Check out our Black History Month content throughout the paper
Find our review of The Coral at The Leadmill in Music
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THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD’S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER
Read our interview with Bryony Page in Sport
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ISSUE 125 | WEDNESDAY 17TH OCTOBER 2018 | FREE
Students’ Union vows zero tolerance approach to offensive messages on white t-shirt bar crawl Ewan Somerville
Sheffield Students’ Union has vowed to take a zero-tolerance approach on its upcoming white t-shirt social as Forge Press exclusively reveals paedophilic and homophobic messages on t-shirts at a recent ‘North vs. Midlands vs. South’ bar crawl, organised by EatMyDisco. President Lillian Jones promised
to take “offensive or inappropriate messaging very seriously”, including refused entry, at the Dance Your Socs Off (DYSO) white t-shirt bar crawl for University of Sheffield societies on 18 October. It comes as Forge Press can reveal that one t-shirt brandished the message ‘Mr I f**k kids’ at the ‘North vs. Midlands vs. South’ social on September 27, while others suggested a culture of homophobia
and sexualisation at the student event. Organisers EatMyDisco, part of CODE Sheffield, were criticised in the national press last year after pictures emerged from Tiger Works Bar showing an official event t-shirt scrawled by students with the words ‘consent is a myth’ and ‘r**e is not a crime’. But this year, t-shirts at the event’s stop in Tiger Works bar, on
West Street, included the messages ‘predator’, ‘tonight’s a buffet of p***y’ and ‘pls s**g me’. It is unclear whether the individual photographed, and the others witnessed, are students at either the University of Sheffield or Sheffield Hallam university. Our reporter witnessed one man scrawl the word ‘gay’ over the non-offensive official t-shirt of a stranger, along with many other
homophobic references. Dance Your Socks Off, now in its third year, sees organisers Societies Committee invite all societies across the University to sign up, before a big night involving eight bars along West Street and finishing at SU club the Foundry. Built with an ethos to “involv[e] all students in the union [and] allow them to get together and have a good time,”... (cont. on p6)
Otis Mensah appointed as city’s first poet laureate Ewan Somerville
Image: Will Roberts, Vox Multimedia
A hip hop artist who has performed at Glastonbury has been appointed as Sheffield’s first poet laureate, hailed as representing the Steel City’s values and diversity. Otis Mensah was presented with the honorary position by the city’s Lord Mayor Magid Magid at an Off the Shelf Festival event on 6 October. Born and bred in Sheffield, Mensah has gone from strength to strength across the country and globally ... (cont. on p4)