Freshers ‘Slave auction’ is cancelled after outcry

LOUGHBOROUGH University Student’s Union has defended a ‘slave auction’ Freshers event proposed by a university student halls.

The Students’ Union said that “as inappropriate as it was, it was genuinely not the intention of the student organisers to cause offence.”

The event was a charity fund-raising activity where students would bid for fellow students to carry out chores including cooking a meal and room cleaning, according to the Students’ Union.

The student organised event was set to take place on Monday, October 2.

The Students’ Union told the Echo: “This type of event is not appropriate and has no place at the university. We are working the the university to investigate. As part of this we are in the process of proactively contacting key student groups and representatives to seek their input and explore why this event was proposed and what we need to do better in the future so that this does not happen again.

“The proposed event was a charity fundraising activity. As inapproriate as it was it was genuinely not the intention of the student organisers to cause offence.

“As soon as it was brought to the attention of the university the proposed event was cancelled.”

The event was organised by the Faraday Hall Freshers 2017 Facebook page, which is the name of a student halls of residence on campus.

The page posted a status apologising for the name of the event.

It said: “Faraday Hall would like to offer our sincere apologies after we inappropriately named our freshers event.

“‘Slave night’ is an unacceptable and racist title. As a committee we are deeply saddened to realise that we have caused offence and regret that entirely.

“We take full responsibility for our action and have removed the original timetable.

“We are truly sorry for our actions and are seeking further education and training surrounding this issue.

Richard Taylor, Loughborough University’s chief operating officer, said: “This type of event is not appropriate and has no place at the University.

“Working with the Students’ Union, the university will sit down with students on their return and explore why this event was proposed and what we need to do better in the future so that this does not happen again.”

The Loughborough Ethnic Minorities group run by town students, spoke to the Echo and said: “Ethnic Minorities Network would like to assure you that we do not condone this event whatsoever. We are doing everything we can to make sure all ethnic minorities students are adequately represented at this university

“We are working with Loughborough University and other societies to get this situation rectified and to make sure issues like this do not occur again.”