Exclusive: Victorian schools named on rape culture website

Exclusive private schools are among nearly 40 listed by students who say they were the victims of rapes, assault or harassment. SEE THE FULL LIST

Female past students from nearly 40 Victorian private colleges and state high schools have left distressing accounts of their rapes, assaults and harassment on a public petition.

Former students from some of Melbourne’s most exclusive campuses, such as St Kevin’s College, Carey Baptist Grammar, Marcellin College and Haileybury, are mentioned as perpetrators of a range of attacks on girls in their teens.

Many women say they were raped while they were passed out when intoxicated.

The petition calling for more comprehensive lessons about sexual consent to be taught in schools was started by Sydney woman Chantal Contos.

It has now attracted more than 4000 testimonies from across Australia.

No alleged perpetrators are named, and the accounts are all anonymous.

St Kevin’s College. Picture: Erik Anderson/AAP.

A former student from Fintona Girls’ School in 2012 said the petition was “vital”.

“I have been sexually assaulted, coerced into sex when too drunk and not listened to when I said no. It even took me years to realise it was sexual assault, we never learnt about consent or rape like this,” she wrote.

A student who finished at Haileybury in 2016 said she had been raped at a high school party. “Slut shamed. Name called. Peer pressured. Sexually assaulted. You name it, it’s happened, and IS happening still at this school. Nothing is done about it. It’s disgusting and this must change!!”

Single-sex schools have come under the microscope, with one girl from Melbourne Girls’ Grammar in 2012 writing: “Every sexual assault I’ve experienced was at the hands of a single sex schoolboy”.

One former student from Xavier College who finished in 2018 wrote: “There was always stories of boys and girls ‘getting it on’ at parties. However, a lot of them came from boys forcing themselves onto girls, making them kiss them or perform oral sex on them. But we were never taught anything about consent in school,” he said.

A St Catherine's School student shared her account.

Anonymous accounts include a St Catherine’s Schoolgirl who said a Marcellin College boy made her lie on top of her and forced his penis into her so forcibly she bled before being forced to have oral sex with him.

A woman who finished at Carey Grammar in 2012 said she was 16 and had been smoking a joint and then woke up to find a boy from her school “touching and fingering” her. She was crying and asked him to stop but he wouldn’t.

A girl from Firbank Girls’ Grammar and said the friends of a boy from St Kevin’s College took photos of him digitally penetrating her while she was unconscious. She was in year nine at the time.

“There is something wrong with the system if you aren’t embarrassed to be publically (sic) shown sexually assaulting someone,” she wrote.

Another girl from a Catholic girls’ school said she was raped until she passed out in a disabled toilet by a St Kevin’s student from the class of 2018.

A Firbank Grammar student alleges she was assaulted.

At least a dozen female former high school students left damning accounts of their sexual assaults, often at the hands of their male classmates.

A Dromana Secondary College student who finished in 2008 said she was “sexually assaulted at a party by a male acquaintance in my same year level” but at the time she “did not understand what was happening”.

One girl from Kyneton Secondary College who finished in 2014 said she was given a date rape drug and woke up to find ten or more boys from her school standing around her.

Another former student from Princes Hill Secondary College who finished in 2017 was pressured to give oral sex to classmates on a school camp, was groped at lunch times and had nude photos of her circulated.

And a student from Mooroolbark College in 2011 said she was raped by a school friend when he was drunk “after I told him no”.

Deborah Barker, principal of St Kevin’s College, wrote to parents, telling them “the bravery of the young women who have spoken about such deplorable behaviour and shared with

great trust their personal experiences cannot be ignored, or merely given lip service”.

A former Mooroolbark College student shared her experience.

She said there needed to be clearer messages “about what it means to be men of good character emerging as responsible global citizens who are respectful of women”.

Fintona principal Rachel Falloon said her school had been “looking at how we can further add student voice and engage our parents in this important conversation”.

Adrian Farrer, principal of Trinity Grammar, said he agreed with the premise of the petition and that his school was striving “to provide strong orientation to matters of consent”. A male student referred to as a “Trinity boy” was accused by a girl from MLC of sexually assaulting her while she slept.

Jonathan Walter, Carey Grammar principal, said he was “cognisant that we need to do more in order to respond to entrenched unhealthy societal norms that allow unacceptable behaviour relating to consent to continue across Australia”.

“Carey does not have any knowledge of the claim in the testimony, but would be very keen to support any student, current or past, that may have been impacted in this way,” he said.

Xavier principal Bill Doherty commended the women for speaking out and said it was critical for such conversations to be ongoing.

Representatives from Marcellin College and Haileybury have been given a chance to respond, as has the Department of Education representing state schools.

A female from Melbourne Girls’ Grammar offered a way forward: “We need men to openly and bravely call out past mistakes and lifelong regrets of their own actions so the young can learn,” she said.