Racist and anti-vegan complaints at Shropshire university

It comes after one student described the Shropshire establishment as an “echo chamber” of prejudiced views.

One vegan student had the feet of dead pheasants left in their slippers and sanctions were applied to the person responsible after the university investigated. A student also alleged that racist and sexist views go unchallenged on campus.

The woman, who did not wish to be named, told the i newspaper that several students have witnessed upsetting racist or sexist incidents.

The student alleged that the university did not investigate complaints because they were not officially logged, while the university said it investigated all complaints in line with its policy.

The student said: “It’s been several years banging my head against a brick wall.

“These are all issues that have been going on way longer than I’ve been at Harper. More and more people seem to be coming out with stories about what’s happening to them.

“Obviously these incidents do happen at other universities, there is racism and prejudice at every university, but at Harper it’s like an echo chamber. It gets worse in a way; you’re supposed to leave university with a more open mind and broader horizons. But here they’re surrounded by people that think like them and their ideas aren’t challenged.”

Investigation

A spokeswoman for the university said: “The pheasant feet incident was reported by a third party in 2019. The concern was recorded and investigated with sanctions applied. The affected student was contacted, offered full support and was comfortable with the outcomes.

“We have no record of complaints of student being told to ‘stay in their own race’ but this is the sort of speech that would not be tolerated if any staff member was aware of it. We would also expect fellow students to ‘call out’ such behaviour in line with our expectations around bystander intervention.

“All students, of all backgrounds, are integrated with each other in halls of residence and not segregated in any way. Many of our Chinese students choose to live in shared houses together as they join us for their final year of study, in their established friendship groups. They would have been advised throughout the pandemic to stay in their own ‘herd’ – which is our internal term for a household bubble. We make it very clear to our students, from the outset, the expected standards of behaviour and seek to educate them to have respect for all.”

In a public statement released over the weekend, the university said: “Our mission is to educate and inform – encouraging respect for all, encouraging bystander intervention when injustice is observed, encouraging understanding and evidence-based decision making, encouraging every member of our community to be the change they want to see.

“Every university, indeed everywhere, people from a range of backgrounds are brought together, faces tensions. It is simply untrue to claim that our dedicated staff ignores this or we preferentially support one group or one view.”