Sexist frosh chant At St. Mary’s University Met With Backlash

St. Mary’s University Frosh Chastised for Offensive Sex Chant

80 SMU frosh students stirred outrage when a video surfaced showing students chanting a sexually explicit chant about underage non-consensual sex. The students, led by a group of SMU orientation leaders, performed the chant to 400 assembled students during orientation on Monday. Video of the chant had viewers quickly responding with outrage.

The video shows a group of students chanting and clapping to the lines: “Y is for your sister, U is for underage, N is for no consent, Saint Mary’s boys we like them young.” .

The Globe and Mail reports that Nova Scotia’s premier “condemns Saint Mary’s frosh chant as ‘disturbing’.”In a statement to the press St. Mary’s University president Colin Dodds said, “My colleagues and I were shocked by this incident and are deeply sorry that our students, and now the community at large were exposed to disturbing sexually charged material.”

Frosh co-chair Jacqueline Chen said the chants have been repeated privately in past years.

“We had problems a very long time ago with the cheers being public in a sort of way and the dean seeing,” said Chen, in an interview with The Ubyssey

The short video is also garnering a backlash of disgust and anger from students.

“It’s derogatory, really. Underage. No consent. It’s saying that’s OK. It’s definitely not. It’s a bad message. It’s saying we like the frosh girls, we like them young. It’s not good, it’s not cool,” said Shannon Neville.

“I have a little sister, too. It’s definitely inappropriate,” said Luke Simms.

“Kind of heart-wrenching. Because I don’t think that girls especially should be subject to this,” said Melanie Duffy. “It’s promoting violence and a negative image of girls.”

Jared Perry, president of the SMU Students’ Association told a news conference, “We’ve realized we made a huge mistake.” Perry also stated that an investigation would be made into the incident. Perry said the chant lyrics had been passed down since 2009 but could not explain why concerns had not been raised about its content before.
Steve Proctor, a spokesman for SMU, says 80 students and three members of the student union have been instructed to take sensitivity training due to the incident.

Students Nova Scotia, a province-wide alliance of student associations, condemned the “sexist and misogynistic chant” Thursday.

“There is not, and has never been, any place for this sort of culture on our university campuses,” StudentsNS executive director Jonathan Williams said in a release.