CSU investigating student party
CHARLES Sturt University (CSU) is investigating a post-exam party where students dressed as Nazi guards, Jewish concentration camp prisoners and Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members.
CHARLES Sturt University (CSU) is investigating a post-exam party where students dressed as Nazi guards, Jewish concentration camp prisoners and Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members.
As reported by Fairfax Media last Friday, students attending the “politically incorrect” billed event the previous evening were told to “grab a kit that would legally get you in sh*t and hook right in”.
Photos uploaded to social media site Instagram were accompanied by equally offensive captions.
A disappointed CSU vice-chancellor Andrew Vann told Fairfax last Friday the students’ behaviour did not match the university’s values and that CSU would be taking “the strongest possible action”.
“One of our values is inclusiveness. That kind of racist imagery absolutely works against inclusiveness,” he said.
CSU confirmed to The AJN on Tuesday that an investigation was underway.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Anton Block was blunt in his condemnation. “That a group of young Australians, intelligent enough to get into university, could find this sort of idiocy funny is a sad commentary on the decline in social, intellectual and ethical standards in our society,” he said.
“The development of ever more rapid and efficient means of communication has been accompanied by an ever more inexorable downward spiral of society to the bottom of humanity. Shallowness and even bigotry are increasingly the order of the day.
“The shame falls not only on these students, but on the family, friends, institutions and society that have spawned them.”
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Vic Alhadeff said he was appalled.
“It begs the question of how aware they are of what these symbols mean and of the horrendous violence and race hatred that the Nazis and the KKK perpetrated, not to mention undermining the enormity of the Holocaust,” he said.
Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich said, “This shameful act is in no way defensible, and will rightly shock the conscience of every Australian who will understand that these foolish students crossed every line of decency.
“The systematic extermination of millions of people, and the pure hatred of a violent anti-Semitic movement that is the KKK should not form the basis for any party costume,” he added.
“Such patently vulgar and shocking behaviour not only mocked the suffering of the victims of racism and genocide, but trivialised the human horrors perpetrated by the Nazis. Clearly, this abhorrent and ill-judged incident demonstrates the need for Holocaust and anti-racism education in Australia.”
GARETH NARUNSKY
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