The University College Dublin’s Students’ Union (UCDSU) has sharply criticised the management of the university over their handling of the recent revenge porn controversy, accussing them of treating it as a “public relations matter” instead of a social policy issue.
According to an article published earlier this month in the College Tribune, UCD’s student newspaper, as many as 200 UCD students, predominantly studying agricultural science, formed a Facebook chat group in which explicit photos and anecdotes of female students were shared and rated without their consent.
On Friday February 12, the deputy president and registrar of UCD, professor Mark Rodgers, issued an email to all students saying that an investigation by university authorities had found that there was “no first hand evidence for the allegations” and that the Tribune article was entirely based on hearsay.
The report produced by the investigation recognised that “identifying the [Facebook page] is the only mechanism for assuring a definitive outcome,” and that failure to find evidence of such a page allowed for only one conclusion to be drawn, although Rogers conceded that “failure to identify such a site, no matter how intensive the investigation, could not represent absolute proof that such a site did not exist.”
Prior to the release of the university’s report, the students’ union promised to tackle ‘lad culture’ in the college and called on university management to help them do so by introducing mandatory sexual consent workshops and mapping student experience of sexual harassment, rape and revenge porn.
UCDSU responded to the report with a statement yesterday, Monday February 15, saying that although the alleged group was not found to be in existence, “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.” They continued: “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.”
According to the statement, university management also “alleged that the entire [revenge porn] situation was manipulated by the students’ union to advance their consent campaign.”
The statement also said that: “The need for these [sexual consent] workshops cannot be understated given the gaping absence of a legal, statutory definition for sexual consent from Irish legislation… 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.”
