Content Warning: this article discusses topics related to sexual harassment, assault, violence and hazing at the University of Sydney.
Some students might recognise Honi Soit and PULP magazine as the University of Sydney’s only two student publications; others may instead point to Drew’s News. Founded in 2019 as a place for students at the University’s St. Andrew’s Residential College to “express themselves, share perspectives and gain inspiration”, the student blog has historically covered the outcome of college sporting matches and theatre reviews. Yet as one scrolls through more recent posts, they will find an array of stories about Sydney’s housing crisis, Mardi Gras and Harmony Day.
My point here is not to undermine the experiences of those who have authored pieces about “cultural inclusivity” and “reconciliation.” Rather, it is to place these categories in the context of the University’s Colleges and apply a critical lens; any claims of respect and safety for women and gender diverse people in these sandstone spaces are hypocritical and inaccurate. Attempts to convince students that the Colleges are ‘progressive’ or ‘liberal’ are the latest in a series of University PR stunts to elide the colonial, elitist and capitalist foundations which have entrenched sexual violence, misogyny and classicism in its halls today.
The first bricks
The Colleges have strong theocratic, classicist and sexist roots. Led by the opening of St. Paul’s in 1854, the first residential colleges were established as subsidies from the Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian and Methodist churches. Continuing the University’s Gothic architectural style, the Colleges were an attempt to emulate the elite structures of Oxford and Cambridge. The Colleges only admitted men until 1892, when the Women’s College was established and later in 1969, when Wesley College became the first co-educational college. In 2010, St. John’s new Hintze Building was opened by George Pell.
Historically, only the sons of Sydney’s richest European families were accepted into the Colleges. This trend continues today; between 2000 and 2010, half of the University’s male Rhode Scholars once resided at St. Paul’s. Some of Australia’s most openly misogynistic men — including Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Former Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey — were educated at St. Paul’s, St. Andrew’s, St. John’s or Wesley College. At any of these Colleges today, students will pay more than $800 per week in rent to keep their room.
It is unsurprising, then, that this exclusion and denigration of women has fuelled the College’s toxic, sexist culture. The first sexual assault allegations against St. Paul’s students publicly emerged in 1977 when a male resident was awarded the annual “Animal Act of the Year Award” for participating in a gang-rape of a female Women’s College student. In 2009, NSW Police received reports that students at the same College had created a Facebook page centred on the slogan “pro-rape, anti-consent.” Five years later, the contents of the Wesley College Students Club Yearbook calling women “bitches” and “hoes” and victim-blaming assault survivors were leaked. The meaning of St. Andrew’s ‘Bone Room’ was also released shortly thereafter.
It is clear that what appeared as a ‘boy’s club’ legitimating offensive jokes and gendered pranks was actually far more sinister, and placed a thin veneer over countless cases of sexual harassment, assault and hazing.
The most recent stones
Many of these details were uncovered in Former Sex Discrimination Officer Elizabeth Broderick’s ground-breaking 2017 report on Cultural Renewal at the University of Sydney Residential Colleges. Motivated by concerns surrounding the relationship between increasing alcohol consumption and women’s safety, Broderick found that 15% of female residents felt pressured to drink. A total of 69% of students reported that they had either experienced or witnessed hazing, while one in four women revealed they had experienced sexual assault at College. In 95% of these incidents, the alleged perpetrator was male.
St. Paul’s was the only College to decline participation in the Broderick Report. Eventually, developed an Action Plan alongside other residences like St. Andrew’s and the Women’s College to accept the Report’s 2023 recommendations and complete annual progress checks. Littered with the empty rhetoric of ensuring “respect and dignity for all”, these reviews included few changes for students beyond those occurring at the level of upper management.
By comparison, the 2018 Red Zone Report published by End Rape on Campus (EROC) was the first large-scale investigation to explore the visceral stories of sexual assault at the residential colleges of Australia’s Group of Eight universities during their respective Orientation Weeks. The Report confirmed a particularly widespread incidence of hazing at the University of Sydney, including male students masterbating into women’s shampoo and conditioners, smearing faeces on the walls of common areas and setting their pubic hair on fire to gain a “leadership status.” EROC also found that female students at the University are 66% more likely experience rape on-campus when compared with the national average.
In response, Vice Chancellor Michael Spence stated he was “powerless” to fix these issues because “the college does not report to me or to the university.” Consequently, more recent data reveals that the Colleges remain fundamentally unsafe for women and gender diverse people. An independent report commissioned by St. Andrew’s from the Social Research Centre (SRC) in 2022 found that 18% of students had experienced bullying, and that the prevalence of sexual harassment had also increased to 20%. One year later, Honi Soit reported on the circulation of nude photos on social media at St. John’s, and that a St. Paul’s student had part of his ear bitten off during an inter-college event.
… and the ones we are yet to throw
When I spoke to a woman currently living at one of the University’s residential colleges, she told me that she “started off not knowing much about [the Colleges] at all” before moving in, until she “looked them up more on Reddit, and found a lot of threads about previous scandals.” She stated that her opinion of College “has definitely changed since the beginning, as I didn’t really know anything ‘that bad’ at the start.”
The difficulty for this young woman to reconcile the history of the Colleges is married with the compounding racist and xenophobic adversity she has faced. She noted that she often feels “strange” in this “notoriously white” environment, and expressed uneasiness to me about the Colleges’ countless hazing cases.
There is a significant lack of data and research addressing the intersectionality of these gendered and racialised barriers. The University’s response to these findings has consistently been even more inadequate and outrageous. Published in 2021, the National Student Safety Survey revealed that gender-based violence is not exclusive to the Colleges — one in two Australian university students have experienced sexual harassment or assault in their lifetimes. These findings were confirmed by the Senate Committee’s report on changes to sexual consent laws in Australia, which recommended the creation of an independent task force to hold universities to account on sexual violence. So far, the University has committed to offering consent modules, posters and stickers to address this sinister and pervasive issue.
It is for these reasons that we must burn the Colleges — but we cannot forget the violence they were born from and continue to represent on-campus. At a time when the need for safe and affordable housing has never been more pressing, the abolition of the Colleges can literally save lives. We’re waiting for the day someone dares to write about these sexist and misogynistic conditions in Drew’s News.
The University of Sydney’s Media Office provided Honi Soit with a comment on this article on April 16, 2024:
“We have zero tolerance for sexual misconduct and have invested significantly over several years to improve our preventative measures, reporting options and support services.
Our Roadmap to Prevention of Sexual Misconduct includes a range of initiatives including consent education, first responder and bystander awareness training, improved and more accessible reporting processes, and a review of our policies and procedures.
We’ve adopted student and staff sexual misconduct policies, outlining how we support survivors, protect confidentiality and work to eliminate unacceptable behaviour.
We’ve established the Safer Communities Office, a team of specialists who provide trauma-informed support to survivors and coordinate our prevention initiatives.
We’ve also updated our Alcohol Policy, which applies to the whole University community.
Last year we released ourinaugural annual report on sexual misconduct to increase transparency and accountability for survivors, outlining disclosures and complaints made to the University.
We work collaboratively with our affiliated colleges, which are independent institutions with their own governing bodies. We have a shared duty of care and interest in the safety and wellbeing of our students and together with them accepted and implemented all recommendations of the Broderick report, which was instigated by the University.
We’ve made a lot of progress and acknowledge that still more must be done. We vigorously support the new government measures to tackle sexual misconduct on campuses. We’re determined to ensure we’re listening to our students, sharing our experiences with the sector, and developing and implementing strategies to stamp out this serious problem.”