in events and/or training sessions. This shall be for a period lasting until the end of Week one in Lent Term (January 20, 2019).

Ex-LUSU BME Officer suspended for sharing the photos
In a video created by the BBC's offical website with the title “Thread Shred: I exposed racism at my university and got suspended”, student and ex-Lancaster University Student Union BME Officer Chloe Long was interviewed to talk about how she shared the photos in the first place.

She states: “I reposted photographs from a social which I believed depicted hate speech. I’m one who raised the alarm and I’m the one who’s being suspended for it”. Her suspension was on the grounds of “unauthorised release of confidential material”.

She initially raised awareness for the content of the photos in a Facebook post where she wrote: “It is your right to know that on Friday 12th October, an incident occurred during Snow Sports Society first social of the year. The photographs are attached to this post”. In the video she goes on to describe everything pictured on the t-shirts.

Indeed, when she published them, the photos weren’t publicly available, however they had been up for 48 hours in the ‘Sugarhouse’s’ Official Facebook page before the Union actually took them down.

On being asked whether she deserved her punishment – due to the photos being private – she responded that the University should actually realise the number of students that came on support of this and that were against the Union’s actions. Moreover, instead of aiming attention to the act of these pictures being published, one should really consider the fact that this kind of offensive material was printed on t-shirts in the first place.

In her opinion, these actions belong to the category of hate speech and hate crime, however the police have classified it as a public order offence.

In response to her Facebook post, people had varied reactions, some of which she includes in her interview. For example:

“Same thing happened at Exeter Snow Sports Society a couple of years ago. Unis need to start looking into their admissions because this isn’t a one off anymore”. In researching more about this, she found many cases of similar incidents, with some even dating back to 2014.

The next comment reads: “You never heard of banter?”. She replied: “It’s important to know that genocide, child sexual exploitation, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, racism and other forms of discrimination are never banter”.

Some people went on to justify the students’ actions, e.g. “They’re just kids, they think things like this are humorous. It doesn’t mean he likes 12-year olds. He isn’t endangering children. He doesn’t need to go on a sex offenders register, or be investigated by the police”.

In response to that, Long mentioned how the t-shirts were targeting under-age girls. This is extremely important, since Lancaster University does have a pre-school and families living on campus.

General Reactions
As this scandal has been issued in public domain,  many people were infuriated at this scandal. As a result, an Anti-snowsports protest, backed by the controversial Stand Up to Racism movement, took place on campus of Lancaster University.

Protester insisted, "Hateful ideas and prejudice are allowed to grow and become normalised if we don’t take a stand. The fact we are here today is a great sign. We can never be complacent about hate and racism. We need our campus back. And we are taking it back by force.”

Carol, an MA student at the protest, concurred:

"As a student I don’t feel comfortable knowing that I could go into a café or a bar and know that I could be sat next to these people to be honest, I don’t believe there’s room for that attitude on a university campus. I’ve run pubs for 30 years and if somebody came in my bar wearing a t-shirt with those comments on they would be asked to leave immediately".

Coupled with the protest, the university’s Feminist Society stated: "Not only is it unacceptable that these members and the society have not faced repercussions for their actions, it is also completely unacceptable that Lancaster University has failed to take action to make our university a safer place".

They argued that the University mishandled the case and the result of the investigation is dissapointed.

In response to the Student Unions' investigation, some people left comments on Twitter. For example:

"Welcome to Lancaster University, where you can openly be racist, homophobic and a fascist, and receive the lightest of disciplines. A university that is supposed to be the most PC in the country is somewhat the most tolerable for hate speech".

He further left some additional comments on his tweet: " Lancaster University will be issuing a formal warning to these people for wearing swastikas, rape jokes, homophobic remarks on their shirts. A student has been expelled from Lancaster University for being involved in drugs, but when you’re a fascist, a warning is given".