{"id":122255,"date":"2021-08-02T08:45:28","date_gmt":"2021-08-02T06:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/da-sissel-jo-gazan-sagde-fra-havde-hun-allerede-simuleret-orgasme-foran-sine-nye-studiekammerater\/"},"modified":"2021-08-04T08:57:54","modified_gmt":"2021-08-04T06:57:54","slug":"sissel-jo-gazan-finally-protested-but-only-after-simulating-an-orgasm-in-front-of-her-fellow-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/sissel-jo-gazan-finally-protested-but-only-after-simulating-an-orgasm-in-front-of-her-fellow-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Sissel-Jo Gazan finally protested: But only after simulating an orgasm in front of her fellow students"},"content":{"rendered":"

S<\/span>hortly before the summer vacation, I wrote an article on the Danish-language version of this site about a sports science student who wanted to make a stand against offensive tutors\u2019 rituals on intro week. She is tired of sauna clubs, slut-shaming, and violent intro games which, according to her, help foster a sexist and transgressive study environment.<\/p>\n

\n

DO YOU HAVE A STORY YOU WANT TO TELL?<\/p>\n

If you have experienced sexism or any other offensive experiences during your intro programme, the University Post would like to hear your story.<\/p>\n

Send an email to uni-avis@adm.ku.dk and we will get back to you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A couple of days after this, an email appeared in my inbox from the author Sissel-Jo Gazan. She has written Danish bestsellers like \u2018The Arc of the Swallow\u2019 and ‘The Dinosaur Feather’ and lives and writes in Berlin.<\/p>\n

Sissel-Jo Gazan wrote that if the University Post wanted to follow up on the debate about the intro weeks, she would like to share her own story. Her story was from back in 1997, but the experience \u2014 and the shame \u2014 still affected her more than twenty years later.<\/p>\n

As a new student on the biology programme at the University of Copenhagen, she was urged to simulate intercourse with a cucumber while covered in mayonnaise and wrapped in plastic cling film. She had to imitate having an orgasm, the tutors said, to get through the \u2018night race\u2019.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, not everyone had to do this challenge, and the tutors had specially selected two women who they considered would be able to \u2018handle it\u2019 says Sissel-Jo Gazan.<\/p>\n

She didn’t protest as it happened, even though she perceived the situation to be highly offensive to her. But she demanded \u2014 and later received \u2014 an apology from the tutors.<\/p>\n

\u00bbI’m sure I would have stood up to them today. But even though I was also strong at the time, I was still too afraid to say: What the hell are you asking me to do, assholes! I didn’t dare. I really think it says a lot about how others can find it difficult to be in these situations,\u00ab says Sissel-Jo Gazan.<\/p>\n

Everyone had to tongue kiss the tutor<\/h3>\n

Sissel-Jo Gazan was 23 years old in 1997 when she was on her first and only intro camp. It was on the island of Langeland, and she remembers it very clearly. From the outset, there was this atmosphere of new students being humiliated, she says. That the older tutors would \u2018show the newbies what it was all about.\u2019<\/p>\n

Since then, I have recalled it as a sordid, shameful experience.<\/p>\n

Author Sissel-Jo Gazan<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This culminated on the night race. At one of the posts everyone had to tongue kiss one of the tutors. Later, a very drunk male new student had his trousers taken down and the letters ‘B’ written on each buttock, so that they in combination with his anus spelled out the name ‘BOB’.<\/p>\n

The race ended up at the beach, where Sissel-Jo Gazan and another woman were tied up in cling wrap plastic, had mayonnaise smeared all over them and asked to simulate an orgasm. The tutors stood around them cheering until the two women had acted out a climax.<\/p>\n

A psyche strong enough to take a joke<\/h3>\n

It all happened so quickly, Sissel-Jo Gazan says, that she didn’t get the chance to say no. Only afterwards, on the way back to the hut, did she realise that she and the other student were the only ones who had been nominated for this task. It made her angry, she says, and feel like a kind of scapegoat.<\/p>\n

She rushed to the shower to wash away the mayonnaise. But there, under the shower faucet, she was overwhelmed with emotions:<\/p>\n

\u00bbI had the feeling that I couldn’t ever get clean again. I washed and washed myself. Afterwards, I called my mother and completely broke down,\u00ab says Sissel-Jo Gazan.<\/p>\n

On the phone, her mother said that what she was asked to do was completely out of line. With her support, she went to the tutors and demanded an official apology. She threatened to go to the dean if the tutors didn’t apologize in front of everyone. This took place in a large assembly hall in front of all the student cohort, where Sissel-Jo Gazan had to repeat exactly what had happened down on the beach.<\/p>\n

And, according to her, she received a \u2018half-hearted apology\u2019 from the tutors. Only one of them seemed to understand that they had crossed a line. One of the others simply repeated that they had reckoned that the two women were \u00bbstrong enough to be able to take a joke,\u00ab says Sissel-Jo Gazan. At the time, they had all known each other for only two days.<\/p>\n

Sissel-Jo Gazan subsequently felt that she was hated among the tutors. She felt safe in her own class, but the strained relationship with the older students was maintained throughout the period of her studies.<\/p>\n

\u00bbI lost myself at that moment\u00ab<\/h3>\n

Sissel-Jo Gazan is not the kind of person you mess with. She has written a number of bestseller novels; has lived throughout the world; is the mother of three children. In many ways, you would describe her as a badass woman.<\/p>\n

And she has a master’s degree in biology, which inspired her breakthrough novel ‘The Dinosaur Feather’. She explains that she grew up in a feminist environment where she learned that her body was her own, and that she could always draw the line.<\/p>\n

When it dawned on me how wrong this was, I was ashamed that I had not stood up and set my own boundaries.<\/p>\n

Author Sissel-Jo Gazan<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is why she does not recognise herself as the type that would succumb to peer pressure and take part in transgressive intro games. But she did. Because she was new, uncertain of herself, and wanted to fit in, she says.<\/p>\n

Sissel-Jo Gazan does not feel directly traumatised by her intro camp experience. But it has remained with her through the intervening years:<\/p>\n

\u00bbIt has stuck with me as a sordid, shameful experience. Clearly it is only because this is something that we talk about publicly nowadays that I dare to say so. I did not do anything wrong in the situation, and I am not particularly predisposed to feel shame,\u00ab she says.<\/p>\n

Why were you ashamed anyway?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00bbI lost myself at that moment. I was so busy trying to fit in and live up to the game. When it dawned on me how wrong this all was, I was ashamed that I had not stood up and set my own limits while it was happening and say: ‘Fuck you, I’m not doing that’,\u00ab says Sissel-Jo Gazan.<\/p>\n

Shame with shame on top<\/h3>\n

When Sissel-Jo Gazan thinks that we need to talk about her experience 24 years ago, it is because she wants to illustrate how difficult it is to say no. Even for someone like her who, according to herself, is pretty good at setting clear boundaries.<\/p>\n

It is, of course, easier to talk about from a distance because she has become older and less preoccupied with fitting in, she says. But the #MeToo movement, in particular, has opened up a space for her to tell her story in public:<\/p>\n

\u00bbWhen all these cases pop up now, it’s because people have walked around feeling that they had to shut up about it, and that they had done something wrong. The times have changed, and we can talk more openly about our shameful experiences and expect to be understood,\u00ab says Sissel-Jo Gazan.<\/p>\n

She says it is a problem when you are mocked in public for not saying no. This triggers what she calls \u00bbshame with shame on top.\u00ab Because even if you get into a situation where you did not say no, this doesn’t mean that you have not been subjected to something offensive, she says.<\/p>\n

\u00bbCan we train our daughters to speak up clearly? There are creeps out there, and it does not actually help to just play dead,\u00ab the Danish comedian Brian M\u00f8rk wrote on Twitter at the beginning of July. This kick-started a new wave where thousands in Denmark shared their stories on social media about how the situation escalated when they stood up to abuse.<\/p>\n

\u00bbYou end up feeling ashamed when others say: You should just have said something. Then it is shame with shame on top, because then you have to be ashamed that you let it happen. That you did not say anything, so others my suffer from it also afterwards. That you could have stopped it. That you are a weak person that cannot set your own boundaries. This becomes a vicious circle,\u00ab says Sissel-Jo Gazan.
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week","text":"24 years ago the acclaimed Danish author was pressured by tutors to do things at intro camp that she has since been ashamed of.","use_post_excerpt":false},{"acf_fc_layout":"Byline","is_author":true,"contributors":false},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p><span class=\"dropcap\">S<\/span>hortly before the summer vacation, I wrote an article on the Danish-language version of this site about a sports science student who wanted to make a stand against offensive tutors\u2019 rituals on intro week. She is tired of sauna clubs, slut-shaming, and violent intro games which, according to her, help foster a sexist and transgressive study environment.<\/p>\n<div class=\"factbox\">\n<p class=\"factbox-header feature-color\">DO YOU HAVE A STORY YOU WANT TO TELL?<\/p>\n<p>If you have experienced sexism or any other offensive experiences during your intro programme, the University Post would like to hear your story.<\/p>\n<p>Send an email to uni-avis@adm.ku.dk and we will get back to you.<\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>A couple of days after this, an email appeared in my inbox from the author Sissel-Jo Gazan. She has written Danish bestsellers like \u2018The Arc of the Swallow\u2019 and ‘The Dinosaur Feather’ and lives and writes in Berlin.<\/p>\n<p>Sissel-Jo Gazan wrote that if the University Post wanted to follow up on the debate about the intro weeks, she would like to share her own story. Her story was from back in 1997, but the experience \u2014 and the shame \u2014 still affected her more than twenty years later.<\/p>\n<p>As a new student on the biology programme at the University of Copenhagen, she was urged to simulate intercourse with a cucumber while covered in mayonnaise and wrapped in plastic cling film. She had to imitate having an orgasm, the tutors said, to get through the \u2018night race\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>As it turned out, not everyone had to do this challenge, and the tutors had specially selected two women who they considered would be able to \u2018handle it\u2019 says Sissel-Jo Gazan.<\/p>\n<p>She didn’t protest as it happened, even though she perceived the situation to be highly offensive to her. But she demanded \u2014 and later received \u2014 an apology from the tutors.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbI’m sure I would have stood up to them today. But even though I was also strong at the time, I was still too afraid to say: What the hell are you asking me to do, assholes! I didn’t dare. I really think it says a lot about how others can find it difficult to be in these situations,\u00ab says Sissel-Jo Gazan.<\/p>\n<h3>Everyone had to tongue kiss the tutor<\/h3>\n<p>Sissel-Jo Gazan was 23 years old in 1997 when she was on her first and only intro camp. It was on the island of Langeland, and she remembers it very clearly. From the outset, there was this atmosphere of new students being humiliated, she says. That the older tutors would \u2018show the newbies what it was all about.\u2019<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Since then, I have recalled it as a sordid, shameful experience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"quotee\">Author Sissel-Jo Gazan<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This culminated on the night race. At one of the posts everyone had to tongue kiss one of the tutors. Later, a very drunk male new student had his trousers taken down and the letters ‘B’ written on each buttock, so that they in combination with his anus spelled out the name ‘BOB’.<\/p>\n<p>The race ended up at the beach, where Sissel-Jo Gazan and another woman were tied up in cling wrap plastic, had mayonnaise smeared all over them and asked to simulate an orgasm. The tutors stood around them cheering until the two women had acted out a climax.<\/p>\n<h3>A psyche strong enough to take a joke<\/h3>\n<p>It all happened so quickly, Sissel-Jo Gazan says, that she didn’t get the chance to say no. Only afterwards, on the way back to the hut, did she realise that she and the other student were the only ones who had been nominated for this task. It made her angry, she says, and feel like a kind of scapegoat.<\/p>\n<p>She rushed to the shower to wash away the mayonnaise. But there, under the shower faucet, she was overwhelmed with emotions:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbI had the feeling that I couldn’t ever get clean again. I washed and washed myself. Afterwards, I called my mother and completely broke down,\u00ab says Sissel-Jo Gazan.<\/p>\n<p>On the phone, her mother said that what she was asked to do was completely out of line. With her support, she went to the tutors and demanded an official apology. She threatened to go to the dean if the tutors didn’t apologize in front of everyone. This took place in a large assembly hall in front of all the student cohort, where Sissel-Jo Gazan had to repeat exactly what had happened down on the beach.<\/p>\n<p>And, according to her, she received a \u2018half-hearted apology\u2019 from the tutors. Only one of them seemed to understand that they had crossed a line. One of the others simply repeated that they had reckoned that the two women were \u00bbstrong enough to be able to take a joke,\u00ab says Sissel-Jo Gazan. At the time, they had all known each other for only two days.<\/p>\n<p>Sissel-Jo Gazan subsequently felt that she was hated among the tutors. She felt safe in her own class, but the strained relationship with the older students was maintained throughout the period of her studies.<\/p>\n<h3>\u00bbI lost myself at that moment\u00ab<\/h3>\n<p>Sissel-Jo Gazan is not the kind of person you mess with. She has written a number of bestseller novels; has lived throughout the world; is the mother of three children. In many ways, you would describe her as a badass woman.<\/p>\n<p>And she has a master’s degree in biology, which inspired her breakthrough novel ‘The Dinosaur Feather’. She explains that she grew up in a feminist environment where she learned that her body was her own, and that she could always draw the line.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When it dawned on me how wrong this was, I was ashamed that I had not stood up and set my own boundaries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"quotee\">Author Sissel-Jo Gazan<\/p>\n<p> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That is why she does not recognise herself as the type that would succumb to peer pressure and take part in transgressive intro games. But she did. Because she was new, uncertain of herself, and wanted to fit in, she says.<\/p>\n<p>Sissel-Jo Gazan does not feel directly traumatised by her intro camp experience. But it has remained with her through the intervening years:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt has stuck with me as a sordid, shameful experience. Clearly it is only because this is something that we talk about publicly nowadays that I dare to say so. I did not do anything wrong in the situation, and I am not particularly predisposed to feel shame,\u00ab she says.<\/p>\n<p><em>Why were you ashamed anyway?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u00bbI lost myself at that moment. I was so busy trying to fit in and live up to the game. When it dawned on me how wrong this all was, I was ashamed that I had not stood up and set my own limits while it was happening and say: ‘Fuck you, I’m not doing that’,\u00ab says Sissel-Jo Gazan.<\/p>\n<h3>Shame with shame on top<\/h3>\n<p>When Sissel-Jo Gazan thinks that we need to talk about her experience 24 years ago, it is because she wants to illustrate how difficult it is to say no. Even for someone like her who, according to herself, is pretty good at setting clear boundaries.<\/p>\n<p>It is, of course, easier to talk about from a distance because she has become older and less preoccupied with fitting in, she says. But the #MeToo movement, in particular, has opened up a space for her to tell her story in public:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWhen all these cases pop up now, it’s because people have walked around feeling that they had to shut up about it, and that they had done something wrong. The times have changed, and we can talk more openly about our shameful experiences and expect to be understood,\u00ab says Sissel-Jo Gazan.<\/p>\n<p>She says it is a problem when you are mocked in public for not saying no. This triggers what she calls \u00bbshame with shame on top.\u00ab Because even if you get into a situation where you did not say no, this doesn’t mean that you have not been subjected to something offensive, she says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbCan we train our daughters to speak up clearly? There are creeps out there, and it does not actually help to just play dead,\u00ab the Danish comedian Brian M\u00f8rk wrote on Twitter at the beginning of July. This kick-started a new wave where thousands in Denmark shared their stories on social media about how the situation escalated when they stood up to abuse.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbYou end up feeling ashamed when others say: You should just have said something. Then it is shame with shame on top, because then you have to be ashamed that you let it happen. That you did not say anything, so others my suffer from it also afterwards. That you could have stopped it. That you are a weak person that cannot set your own boundaries. This becomes a vicious circle,\u00ab says Sissel-Jo Gazan.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"ArticleEnd"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Newsletter","lang_select":"en","identifier":"Newsletter","headline":"Get a weekly email with our top stories","button_text":"Sign up here","class":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"OtherStories","headline":"","hand_picked_posts":true,"references":[{"reference":{"ID":91984,"post_author":"71","post_date":"2019-09-02 11:05:32","post_date_gmt":"2019-09-02 09:05:32","post_content":"<span class=\"dropcap\">F<\/span>rom the foundation of university in 1479 and the next 200-300 years, the new students had to turn up in the university courtyard in the inner city with a horn on their forehead, a hump on their back, with blackened faces, anything that would make them look like brutes. They represented the uneducated and boorish.\r\n\r\nThen they were brought into a room, examined by an older student, insulted and thrashed (they were, actually, beaten up). The students were whipped with a cane and pinched with a tong so their horns fell off. The pleasure of participating even cost the young freshmen four shillings if they were poor, and eight if they were rich.\r\n\r\nOne of the purposes of the old initiation rites was that the new students could win the others\u2019 respect by enduring the torments. In a university statute from 1539 it is stated that it is useful for students to go through such rituals, because they all need to get used to the fact that life as an academic will lead to mockery and ridicule from the surrounding community.\r\n\r\n<em><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/ten-little-indians-and-then-there-were-none-how-do-you-do-intro-camp-without-giving-offence-in-2019\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ten Little Indians And Then There Were None: How do you do intro camp without causing offence in 2019?<\/a><\/em>\r\n\r\nThe Danish university initiations took place within a closed academic setting, and if things went too far, it would lead to internal disciplinary proceedings and perhaps even a spell in the university prison \u2013 but not, like today, featured comments from distraught parents in the daily press.\r\n\r\nAt the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, the initiation of the new students moved away from the university\u2019s central yard and out of the history books, and now they took place around the city and in the dormitories.\r\n\r\nRight up to the 1960s and 1970s, however, the Danish university was a closed system, and the surrounding community was not alarmed by went on in academia. In the wake of the 60-70\u2019s student protests, the university became more democratic, and the ideology of equality came into the study programmes.\r\n<h3>Students made bombs<\/h3>\r\nWhich brings us to the present when the media, every September, report on the start of the academic year with greater or lesser consternation. In 1993 the daily newspaper Politiken had a number of stories about how students of engineering made bombs in the different Copenhagen residence halls, and several of them said that they had learned it all on an intro camp for freshmen. In 1998, critics said that the entire intro camp was a drinking spree, and in 2001, several camp venues refused to lease them to the thirsty young students.\r\n\r\n\u00bbWe'd rather go bankrupt than say yes to having them again,\u00ab said a landlord from Sams\u00f8.\n<!-- end of module 1 -->\nIt was also in 2001 that the newspaper Politiken wrote about fresher camps at the Roskilde University, where \u00bbinsanely drunk freshmen\u00ab the previous year had organized communal shaving of genitals, and a student reportedly had had sexual intercourse with the head of a pig.\r\n\r\nIn 2004, the Centre for Rape Victims warned against games involving nudity with sexual undertones, because they had received enquiries from women who had felt harassed on Danish fresher camps. And in 2007, the University of Copenhagen decided that there was to be no more drinking the alcoholic \u2018Gammel Dansk\u2019 beverage at breakfasts on intro trips \u2013 now the camps had to comply with the university's drinking and smoking policies.\r\n<h3>Dildos and curried herring<\/h3>\r\nDrinking and sexual excesses were the overall theme of the media's intro camp coverage in the 00s, but this did not seem to change what happened at the camps. A communications student certainly told the daily newspaper Berlingske in 2009 how they on an intro camp played games with a strap-on dildo and had drunk heavily.\r\n\r\nIn 2014, the debate over intro camps trips exploded after it emerged on the student podcast MONO, and subsequently in The University Post, that students at a Political Science intro camp had been made to play sexist games where they were divided into boys' and girls' groups. The male students were told to recount their sexual fantasies about the female students, caress the lips on a sheep's head, and put pork in their underwear to strengthen their libido.\r\n\r\nThe following year, Dj\u00f8f-bladet magazine could reveal that female students at CBS at one of the year's fresher camps were made to simulate oral sex on male students who had juggled a banana between their legs. During a gender-segregated warm-up to celebrations the male students had to \u2013 as an echo of the 2014 scandal from political science \u2013 call the female students sluts and state who they would like to have sex with.\r\n\r\n<em><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/overblik-saadan-endte-koebenhavns-universitet-midt-i-kraenkelsesdebatten\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Overview: This is how the University of Copenhagen became the centre of the debate on offensive behavior<\/a><\/em>\r\n\r\nThe following year, CBS was once again the subject of media attention, when Berlingske described how students had complained that they had to suck wine out of a tampon, make chains of their clothes, and recount private details about their sex life at intro camp.\r\n\r\nAccording to a reliable source, some social science University of Copenhagen departments have been banned from all the camp venues on Zealand.\r\n\r\nAnd in 2018, there was the debate on the theme parties on the University of Copenhagen law programme. It was a featured comment on the daily newspaper Politiken that set off the debate \u2013 here, a student recounted how she on an intro camp had to eat a pack of yeast, suck whisky out of a smelly sock, and lick curried herring off one of her fellow students.\r\n\r\nWill 2019 be free of all this?\r\n\r\n<em>Sources: Morten Fink-Jensen, university historian, University of Copenhagen, Saxo Institute, newspaper articles from Infomedia.<\/em>\n<!-- end of module 2 -->\n","post_title":"Beatings, bombs and sex with a pig's head: The university's crazy initiation rituals through the ages","post_excerpt":"You probably know the hullabaloo: Every year, just around the start of the academic year, the traditional intro camps for freshmen are up for debate. There is too much drinking. Then it\u2019s all about sex. Then the themes are inappropriate. But it is actually a new phenomenon that society outside the university holds an opinion at all about what happens among students. ","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"beatings-bombs-and-sex-with-a-pigs-head-the-universitys-crazy-initiation-rituals-through-time","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2021-03-08 12:10:57","post_modified_gmt":"2021-03-08 11:10:57","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/?p=91984\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}},{"reference":{"ID":91916,"post_author":"71","post_date":"2019-09-02 11:10:38","post_date_gmt":"2019-09-02 09:10:38","post_content":"<span class=\"dropcap\">N<\/span>ela Gacic had ordered six sombreros over the Internet. She calls them Mexican hats, and she had bought them because she and a small group of other freshmen were going to represent Mexico at the Olympics. That is, the Olympics-themed party on the introduction camp at the Faculty of Law at The University of Copenhagen that Nela was to go on a few days later.\r\n\r\n\u00bbI usually call it Mexican-gate,\u00ab she says about subsequent events: The costume theme was dropped, the Mexican hats were sent back to the dealer (the small group of students shared the cost of the shipment), a gala party was organised as a quick replacement (\u00bbIt was a bit of a downer, because it is more fun to dress up than put on nice clothes\u00ab), and suddenly the Faculty of Law's parties for new students were Danish media headlines.\r\n\r\nThe message came from the top in the form of an e-mail from associate dean Stine J\u00f8rgensen in which the tutors were asked to reconsider their choice of themes for the party - themes that in addition to the 'Olympics' included 'Cowboys and Indians', 'Mexicans', 'White Trash' and 'Rich Kids'.\r\n\r\nIn the email J\u00f8rgensen stated: \u00bbI recommend strongly that you, with the coordinators, as soon as possible take another look at the costume categories to ensure that the themes live up to the faculty's values of diversity and non-discrimination.\u00ab It was themes with stereotypes on things like ethnicity, sexuality and religion that had to be taken off the programme.\r\n\r\nThe recommendation in the email, was not taken by students as a recommendation, but as a ban.\r\n\r\n\u00bbIt was a major practical problem because we received the email two days before the intro camp, and there were 700 new students who had bought stuff for these themes,\u00ab says Jakob Krabbe S\u00f8rensen, who was an intro camp tutor in 2018. Later, when the associate dean's email was leaked, and the University Post took up the story, he spoke on behalf of the tutors.\r\n<h3>Delicate restrictions<\/h3>\r\nThe university had received three complaints about the party themes before contacting the tutors: A student had called and complained, and two students had sent emails. The faculty responded to the complaints by drawing a red line. And Jakob Krabbe S\u00f8rensen believed then, and now, that this line was placed in the wrong place.\r\n\r\n\u00bbIt is always a trade-off: You have to be able to dress up in a fun way, but you need to be able to take into account that nobody should be offended. Someone might always be offended, or consciously even seek an opportunity to feel offended, and then there needs to be a limit to this somewhere. We thought that this threshold was too low,\u00ab he says, adding that he understands that the university needed to make a quick decision.\r\n\r\n<em>You say there will always be someone who seeks an opportunity to be offended by themes. Do you think this is something that people have made up to set off a debate?<\/em>\r\n\r\n\u00bbI don\u2019t know. It is also a matter about the principle of what space you leave for people who want to exploit it. Someone will always do so.\u00ab\r\n\r\n<em><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/overblik-saadan-endte-koebenhavns-universitet-midt-i-kraenkelsesdebatten\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Overview: This is how the University of Copenhagen became the centre of the debate on offensive behavior<\/a><\/em>\r\n\r\nJakob Krabbe S\u00f8rensen will not say exactly where the line should be drawn, as it is not his job, he says. But he, and the other intro camp tutors at the Faculty of Law, would like to have the process taken up for evaluation.\r\n\r\n\u00bbAnd it certainly already has been,\u00ab he says.\n<!-- end of module 1 -->\nOn dr.dk, the Danish public service broadcaster\u2019s web media, the story headlined with \u2018University of Copenhagen bans offensive costume\u2019, the tabloid B.T. wrote that \u2018University of Copenhagen bans \u2018offensive\u2019 costume\u2019. On the University Post, the story ran as \u2018No dressing up as a Native American, a Mexican, or an Olympic athlete\u2019, and on daily newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad the headline was \u2018Critics: The university goes too far in banning obscene jokes and Indian costumes\u00ab.\r\n\r\nNow, a year later, the debate has left its mark on the planning for this year's intro camps. The discussion was, for a short moment at least, just about what you should be allowed to dress up as, and when particular costume choices might reinforce prejudices. But it is clear in retrospect that the debate went much deeper. It dovetails with a wider debate on taking and giving offence after #metoo and provoked widespread fear among some pundits that Danish universities had succumbed to excessive sensitivity \u2013 just like in the United States, as many Danes will frame it. A costume party at the university suddenly became a wider question about society. The University of Copenhagen wanted to just follow the new trend, but ended up being engulfed in a media storm.\r\n<h3>Neverland had to be dropped<\/h3>\r\nIn the summer of 2018, the University of Copenhagen launched <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/guidelines.pdf\">a set of guidelines<\/a>, in which the university stated that it was the individual's subjective experience of an action being offensive that was \u00bbthe starting point\u00ab. The associate dean at the Faculty of Law at the time, Stine J\u00f8rgensen \u2013 who had written the email to the tutors \u2013 told the newspaper Berlingske at the time that the email should be seen as a continuation of an increased focus on gender, sexuality and ethnicity from management.\r\n\r\n\u00bbI see it clearly as an expression of the fact that there is a heightened awareness on how we should relate to each other, and that you should not offend anyone. We had not had prior thoughts about this problem complex. During the past year, more attention has been paid to how you should not have to put up with so much any more. We have been a part of a real trend in society.\u00ab\r\n\r\nThe debate on the costume parties was never solely about the costume parties. It was about who has the right to define an offence at the University of Copenhagen.\r\n\r\nLast year in August, Amanda H\u00f8jbjerg Jacobsen was dressed up as a pirate. She was on the freshers' trip as a student of Theatre and Performance Studies, and the party had the theme of a fictional island 'Neverland'. Others were dressed up as 'the lost boys' from the Peter Pan adventure, and some were dressed as Indians. Today, Amanda H\u00f8jbjerg Jacobsen is a tutor herself. She has helped to plan the upcoming intro trip for freshmen, and this year a theme like 'Neverland' would not have made the cut, she says. \u00bbWe would probably be wary and find another theme because of the Indians.\u00ab\r\n\r\nThere are a lot of thinking pauses when she speaks, she says \u2018hmm\u2019 a lot and her voice sounds like it is a good idea to consider what you say one extra time. She says that the tutors have followed the debate over the past year intensely. They have talked about using a fictional theme, based on an adventure, in the realm of the supernatural, because in this way they can avoid problematic themes. But then again, the fictitious Indians could easily be offensive in the real world.\r\n\r\nThe tutors from Theatre and Performance studies ended up this year with a 'farm theme'. It is so broad, they reckon that the new students can interpret it as they want.\r\n\r\n\u00bbWe have later thought that it might offend someone as it is a very Danish theme. What happens if everybody turns up in overalls, chewing on a straw? We feel that no matter what we choose it feeds into a stereotype,\u00ab says Amanda H\u00f8jbjerg Jacobsen.\r\n\r\n<em>So you reckon that it is the stereotypical part of it that makes it offensive?<\/em>\r\n\r\n\u00bbYes. And it's hard not to stereotype at all.\u00ab\n<!-- end of module 2 -->\nAmanda H\u00f8jbjerg Jacobsen can understand that some students found last year's themes at the Faculty of Law problematic. But she also thinks it is a ... difficult subject.\r\n\r\n\u00bbI think that what is considered offensive is when we generalize about something that is not ... How should I explain it? When we generalise about something that is not very close to us, and which we do not know enough about to state anything about. When it is not typically Danish, it might not be our job to interpret it. On the other hand, I think that what we do in the intro week is fun and games.\u00ab\r\n\r\nAmanda H\u00f8jbjerg Jacobsen finds it hard to talk about. She is afraid to formulate herself in a manner that gives offense. You get the impression that she has simply lost her way in the debate. In this way, she might represent a large, silent student majority very well.\r\n\r\nThe debate about the University of Copenhagen's guidelines for dealing with offensive behaviour has, in the media, been shaped by the voices that can soar up to a place where it is all about freedom of speech. Danish politician Morten Messerschmidt called the University's guidelines a \u2018fatwa\u2019 and called for civil disobedience. \u00bbThis is any freedom-loving student's duty,\u00ab he wrote in a featured comment on the Altinget news site.\r\n\r\n<em><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/beatings-bombs-and-sex-with-a-pigs-head-the-universitys-crazy-initiation-rituals-through-time\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Beatings, bombs and sex with a pig's head: The university's crazy initiation rituals through time<\/a><\/em>\r\n\r\nIt is harder to find people who stood up for the University of Copenhagen and defended the university's intervention in the costume parties.\r\n\r\nFor Jakob Krabbe S\u00f8rensen and the law intro tutors however, the major issue was of a more practical nature, because they had to think up new themes two days before the intro freshers' trip camp. In several cases, they ended up only altering the themes a bit, so students could still use the costumes they had spent money on. 'Cowboys and Indians' became 'The Wild West', 'Mexicans' became a 'Hat Party', 'White Trash' turned into 'Trailer Park'.\r\n\r\nJakob Krabbe S\u00f8rensen says that he understands that the whole mess has led to a debate on freedom of speech. He believes that this debate is important, but: \u00bbOf course, it is not a core part of the freedom of expression that you should be allowed to dress up as a Mexican.\u00ab\r\n<h3>Dizzy with common sense<\/h3>\r\nCarina Meier was a new student at the Faculty of Theology in 2018, and now she is a tutor. She says that it is good that the University of Copenhagen has tightened up the guidelines on offensive behaviour, and she has no objection to the guidelines also applying to costume parties on a freshers' intro trip.\r\n\r\nShe says that the debate in the past year has made a positive contribution to the deliberations of the tutors when planning themes and parties. And even though she is able to understand the argument that it must be up to the tutors themselves to plan their intro course, she thinks it is good with some clear guidelines.\r\n\r\n\u00bbThe tutors need some freedom, but it must be freedom with responsibility. I think it's okay that the University of Copenhagen sets out guidelines when they have received information from people who have felt offended. I can only see something positive in this,\u00ab she says.\r\n\r\nThe debate about offences has taken up a lot in the course of the tutors' planning. But it is not her impression that the tutors at the Faculty of Theology found that there was too much debate. They are not interested in anyone feeling excluded or ridiculed. Of course there is a limit to how many considerations you can take, but: \u00bbyou can never say to someone that they need to just calm down, because they are the ones who know whether they feel offended or not,\u00ab says Carina Meier.\r\n\r\n<em>How do you know whether something has crossed the red line? <\/em>\r\n\r\nCarina Meier responds: \u00bbWe have thought a lot about whether we would think this would be okay if it was us? Everyone is different and has different opinions, but if you use your common sense, I think it cannot go far wrong.\u00ab\r\n\r\nAnd yet: Jacob Krabbe S\u00f8rensen says that when the law tutors planned the themes for their parties last year, they considered themes that on the one hand would be fun and, on the other hand, not be offensive or disrespectful. Of course they were, he says.\n<!-- end of module 3 -->\nSo why did some people find the themes to not be OK? Amanda H\u00f8jbjerg Jacobsen, tutor at Theatre and Performance Studies, says that the question of whether something is offensive or problematic is to a great extent decided by the recipient. In other words, what I find problematic is not necessarily the same thing as what you find problematic. And then common sense doesn\u2019t help. And so we are back with the question: Who decides, in the end, whether something is offensive or not?\r\n\r\nThe university's management does apparently The university's guidelines on handling offence from 2018 have been revised and now only need final approval. In the new version of the guidelines, the offending experience has been replaced with a management assessment. In the old guidelines it stated that it is the \u00bbemployee's or student\u2019s experience of having been subjected to offensive behaviour that is the starting point.\u00ab\r\n\r\nIn the new guidelines it states that: \u00bbThere may be situations where a person has felt offended, but where management finds that no offending action has been committed.\u00ab The University of Copenhagen does, however, in the new guidelines refer to the Danish working environment authority, which takes as its point of departure the individual's experience when it comes to offences \u2013 exactly like the first, heavily criticised, set of rules did.\r\n<h3>The boo factor<\/h3>\r\nConfused? You are not the only one. Let us go back to Carina Meier at Theology. She says that the tutors have worked out an intro course that she does not think will offend anyone. They have not only thought about things like identity, nationality, sexuality, they have also thought about whether the various activities are available to people with different body composition types and different types of personality. They will include a midnight race on the intro camp, where there is a clear rule that it should not in any way be scary or unpleasant.\r\n\r\n\u00bbWe call it the boo factor, because there are some that do not like the dark or being startled in any way,\u00ab says Carina Meier.\r\n\r\nThey have also put in a number of breaks in the programme, so that people can retreat and take a break away from all of the social activities.\r\n\r\n\u00bbAs a tutor, we also respect if there is something that people do not want to get involved in. Even though it is difficult to find an activity that everyone thinks is fun, then it is important that you take into account the cases where people need to be themselves.\u00ab\r\n\r\nBut has it taken a bit of the fun out of tutor role that they have to be so careful and take so many different considerations? \u00bbNot at all,\u00ab she says. \u00bbYou can easily have fun without having to put people down or ridicule them.\u00ab\r\n\r\nThe debate has not changed fundamentally how Amanda H\u00f8jbjerg Jacobsen or Carina Meier how they plan a freshers' trip. But it has made them more aware of what goes down well on the camp, and what they need to avoid. They both think the debate has been important.\r\n\r\nJakob Krabbe S\u00f8rensen says that he hopes that this year there will be more trust in the tutors on the part of the faculties. Trust that they will think, and make sure that intro course camps don\u2019t put people down or offend anyone. He recognises that the faculty management was in a difficult situation last year, but hopes that management will handle it differently this year if there happen to be students who find some of the costume parties inappropriate.\r\n\r\n\u00bbThis could, for example, be done by involving the tutors in the dialogue with the offended students, or by discussing the themes with the faculty management in advance if this is deemed necessary.\u00ab\n<!-- end of module 4 -->\n","post_title":"Ten Little Indians And Then There Were None: How do you do intro camp without causing offence in 2019?","post_excerpt":"In 2018, tutors at the Faculty of Law at The University of Copenhagen were asked to drop a Mexico-themed intro party for new students after complaints of cultural insensitivity. This set off a national debate about identity politics and how to deal with offences. So what are this year's students supposed to do?","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"ten-little-indians-and-then-there-were-none-how-do-you-do-intro-camp-without-giving-offence-in-2019","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2025-03-03 10:47:26","post_modified_gmt":"2025-03-03 09:47:26","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en-indi-to-indi-nul-indianere-hvordan-holder-man-kraenkelsesfri-rustur-i-2019\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}},{"reference":{"ID":74629,"post_author":"68","post_date":"2018-09-11 12:48:41","post_date_gmt":"2018-09-11 10:48:41","post_content":"We know the drill. A student comes out to media with a damning critique of inappropriate activities they experienced at an intro week camp or party. The comments section explodes. By the second day, management at the relevant institute has written a column in the same media. They apologise and will introduce new rules for teaching staff and student event organisers.\r\n\r\nOnce again this year, the media have reported on intro week camps and parties characterized by embarrassment-inducing gags, strong peer pressure and sexism. However is it exclusively the students\u2019 fault when intro week activities go too far? Or do the staff who teach the students daily also bear responsibility?\r\n\r\nPh.d student My Madsen says the answer is easy. Her research at the Institute for Anthropology shows that intro week activities reflect a broader social culture within specific academic programs and faculties. Instead, she suggests that rectors, program heads and teaching staff do more than just try to distance themselves from the stories giving their institutions a bad rap.\r\n<h3>Where does the idea come from?<\/h3>\r\nMadsen has delved deeply into the issue. As part of her Ph.D research, she enrolled at DTU and started with the new students, joined their intro week parties and participated in classes. Six months into the project, she took up the studies as a vector (a tutor at DTU, ed.) and thus planned and carried out an intro week for the coming year\u2019s new students.\r\n<blockquote>Of course, it is the students who carry it out. And because they do it in a grotesque or distorted way, you see it more. But it doesn\u2019t just come out of thin air\r\n<p class=\"quotee\">My Madsen<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\nHer conclusion was clear: There is a clear connection between the culture of an academic program and the social culture at the university. Values expressed by teaching staff and management were reflected in the intro week activities.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere is a good connection between intro week and the ideals communicated by management and professors at DTU. This is a very large system, which places value on collecting information from the new students, and trying to include all the relatively different, new students.\u201d\r\n\r\nEven when it appears the students just carried out activities that are completely normal for intro week, they were styled in an \u201cengineering\u201d type of way. At DTU, this meant that winners were less prioritized, while collaboration and innovation were prized.\r\n<h3>Not a one-to-one<\/h3>\r\nDoes this mean that we can trace inappropriate and transgressive activities and conduct directly back to institute management? Was it actually the institute head, Lars Bo Kaspersen, who was responsible for<a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/rituals-for-new-students-involved-profanity-sexism-degradation\/\"> the whole media storm around pig heads at the political science intro party<\/a> back in 2014?\r\n\r\nIt feels like a stretch. Madsen stresses that it cannot be thought of as a direct causality. But that is not the same as saying that a study program\u2019s culture at an institute is completely innocent of blame.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou can\u2019t translate it as, if the students are asked to do an activity like gag on a banana during into week, that it means one-to-one that the study program is just made up of macho idiots. But there is something at play that leads those students to think such an activity is fun.\u201d\n<!-- end of module 1 -->\nHumour in a study program can be expressed in a grotesque or exaggerated way during intro week. However Madsen insists that this is still connected to a broader culture within the program.\r\n\r\n\u201cOf course, it is the students who carry it out. And because they do it in a grotesque or distorted way, you see it more. But it doesn\u2019t just come out of thin air.\u201d\r\n<h3>Eating yeast and nutella fists<\/h3>\r\nThere are many wild tales of intro weeks, and political science rarely escapes without a mention. There was the pig\u2019s head, the nutella fists or sexually explicit stories as an initiation ritual which unleashed a media storm back in 2014.\r\n<blockquote>You can participate in team building exercises and break out of your comfort zone without having to lick curry sauce off one another\r\n<p class=\"quotee\">Student Amalie Himmelstrup to Danish media Ekstra Bladet<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\nBut the future politicians and bureaucrats are not the only ones to carry out inappropriate intro week activities. In August, UCPH food and nutrition student Amalie Himmelstrup, criticized her intro week in Danish newspaper Politiken. During her intro week, she was asked to suck whisky out of unwashed socks, eat yeast and lick herring in curry sauce off the other students. \u201cWhy?\u201d she asked.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou can participate in team building exercises and break out of your comfort zone without having to lick curry sauce off one another,\u201d said Himmelstrup to Danish media <a href=\"https:\/\/ekstrabladet.dk\/nyheder\/samfund\/amalie-revser-studie-ritual-behoever-ikke-slikke-karrysild-af-hinanden\/7261707\">Ekstra-Bladet<\/a>.\r\n\r\nThis was the same year that political science attracted a media frenzy. UCPH had just introduced the[secrettext face=\" 5 o\u2019clock rule\" text=\"Which stipulates that\u00a0no one is allowed to drink alcohol before 5 PM\"], but both that and other rules were not upheld, according to Himmelstrup.\r\n<h3>Look inwards<\/h3>\r\nFrom Madsen\u2019s perspective, this reaction from management was symptomatic. But there needs to be more than rules to change the culture at an educational institution. According to the Ph.d student, it\u2019s about turning the gaze inwards.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe program\u2019s management often takes responsibility by attributing the blame to the students. I have not been able to find examples where professors or management have said \u201cthis gives food for thought about how we manage our study program.\u201d I think that is interesting, because my research shows that there is a connection between how the study program has been delivered and how intro week activities are carried out.\u201d\n<!-- end of module 2 -->\nMadsen\u2019s research presents intro week as a system which integrates the students into a new social sphere. The new students are perhaps particularly susceptible to influence from older students and professors. But the idea that the academic field and the social culture are connected is not new.\r\n\r\n\u201cI am not the one to discover that there is a connection between academic culture \u00a0and how you behave socially within a study program. This is something which has been established by previous research.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe problem is, intro week is often seen as something beyond academics. Instead, Madsen proposes two strategies to address intro week problems. First, she points out that it is important to support the students by giving them resources to investigate how intro week is experienced by new students, and where there is room for potential change.\r\n\r\nSecond, management and academics should be aware of how the students\u2019 conduct can reflect an internal social culture within an educational institution.\n<!-- end of module 3 -->\n","post_title":"Intro week: who bears responsibility for the pig heads and herring gags?","post_excerpt":"Is it only individual tutors who should foot the bill when an intro week party goes overboard? Or does the problem run deeper? New research shows that there is a link between introduction week activities and the culture within a specific academic field.","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"intro-week-who-bears-responsibility-for-the-pig-heads-and-herring-gags","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2018-09-19 14:05:27","post_modified_gmt":"2018-09-19 12:05:27","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/hvem-har-ansvaret-for-grisehovederne-og-karrysilden\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}},{"reference":{"ID":91945,"post_author":"71","post_date":"2019-09-02 11:00:32","post_date_gmt":"2019-09-02 09:00:32","post_content":"<span class=\"dropcap\">T<\/span>he debate about offensive behaviour \u2013 and perhaps, to a greater extent, the debate about whether your freedom of speech has been violated when someone gets offended by something you did \u2013 flared up in earnest at the University of Copenhagen in the summer of 2018. The tutors at the Faculty of Law got a \u00bbrecommendation to reconsider\u00ab their costume parties on their introduction camps for new students, which had themes like 'Mexicans' and 'The ghetto'.\r\n\r\nThe debate spread quickly, and media throughout the country wrote how it would no longer be possible to tell an obscene joke in Copenhagen's old halls of higher learning. However, in order to understand how the debate went down at the University of Copenhagen, and to understand why a recommendation to reconsider a theme for a costume party suddenly went off the rails, we have to go back a few years.\r\n\r\n<em><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/ten-little-indians-and-then-there-were-none-how-do-you-do-intro-camp-without-giving-offence-in-2019\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ten Little Indians And Then There Were None: How do you do intro camp without causing offence in 2019?<\/a><\/em>\n<!-- end of module 1 -->\nThe theme party was not the first time we talked about where the limits are for fun intro weeks at the University of Copenhagen. As early as 2014, the University of Copenhagen and, in particular, the Department of Political Science, got bad press when the University Post wrote about <strong>sexism, drinking and stark initiation rituals<\/strong> on the intro camps. (It included something about closing your eyes and burying your fingers in a fist of Nutella, and caressing the mouth of a cut-off sheep\u2019s head, because it felt like labia.) But the Danish word for offence, \u2018kr\u00e6nkelse\u2019 had not yet become a buzzword. At the time, we talked more about a culture of sexism and drinking.\n<!-- end of module 2 -->\nBoth in 2015 and 2017, at various places at the University of Copenhagen, it was possible to participate in a so-called 'Bar Mitzvah' which played on <strong>stereotypes about Jews<\/strong> being stingy. In 2015, it was the Department of Anthropology that encouraged students to bring along their 'Jew gold' to the bar, and in 2017 it was the medicine students that advertised that they \u00bbswap and trade Kahlua at very favourable prices in the best Jewish style.\u00ab The bars were criticized by Associate Professor of Anthropology Karen Lisa Salamon. But even though the Dean of the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, Ulla Wewer, said that a limit had been transgressed in the bar descriptions, it did not lead to a major discussion.\r\n\r\nIt was also in September 2017 that students at the Department of Economics organised a <strong>'Men's Friday bar'<\/strong>, where men could be Rambo-macho and sling a girl (who was willing) over their shoulders. It was just meant as satire, the organisers said in their defence, but the party was not fun, but excluded people, said the critics.\r\n\r\nAnd then something happened off campus and outside Denmark's borders. In the autumn of 2017 <strong>the global #metoo wave surged like a virtual tsunami<\/strong>. All over the world, women talked about their sexual abuse experiences. The many testimonies changed fundamentally the way we talked about giving offence in the public debate.\n<!-- end of module 3 -->\nBack at university, there was also backwash from the #metoo wave. In February 2018, the Magisterbladet magazine looked into whether <strong>students had been subjected to sexism on their studies and on the student jobs<\/strong>. 11 per cent of female students reported unwanted touching, hugging, or kisses on the student job, 8 per cent on their study programmes in the course of the last year.\r\n\r\nOn 13 February 2018, a group claiming to be 48 anonymous female students from five universities, including the University of Copenhagen, submitted an open letter to their rectors through the newspaper Information. They appealed for a strong response to offensive behaviour from fellow students and staff.\r\n\r\nOn 20 February 2018, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Employment submitted an official letter to managers, companies and public institutions in Denmark, where they called for sexual harassment in the workplace to be put on the agenda. It was all about civility and respect for others\u2019 boundaries.\r\n\r\nS\u00f8ren Pind, former Minister for Higher Education and Science, also joined in. On 11 April 2018 he sent a letter to the Danish universities and encouraged them to draw up \u00bbclear, well-informed and up-to-date guidelines for the handling of unacceptable behaviour\u00ab.\r\n\r\nAnd sexual harassment and civility came on the agenda at the University of Copenhagen, and people got ... upset. On 25 June 2018, <strong>the university published its new policy on offensive behaviour<\/strong>, which included that \u00bbit is the employee's or the student's experience of having been subjected to offensive behaviour that is the starting point.\u00ab This exact sentence, and a 'zero tolerance' formulation set off a debate.\r\n\r\nWhen the University Post on 13 September 2018 published an article about the new guidelines, with an angle that it was no longer possible to tell obscene jokes on campus, things went fast.\r\n\r\nOn 16 September Jacob Mchangama, director of the think tank Justitia, published an e-mail from the University of Copenhagen on his Facebook profile. The email was addressed to the tutors at the Faculty of Law and was about the themes for the parties in the intro week. Prior to this, management at the Faculty of Law had received three enquiries <strong>from students who experienced the theme parties as offensive<\/strong>, and they encouraged the tutors to reconsider them.\r\n\r\nThree days later on 19 September, the University Post wrote that the Faculty of Law were not allowed to hold their theme parties at the university. A tutor, Jakob Krabbe S\u00f8rensen, said on behalf of all the law tutors, that this was \u00bbexercising prior censorship\u00ab. It was clear that the university's recommendation was a requirement.\r\n\r\nThe day after, on 20 September, the University Post followed up the case with a question from an anonymous employee at the University of Copenhagen, who was in doubt as to whether he would still be able to use the term \u2018academic erection\u2019 and be in accordance with the new guidelines. Both the trade unions Dj\u00f8f and the Danish Association of Masters and PhDs (DM) called for calm: Take it easy, both sides in a case have to be heard.\r\n\r\n<em><strong>READ MORE<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/beatings-bombs-and-sex-with-a-pigs-head-the-universitys-crazy-initiation-rituals-through-time\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Beatings, bombs and sex with a pig's head: The university's crazy initiation rituals through time<\/a><\/em>\r\n\r\nA few months later, the debate flared up again. 14 December 2018 weekly newspaper Weekendavisen wrote that an associate professor at the Faculty of Humanities had been called in for a disciplinary conversation, which he had no idea what was about, and that he was being scrutinised. A group of anonymous students had complained to the dean arguing that <strong>the associate professor's teaching was sexist, racist and eurocentric<\/strong>. The inquiry did not find that the associate professor had been racist or sexist, but \u2013 and there is a but \u2013 there had been a lack of sensitivity and understanding on his part for sensitive topics. The associate professor was not allowed to teach for the rest of the semester, and he was not allowed to supervise theses in the following semester. The debate was now about the extent to which the university's guidelines had reduced academic freedom at the university.\r\n\r\n20 December at an internal debate meeting, it was commonly agreed that <strong>the guidelines for dealing with offensive behaviour should be changed. <\/strong>\n<!-- end of module 4 -->\nAfter Christmas, 23 January 2019, the University\u2019s General Collaboration Committee HSU decided that the guidelines for handling offensive behaviour should be changed.\r\n\r\n13 June 2019, the University of Copenhagen sent a revised set of guidelines for consultation with employees. The controversial formulation on the employee's or student's subjective sense of being offended being central, was taken out. It now states that <strong>management at the university can assess that something is not offensive<\/strong>, even if a student or employee thinks otherwise. The university now refers to the Danish Working Environment Authority's general guidance on offensive behaviour. (Where it is still the subjective experience, which is central).\r\n\r\nThis is probably still enough for the debate to continue.\n<!-- end of module 5 -->\n","post_title":"How the University of Copenhagen became a centre of the offensive behaviour debate","post_excerpt":"Stories of sexism, drinking and crazy initiation rituals, a global #metoo movement and a set of guidelines on how to deal with offensive behaviour made the University of Copenhagen the centre of a stormy debate last year.","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"how-the-university-of-copenhagen-became-a-centre-of-the-offensive-behaviour-debate","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2019-09-02 11:57:40","post_modified_gmt":"2019-09-02 09:57:40","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/overblik-saadan-endte-koebenhavns-universitet-midt-i-kraenkelsesdebatten\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}}],"category":false,"theme":false,"number_of_posts":"4","style":"default"}]},"taxonomyData":{"category":[{"term_id":2177,"name":"Academic life","slug":"academic-life","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":2177,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":67,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":3792,"name":"Student life","slug":"student-life","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3792,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":160,"filter":"raw"}],"post_tag":[{"term_id":4824,"name":"dajegsagdefra","slug":"dajegsagdefra-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":4824,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":4825,"name":"gr\u00e6nseoverskridende adf\u00e6rd","slug":"graenseoverskridende-adfaerd-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":4825,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":4828,"name":"Intro week","slug":"intro-week","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":4828,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":1485,"name":"introforl\u00f8b","slug":"introforloeb-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1485,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":1307,"name":"Rustur","slug":"rustur-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1307,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":5,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":4826,"name":"Sissel-Jo Gazan","slug":"sissel-jo-gazan-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":4826,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":4827,"name":"studiestart 2021","slug":"studiestart-2021-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":4827,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":8,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":6414,"name":"studiestart 2023","slug":"studiestart-2023-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":6414,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":7,"filter":"raw"}],"post_format":[],"expression":[{"term_id":14,"name":"Portrait Article","slug":"portrait_article","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":14,"taxonomy":"expression","description":"","parent":0,"count":796,"filter":"raw"}],"translation_priority":[{"term_id":5468,"name":"Optional","slug":"optional-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5468,"taxonomy":"translation_priority","description":"","parent":0,"count":672,"filter":"raw"}]},"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/2016071418022121920x1281we-1280x854.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122255"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122401,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122255\/revisions\/122401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}