Swinburne University in Victoria has faced controversy after the University’s Liberal Club vice president posted comments on Facebook that have been labelled homophobic and sexist.
Fairfax Media was leaked a series of screenshots of Facebook posts made by the Club’s now former vice president, Tim Dark in October 2013.
According to Dark’s LinkedIn Profile, he is also vice president of the Liberal party’s Keysborough branch.
In one Facebook post, he wrote: “”Lesbians are misandrists and the homosexual like yourself could be considered misogynistic. If you are into stereotyping.” In another, he questions whether “butchy lesbians” are considered women.
He also described homosexuality as a “lifestyle choice”, used the slur “faggot”, and urged women to shave their armpits saying that the sight of womens’ armpit hair nearly made him “puke”.
“I hate women with hairy armpits as do the majority of males. I have no problems with lesbians per say just there [sic] lifestyle choice” he wrote.
He also said he was against gay marriage, defending his stance with the following remark:
“I like the current social fabric of Australia and see no logical reason as to why this should be ruined.”
He denied being a fascist, saying “”if that was true then I would want all homosexuals dead”, adding, “Not that they serve any real purpose anyway,”
Dark yesterday made a statement regarding the comments:
“I sincerely apologise for any offence that I may have caused. Any comments were off the cuff remarks which were not to be taken seriously.” he said.
A spokesperson from Swinburne University Liberal Club described the comment as “unacceptable behaviour”, and said that Dark had resigned from his position in the Club.
”These comments do not represent the views of the Swinburne University Liberal Club.” they said.
Swinburne University International and Future Students Vice President Jeffrey Smart wrote a reflection on the issue.
“I know from personal experience that Swinburne has a deep and abiding commitment to working with the LGBTI population to ensure that we are supporting our people and saying no, emphatically no, to the prejudice, hate, discrimination and abuse of queer people that belongs to another century.
“Recently we have seen language and discussion in the broader community, and on-campus, that degrades, intimidates and insults LGBTI people.
“While community attitudes to LGBTI people are improving (and in my lifetime, dramatically), we must recognise that the world is far from perfect. Intolerance, homophobia, transphobia and misogyny are alive, pervasive and present across age groups, political affiliations, genders and faith. No one group is the standard bearer for homophobia and transphobia, sadly.”
Smart also spoke to OUTinPerth about how the university plans to proceed in ensuring the campus remains a safe and supportive learning environment for all students.
“We had some social media posts yesterday or late on Sunday night. The queer students wrote to me about it, pretty upset, and actually it kind of galvanized me to write something that we’d been thinking in the University leadership for some time to put a stake in the ground about our commitment to the LGBTI community, and to say we want to have an ally network. We absolutely do not support the sort of hate speech and discrimination and that sort of stuff.”
Smart said he was unfortunately not surprised that views such as those expressed by Mr. Sark were still being expressed today.
“Unfortunately those kind of troglodyte views do not belong to one particular political group or faith group or any demographic. There’s that kind of discrimination and abuse and just wrong thinking can be held with people from right across society but on the other hand, and much more encouragingly, people from across the political spectrum, whether they’re conservative or progressive, whether they’re young or old, living in the city or the country, no matter what faith or creed or ethnic or nationality background that they come from, there’s lots of people who’ve got a really clear view of the contribution that queer people make to society and are very supportive of it.”
Smart said that although it can be difficult for organisations to intervene in online spaces, Swinburne University was working to make such resources safe spaces for all students.
“We have a really great set of protocols around what is allowed and what isn’t allowed, what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable and if we see a social media post we see someone going around campus and putting discriminatory stickers over posters about queer events then we’ve got a policy around taking them down. I’m hoping to surface a conversation around what we think as a university is acceptable and unacceptable.”
Sophie Joske
