Tunes Against Tuition on the Campus Commons Pg. 4
The Omega Thompson Rivers University’s Independent Student Newspaper
News Pages 1, 2
Editorial & Opinion Page 3
Volume 23, Issue 2 September 11, 2013
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Life & Community
Arts & Entertainment
Sports
Pages 6, 8
Pages 5, 7
Page 11
TRUSU campaign against sweatshop clothing prompts immediate response Karla Karcioglu Ω Roving Editor
Saint Mary’s University Student Association President Jared Perry announced on Friday, Sept. 6 that he would be stepping down as president of SMUSA. (Michael Langlais/ The Journal)
Rape chants finally being addressed at two post-secondary schools Mike Davies Ω Editor-in-Chief Who gets groups of people together to chant enthusiastically about raping underage girls? The Student’s Union at St. Mary’s University (SMU) in Halifax and the leaders chosen by the Commerce Undergrad Society (CUS) at the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) school of business, that’s who. The chant, the fallout from one version of which has reverberated nation-wide, has been taught to students for years, according to statements made by SMU Student Association (SMUSA) president Jared Perry to the SMU Journal shortly after the controversial video was posted to Instagram during frosh week. “Y is for your sister, O is for oh so tight, U is for underage, N is for no consent, G is for grab that ass, – Saint Mary’s boys, we like ‘em young!” was the chant at SMU Sept. 2, lead by more than 80 Orientation Week leaders and yelled by more than 350 students. After seeing the uproar over the video, Perry stepped down from his role as chair of the board of directors of StudentsNS, an alliance of various Nova Scotia
student associations, though not as president of SMUSA, saying he wanted to remain in his position to help build awareness and “target sexism that he feels is pervasive on campus,” according to the SMU Journal. He later resigned from his position with SMUSA as well, as has Carrigan Desjardins, who held the position of SMUSA vice president student life and was in charge of Orientation Week.
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slightly different from the SMU chant, but very similar in both wording and message. According the Ubyssey article, the chants themselves are not the issue of concern to the CUS, but instead the location and publication of the activity. “While the CUS had been chastised in the past for the cheers, Chen said the undergraduate society now works to make sure the chant stays private,” according to
At the Back-to-School BBQ hosted by TRUSU on Sept. 6, the union launched a new campaign called “Sweatshop Free Campus.” The campaign focuses on recent issues with overseas garment factories, brought to light by recent tragedies such as the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh, according to TRUSU president Dylan Robinson. After investigating the various clothing products available to students on campus, TRUSU found that many of the products come from companies that may contract with factories that have poor human rights and labour records, Robinson said. The goal of the campaign is to get TRU to agree to sign on with an organization called Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), which monitors factory conditions and workers’ rights. At the barbecue, TRUSU called on students to add their names in support of the TRU Board of Governors joining the WRC.
Late Friday afternoon, The Omega spoke with TRU’s bookstore manager Glenn Read to discuss TRUSU’s latest campaign. The bookstore carries merchandise from companies TRUSU named in their campaign f lyer. Read had no knowledge of the campaign and called it an attack. He said he felt TRUSU didn’t need to go this route, and that if they had approached the bookstore first, they would have been willing to discuss it. “I don’t think anyone really wants to work with sweatshops,” Read said. “Sometimes you just don’t know. “Sometimes it goes through many different companies before it reaches the sweatshop.” By the end of the day, The Omega learned that TRUSU and Read had resolved their differences, and that they would now be working together to find alternative clothing suppliers while keeping prices similar to what they are now. “It is workable,” Read said. “I just wish I had been more in the loop. “We will be exploring further to see what we can do in the future.”
Y is for your sister, O is for oh so tight, U is for underage....” —St. Mary’s University chant
Shortly after the SMU chant story broke, The Ubyssey published a story online about a similar situation at the Sauder School of Business at UBC. The UBC chant is reportedly, “Y-O-U-N-G at UBC, we like ‘em young, Y is for your sister, O is for oh so tight, U is for underage, N is for no consent, G is for go to jail,”
The Ubyssey. The Chen being quoted in the story is Jacqueline Chen, co-chair of Sauder FROSH, the three-day orientation organized by the CUS.
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Check your tags if you’re worried about whether your clothing comes from companies suspected of utilizing sweatshop labour.
(Sean Brady/ The Omega)