New video emerges as St Kevin’s misogynistic chant performed days after suspensions
A huge backlash has seen St Kevin’s College students spat on and abused in public, with staff left in tears in the fallout surrounding the school’s misogynistic chant furore. It comes as new vision of the other pupils performing the song emerged today.
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St Kevin’s College students are facing an unprecedented backlash, with boys being spat on in public, filmed by strangers and having drinks poured on them.
Staff were also being subject to abuse after the misogynistic chant furore, with some in tears at the Toorak Catholic boys’ school in recent days.
The school has been in the spotlight, with a new video today surfacing after the tram video came to light earlier this week.
The footage is believed to be of year 12 St Kevin’s College students chanting a misogynist song at a pub crawl on Monday.
It is the same song the Toorak school’s students were filmed chanting on a tram last Saturday, which prompted an apology from the headmaster and multiple suspensions.
There was previously no public evidence that year 12 students, who are about to start final exams, sung the song.
Lyrics from the infamous chant include the lines:
I wish that all the ladies
Were holes in the road
And if I were a dump truck
I’d fill them with my load
The blurry vision shows school-aged boys in bright casual clothes being led in the chant by one boy. Cars can be seen going past, suggesting it is being sung in a public place.
The lines are part of a longer song which has 17 verses detailing explicit and degrading sexual acts men want to perform on women.
The pub crawl is not an event sanctioned officially by the school, which receives $13 million in public funding a year.
In his weekly newsletter to parents, headmaster Stephen Russell referenced that there could be more videos of the chant circulating publicly.
He acknowledged that “some recent graduates foolishly and recklessly thought it would be amusing, when they were celebrating, to use this horrible chant”.
“Use of the misogynistic language such as in the chant on Saturday, is more widespread than we understood and this knowledge has intensified our determination to resolutely reshape our programs and to look to do so much more in this area”.
The new video was posted by a year 12 Catholic girls’ school student during a heated exchange on the Facebook page of a 2018 St Kevin’s graduate.
SEXIST CHANT A STARK WARNING TO US ALL
The schoolboy and other students were defending the school against attacks from their mostly female friends. Many of the boys also acknowledged the chanting was sexist and wrong.
The girl, whom the Herald Sun, has chosen not to name, wrote that only a few days after the tram incident “did you say the exact same f---ing words on your year 12 celebration night.
“You want to play victim by saying that not all boys are like that, that St Kevin’s educates the whole boy!”
She went on to write: “U didn’t have to make it this easy to prove my point by filming it and posting it on your story guys, so Thank you! One time, a bad choice maybe. Twice? Maybe try changing your school song.”
The video has since been removed from Facebook and all discussion of its contents has disappeared.
STUDENTS SUSPENDED AFTER BACKLASH
Headmaster Stephen Russell branded the tram chanting, which was captured on camera, as “offensive and misogynistic” and he has suspended at least three students, with more expected to come.
A source inside the school said the negative reaction against the school’s students was “uncharted territory” and was “radical and violent”.
This week, Mr Russell apologised to staff and initiated a broad review of all relationship and respect programs.
Discussion on the St Kevin’s graduate’s Facebook page showed the pressure the students are under, with many fighting against assertions that private boys’ schools are havens of misogynistic and sexist attitudes.
The former student said he agreed the “chant must be both condemned and stopped”.
“I have every confidence that many of the students who participated in the chant this past weekend, or in previous years, can now recognise this,” he wrote.
However, there are signs of recrimination against critics of the school.
The same Facebook discussion shows a photo of Luka Kiernan, a former St Kevin’s student who spoke to media about the sexist culture in the school, has been defaced online, with the words “traitor” and “snitch” written on it.
Mr Kiernan still tutors current students and said the defacing of his portrait — which Year 12 students walk past on the way to the main study centre every day — is “an admission of guilt”.
“I’ve received quite a lot of harassment,” he told news.com.au today.
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“When somebody breaks from the ruling class discipline like I’ve done, when somebody cuts against the grain, they are absolutely victimised because you’re not allowed to leave the ‘boys’ club’ and you’re certainly not allowed to criticise it publicly.”
News.com.au approached St Kevin’s College to find out whether the defaced portrait was still hanging, but a school spokeswoman said: “We won’t be commenting on student matters.”
When asked if it was a student matter if the picture was hanging inside school grounds, the spokeswoman said: “We won’t be commenting on whether it’s there or not.”