Last week my flatmate came home absolutely incensed. Someone she studies with, at postgraduate level, had taken it into his head to attend this year's Hyde St keg party in the most offensive costume he could think of.
His behaviour comes in the wake of a request made by a group of students for those attending the party not to wear costumes that might be offensive and harmful to those around them.
The request was simple and polite, asking that students avoid racist, sexist and homophobic/transphobic costumes so that everyone felt safe and included at the party.
Predictably, the student response was childish and provocative, with many students declaring that they wouldn't have their God-given right to be offensive taken from them.
From some students, the response was actively aggressive. My flatmate's new favourite study mate, for example, printed off a stack of flyers to let everyone know that this was PC gone mad, and the best thing to do was to collectivise and teach these pandering babies a lesson. And, obviously, the way to show that your right to your bigoted views is being threatened is to go out of your way to be threatening to other people.
On a Facebook page dedicated to the anti-PC cause, people were proudly announcing that they would be attending the party dressed as rapists, in black face, and as caricatures of transwomen. These people were frothing at the mouth at the very thought of seriously upsetting people who might already be traumatised and marginalised.
I'm not surprised by this response, but I wonder what kind of higher education is the University of Otago offering if so many students feel they are entitled to mock and hurt people they perceive as different from themselves. Sure, the university doesn't actively encourage bigotry, but it does passively allow for these attitudes to continue unchecked.
Of course it's going to be difficult, if not impossible, to suddenly tell thousands of students that their deeply ingrained attitudes towards women, people of colour, and LGBTQA people are wrong and harmful.
Of course the student population is going to kick back and cry that no-one should be telling them what to do, because students are just overgrown children with too much freedom for at least the first two years of their tertiary education.
But, this doesn't mean that the university should just step back and throw its hands in the air because it tried to give an order once and it didn't work. The university should start thinking about how it can get in among these attitudes and weasel them out of people once and for all.
There are countless ways to teach people not to be blundering jerks. Classes in halls for first-year students on how to interact appropriately and sensitively with those around them, a compulsory ethics class for all students before you hand them a degree, strict consequences for students who act hatefully towards marginalised groups of people.
Last week I felt so ashamed to study at the University of Otago. I can't even begin to imagine feeling that it was my right to hurt other people in the name of free speech and not being told what to do. I don't want people to look at my degree and think ‘‘oh, that's the university where people think it's OK and funny to dress up as alleged rapists for university events''.
Students rabbit on and on about how going to Otago is supposed to be the time of your life, and yet they seem to think that only some people are entitled to said fun time.
It's time for the university to step up and stop its future doctors, human rights lawyers, and politicians from running around propagating hate and bigotry.
●Millie Lovelock is a Dunedin student.
