Students at a second Canadian university used a chant endorsing sexual assault of minors.
First-year students at the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business sang the chant on a bus trip during a three-day frosh orientation around Labor Day, the student newspaper The Ubyssey reported Friday. Frosh is a term more commonly used in Canada and Europe to refer to first-year college students. The chant occurred during a student-organized event for freshmen students.
The Ubyssey first learned about the chant when a student posted on Twitter, "an actual cheer at ubc," followed by a transcription:
"Y-O-U-N-G at UBC we like em young Y is for yourrr sister O is for ohh so tight U is for under age N is for noo consent G is for goo to jail"
The chant was very similar to one heard at a Saint Mary's University frosh event in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which prompted international disgust when video of student leaders singing it surfaced online.
Like at Saint Mary's, students acknowledged the chant has been used for years at UBC, but was not discussed in public.
"We had problems a very long time ago with the cheers being public in a sort of way and the Dean seeing," Jacqueline Chen, the now-former frosh co-chair, told the Ubyssey. "We let the groups know: If it happens in the group, it has to stay in the group."
Chen and Jonathan Li, the other former co-chair, resigned from their positions and the board of directors and the executive council of the UBC Commerce Undergraduate Society, which organized the trip, issued an apology.
The UBC administration promised an investigation of the chant, the Globe and Mail reported, and announced the school would drop its support of future frosh events.
Sauder School of Business Dean Robert Helsley and Vice President Louise Cowin condemned the chant in a statement to CTV, and announced they would no longer support the Commerce Undergraduate Society Frosh events.
"This is of grave concern to all members of the UBC community," Helsley and Cowin said. "Such behavior would be completely inconsistent with the values of UBC and the Sauder School of Business and completely inconsistent with the instruction that the Commerce Undergraduate Society receives on appropriate conduct prior to FROSH."
Student leaders will also have to participate in sensitivity training. But there's anger about the incident at the school; graffiti found on campus Monday morning read "F--k Rape Culture' and "Sauder School of Business Teaches Rape," according to CBC.
Nearly 800 people as of Tuesday morning have signed an online petition calling on the university to seek out the students who led the chants and discipline them. The petition insists the chant "perpetuates rape culture" and "creates an unsafe environment for students."
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