TRINITY COLLEGE STUDENTS’ union has apologised and said it wants to “learn from its mistakes” after a bizarre campaign to raise awareness of sexual violence met with a backlash from students. 

The campaign last week saw some members of the students’ union hang Guy Fawkes-type effigies labelled ‘rapist’ around campus. Students were invited to beat the effigies, student newspaper Trinity News has reported.

One photograph The Journal has seen showed a young woman beating one of the effigies with a metal pole.

One effigy was displayed upside down alongside anonymous comments submitted by students on what they think about rapists and what should be done to them. 

Some of the displayed notes read: “Remove their reproductive organs,” “I want to kill them”, and “Rapists deserve public castration and death sentences”.

A students’ union official subsequently described this display as an “oversight”, given students who wrote the comments were not aware their words would be used in this way.

Trinity College told The Journal this week that its leadership has contacted the students’ union to address last week’s actions.

“Trinity is committed to promoting a positive environment for students, staff and other community members, where everyone is treated with dignity and respect, where their place of study and work is free from bullying, harassment, or sexual misconduct,” the college said.

“Trinity supports survivors of sexual violence and does not condone violence of any kind, including sexual violence.”

‘Performative activism’

Many students told Trinity News they did not support the campaign or its apparent promotion of violent retribution.

Criticism was particularly levelled at the campaign’s lack of focus on the causes of sexual violence and on what some students described as the students’ union’s failure to signpost supports for victims.

First-year student Lola Martin Higueras described the stunt as”embarrassing” and as “performative activism” which revealed a “shallow understanding of the issue”.

Fourth-year Emily McDermott said: “I felt that it focused more on shock value and creating a viral [or] ‘Instagrammable’ moment, instead of focusing on constructive action against sexual violence and the attitudes that lead to it.”

In a statement last weekend, the students’ union said it was “so deeply sorry for the distress and harm” it had caused.

The students’ union said the campaign’s use of graphic imagery, effigies, and confrontational language “was inappropriate and deeply hurtful, especially to survivors of sexual violence”.

On Wednesday night, the union convened a public meeting to discuss the matter. The meeting was attended by over 80 students.

The following day, an emergency meeting of the students’ union council – its decision-making body – voted to censure some student union officials who were involved in the campaign. 

The original rationale for the effigies campaign was to call for additional measures to prioritise the wellbeing of alleged victims, among other things. 

With additional reporting by Valerie Flynn.