At the same time every year, students at the University of Sydney are violently hazed. The University’s vice chancellor, Michael Spence, has said the university is powerless to stop the practice which involves more senior students subjecting new ones to degrading, humiliating and harmful rituals.
On Monday, a comprehensive 200 page report was released detailing decades of hazing and sexual harassment within the university’s prestigious residential colleges. The report was called The Red Zone – a term used by sexual health specialists for the annual spike in sexual and physical assaults they see every orientation week.
Residents, families and Spence have been calling for an end to hazing for years. On Tuesday, the sex discrimination commissioner, Kate Jenkins, called for change. Last November, the Australian Human Rights Commission recommended a federal taskforce investigate the residential colleges notorious for hazing. But Spence has said a complex and unique governance structure at the University of Sydney prevents university management from taking action.
The six largest residential colleges – St Paul’s, St John’s, St Andrew’s, Wesley, Sancta Sophia and the Women’s College – are governed by their own act of state parliament, rather than the university. These foundational acts guarantee the colleges’ independence. The acts grant the colleges’ land on university grounds exclusively and “in perpetuity”. They enshrine in law that college governing councils must be elected only by alumni.
Most of the acts are so old they predate federation. They can only be changed by the state government, but apart from the St Andrew’s College Act, which was updated in 1998, they have not been altered since the 1850s.
In 2012, a girl at St John’s college was taken to hospital after she was forced to drink a mixture of shampoo, sour milk, dog food and alcohol in an initiation ritual. Thirty-three students were suspended from the college, but at the end of the year, seven of those, calling themselves “the Untouchables”, were elected onto the college’s governing council into roles including president, treasurer and secretary.
Despite the clear breach of the student code of conduct, Spence was powerless. His only option was to lobby the then Archishop of Sydney, George Pell.
“The college does not report to me or to the university, and the university is not represented on the college council,”Spence said at the time.
“The governance of the college rests with the college council, which includes six representatives of the Catholic church. I would urge Archbishop Pell to do all he can to sort out this issue.’’
The college staff, and influential observers such as Pell, began pushing for reform, but came up against the council of alumni who were resistant to change. In November, the New South Wales education minister, Rob Stokes, introduced legislation into parliament to repeal the St John’s act and reform it. It would allow the university, for the first time, to appoint a university representative to the council, and grant eligibility to female clergy.
Stokes said the university representative would create “greater accountability” for college misdeeds, and that he “hoped ... more diverse council membership will help contribute to a positive and inclusive culture.”
The reform bill passed the state’s lower house on 14 February, and is expected to pass the upper house in March. There have been no moves from any of the other colleges to do the same. Currently, only the Women’s College, founded in 1902, allows the university to appoint a council member.
In June, a spokesman for Stokes said he had “requested advice” on his options to repeal and reform the acts across all colleges. A university review last year found an eighth of all sexual assaults at college occur in the seven days of orientation week. It is no wonder people such as Spence and the Australian Human Rights Commission are concerned, given O-week commences at the University on Wednesday and new students are already arriving on the campus colleges, where they will be subject to a system of governance where little has changed.
